Keenan Gap Selling - Make It Happen Mondays

Good afternoon everybody. This is John Barrows with Make It Happen Monday. Hopefully you all had a fantastic weekend. I did. My Bruins are still hanging in there so I got a chance. Right. That's right. That's right. Boston kids. Go B.

So there's so many different reasons I'm excited for this for this podcast specifically. My my boy Keenan. So not only background synergies, all that stuff, but he's also a Boston kid through and through. Even though he's living out in Colorado and living that dream, he's a Boston kid and through.

So, Keenan, you want to introduce everybody everybody to yourself and give a little background where you're coming from these days? Oh god, I suck at the background and who I am. But yeah, living in Colorado, chief antagonist of of a sales guy, a sales consulting firm, author of this dope book, Gap Selling. Yes. Full-on Boston boy. Lived there till I was 21. Went through all the pain of Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Boon. I What is it with the names? The Bs, right? Who Buckner uh in and uh shoot I just said I'm sorry Bucky Bucky Bucky. Yeah, Bucky Dent. I mean it was Yeah, but yes, spent my Saturday or whatever it was or yesterday watching the Bruins. Sweet that almost give it away. Love my Pats. Don't be a hater. Just embrace it. Yeah, I'm ready, baby.

But you know what I keep telling and I digress a little bit here, but I keep telling everybody like the Bruins are the highest seed in the playoffs right now, right? So, they have a clear path. The seats have a real outside chance, but there is an outside chance. Yes. Yes. [laughter] We have a championship in every Right. Yes. YES. WE'LL HAVE THE CHAMPIONSHIP SLAM. I tell I told everybody Boston fans are going to be insufferable if that happens. It's like just don't even talk to us because we're gonna be so obnoxious. It's not even gonna matter. [laughter]

So, anyways, but let's take some of that energy and let's dive into some sales now, man. Because I you and I share a very similar approach. I mean, you said your chief antagonist, right? I think a lot of um what's out there right now needs to be challenged, right? Not incl not just like the whole sales tactics and techniques and everything else that people have been spewing, but also the customer, right? Like calling [ __ ] on the customer a lot of times. And and and I want to get into gap selling because this is one of my favorite new books. It's it's the one I tell everybody to go get if they're going to for like try to get some new intel on what's going on out there because look, Challenger Sale was that was kind of the book of the month. like I don't know whatever three, four, five years ago. Uh they came out with Challenger Customer which I thought was actually a pretty good read. It was actually even better than Challenger Sale in my opinion. Um but there's really been a no pun intended here gap in in what I find a lot which is the biggest challenge that a lot of people have is creating urgency and getting people to move and and beating up on no decision right because that's our number one competitor competitor everybody's number one competitor.

So talk to me a little bit about first of all what was the impetus for gap selling? Like why did you all of a sudden decide to write this book? Oh boy. Um what were you seeing?

If I want to be honest and selfish about it, it was look I needed a way to scale the business. And people have been asking me for years, are you gonna write a book? You know, you are you do you do sales training? Because look, a sales guy has been around since 2011, right? So we're almost 10 years old. But it was all consulting. And you know, consulting only gets so far. I mean, it's me. I go out monthly, whatever, blah blah blah, and it wasn't scalable. And like, you got to write, you got to come up with training. Well, I was not going to create a training that was like everybody else's. Just wasn't going to do it. And I certainly wasn't going to go um, you know, go to some of these older sales training companies that let you branch. That was not going to happen, right? I might as well go back and work for somebody else. So, I just I just I just paid attention to what I was doing. I paid attention to what my customers doing. A lot of it came out of the consulting. I paid attention to where I was consulting them on, how we were doing it, how we were structuring it. And then I sat down one day and just took a whole look at everything I had put together AND I SAID, "OH, THERE IT IS." LIKE I HAD TO STEP BACK. You know what I'm saying? And and I let people in on a little secret. Many of the major elements came from when I was sitting at a client and someone asked a question and I was like, "All right, look, let me explain it this way." And I would give an anecdote and I'd put it on the board AND I'D SIT BACK. OH, [screaming] THAT THAT AND I WOULD TAKE A PICTURE AND I'D TAKE IT HOME AND I'D PUT IT IN THE DRAWER, RIGHT? BECAUSE I I COULDN'T COME UP WITH IT ON my own, per se. I couldn't I COULDN'T CHALLENGE MYSELF, IF YOU WILL, RIGHT, to come up with it. I knew it was there, but I couldn't get it out. But every time that happened, then eventually I went back and looked at eight years of blogging, all of those pictures I took, all of the conversations I had, and I was like, "Ah, there it is. It's the gap. I must and I kept finding myself talking more and more about the gap." And so then that's where I just I wrote the book. And then I realized people needed it. That was the non-selfish impetus. It was desperately needed. I watched salesperson after salesperson after salesperson lose deals because THEY WERE CAUSING THE VERY PROBLEMS, JOHN, THAT YOU TALKED ABOUT, LOSING ON PRICE, LOSING TO NO DECISION, not being ABLE TO OVERCOME LACK OF FEATURE OBJECTIONS. ALL OF THOSE PROBLEMS WERE CAUSED BY THEIR SHITTY SELLING ON THE FRONT END. YEAH.

That discovery, right? that discovery and and that that I mean most of the sales lives and dies right with that discovery. So talk to us about what is the gap like what's what define the gap for us.

So the gap is basically the space between the current state and the future state. Right? So the what I think is more important people to understand is that when I realized how traditional training was going and I know you're a trainer so I you know I love you so don't shred it man. Shre it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Is traditional selling is either very tactical or they get to some good stuff but they don't it doesn't align with how people buy. And so I started thinking about okay how do people buy? And then it hit me. People buy when they have to make a decision. Well, what are they making a decision on? They're making a decision to change. That is at the core of every single sale. I'm making a decision to change. Well, if I'm making a decision to change, HOW DO PEOPLE PROCESS CHANGE? Whether it's you, you and I were talking about this idea of of your trip coming up to Africa. We were talking about my trip to Galapagos. You talk about, you know, I need to buy a piece of gum. I need NEW PENS. NO MATTER WHAT IT IS, we go through either a conscious or subconscious decision process that starts with where am I right now. Like that's that's what we do. IT'S IT'S UNCOMFORTABLE. I DON'T LIKE IT. IT DOESN'T FEEL GOOD. I CAN'T get where I want. I'm not seeing the results. LIKE WE START WITH THIS INVENTORY of where we are right now. And then what we do is WE KIND OF PUT OUR HEAD UP JUST A LITTLE BIT. WE LOOK INTO the horizon and we're like, "Oh, that could be a little BETTER IF I COULD JUST IF MAYBE." AND WE START envisioning or looking out into the future. And so the minute WE DO THAT, WE'RE basically establishing where we are today and comparing it to where we could be tomorrow. And the space in between THE TWO IS THE GAP. SO THAT'S THE WAY WE DECIDE THINGS. WHY THE [ __ ] ARE WE NOT SELLING exactly that way? Okay, I like it.

So, so let's talk about I've recognized that current state, right, uh is not acceptable. So I need to make a switch. Uh but then there's the people that don't recognize it, right? So the inbound leads versus the outbound leads effectively, right? The inbound leads, and I think that's one where, you know, 53% of the buying process is already done, whatever. Um corporate executive board, however you want to take that stat, I get it. Uh let's talk a little bit about the outbound stuff. Is how can gap selling be applied to getting me to realize somebody who doesn't necessarily know I have a problem, knows that everything's not great, and knows that things could be better with whatever my scenario is. How are you how are you articulating that message to somebody who hasn't identified that gap yet? Or are you?

Brilliant. Brilliant. And and the first thing I would say to you is and I say to sales people all the time and it's amazing. It's the hardest thing to get sales people to do is change their mindset. Y I don't I do not subscribe to messages for sales people. I subscribe to questioning. So, your ability to build a a a powerful set of what I call credibility questions that allow you to engage someone who picks up the phone and to determine if they have a problem and get them to talk about that problem. And you know what's funny? You know who does a really good job of this from a marketing perspective? Then you've heard me talk about this is the um the infomercial world. Yeah. Yeah. YEAH. RIGHT. THAT'S ALL OUTBOUND, RIGHT? And what they do is they they did a lot of research and they came back AND SAID, "OUR LITTLE PRODUCT, our our Tupperware THAT STACKS INTO THE SIZE OF A DIME, BUT CAN hold 2,000 things." [laughter] Right. RIGHT. PEOPLE, THE PROBLEMS PEOPLE HAVE ARE these it the [ __ ] burns in the microwave when you cook the spaghetti. Right. You know what I'm talking about, right? [laughter] AND IT STAYS IN, RIGHT? YEAH. LOOK, YOU KNOW, RIGHT? OR THEY OPEN UP THAT THAT that Tupperware or that container drawer and it just spills out all over you and you can't find anything or you can't they know the three or four problems and what do they do? You're sitting home watching CS [ __ ] eye and you're paying no mind not thinking about your Tuppware and it comes on and it punches you in the face with a black and white screen, sour music and a woman opening a cabinet AND FALLING ON HER HEAD. YEAH. YEP. AND YOU'RE LIKE, "HEY, I HATE THAT." YEP. They got you. or they take it and they show you your your t with the burn spaghetti on the side and you and YOU HATE YOU HATE THAT. Y now they made you realize yes that is a problem and you're paying attention. Same thing with sales people.

See I love that because what I I don't know if you've been paying attention to the gong blog but the gong blog is throwing out some data that I can't ignore, right? And one of the things they talk about is how using stories and that stuff obviously duh but the problem is is that too many people and this relates to gap too many people focus on the outcome. Too many people focus on the pretty picture about where things like how it could be before they get the person to relate to the scenario. Right. So you hit it with the with the infomercials like I have to feel that first. I have to be like that's me. And I did a I did a podcast that's actually coming out today with Chris Voss the guy who never split the difference. Yep. Um, this [ __ ] is fire, man. And one of the things, a little nuance that he gets people to talk about when he goes through negotiations is you want to get the person to say that's right, not you're right. Yeah. So, for instance, right, because if you say you're right, that's that's a defense mechanism. That's me telling you what you want to hear to be like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, Kenan, you know what? You're right. You're right. You know, I I'm stupid. I should I should invest in sales training." That's actually a bad sign when somebody says you're right. But when somebody's like knocking and you know when you articulate the scenario to me put it back at me and I'm like yeah you know what man that's right that's where you got them right. So you get that through questions and we do the same thing. We do persona driven questions like based on that persona as nuanced as you can get with that question to make sure that you like because that's how you show credibility, right? And I think you talk about this a lot when you you give like an example of your snowboarding, right? Like if you ask somebody like walk me through that quick scenario like that shows your credibility with snowboarding again.

Yeah, it was skiing and and and if I asked the average person who skis every weekend or goes on three or four ski trips and they can ski down a black, if I ask them if they need ski lessons, like I don't need ski lessons. I'm a great skier. I can ski blacks. I can ski. And then I know they're full of [ __ ] because all I have to do is say, "Let me ask you a question." The minute you get off piece, now off piece mean it's not groomed. It's usually steeper. It's the the terrain and conditions are super variable. It could have mogul. It could be hardcrossed, etc. Do you find yourself slipping into the back seat? Right? Or in the mogul, I I say the same thing. When you're in the mogul and you find that you're going down, do you find that you get in the back seat and you are unable to keep the skis on the snow? And by doing so, YOU FIND YOURSELF GOING FASTER AND FASTER DOWN THE HILL TILL YOU GET OUT OF CONTROL. NOW, BY ASKING THOSE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, THIS PERSON'S NOW ISN'T THINKING, am I a good skier? Do I have a skiing a problem skiing? I've got them zeroed in on something that I know 95% of most skiers STRUGGLE WITH, INCLUDING MYSELF. AND I'M A LEVEL TWO CERTIFIED SKI INSTRUCTOR. SO, IT'S NOT DOES IT HAPPEN, IT'S HOW OFTEN AND TO WHAT EXTENT. And the minute I get them talking about that, I know I'm winning. Yeah.

And I think and and that's beautiful because I think there's there's the I think the the inexperienced sales rep or actually a lot of sales reps look at it and say, "Well, let me let me articulate my my expertise by telling you how much I know about this industry and how much I know about my product and that type of stuff." Ultimately, no, that ain't going to get you [ __ ] right? Because me telling you how smart I am, you're automatically have a defense mechanism where you ain't listening. But if you can get people I always say this right now I do not believe it is our job in sales anymore to teach people about features functions and speeds and features. It is just not Google took that away from us. It is our job to get people to think. Yes. If I can get you to think like where because like the way I put it is look if you are comfortable with where you are today I don't care what your job is. I don't care what your role is. I don't care what your industry is. If you are uncomfortable with that I'm sorry if you are comfortable with that I'm worried for you because there's be an app that comes out tomorrow. There's going to be a shift in an industry that you're not going to be able to predict. And if you're not ready for it, you're going to be screwed. So my job is to ask you that question that gets you to pause for a second and say, "Shit, that's a good question." And not to say just to to plate you, right? Or to but it's to legitimately say, "That's a good question." And then have me pause for 30 seconds to try to figure out my answer to it. Right. My favorite answer to one of my questions is that's good question. Like I know I'm winning. Yeah.

Well, there's there's a nuance to that one too for everybody listening. Right. There's there's the that's a good question and then an immediate answer to it which actually isn't that great, right? Because I' I've used there's a little bit of a defense mechanism in there for me to make people feel good, right? So as a trainer, right? Stand up and somebody asks a question, you go on make people ste feel stupid. So you're like, "Oh, that's a good question." You know, but then I know the answer and I roll with it. Whereas that's a good question. Let me think about that for a minute. You know what I mean? Like that's what I want. Y So I love that on the prospecting side. Now let's talk about qualification. Okay. And I want you to compare this to what and look, let's call it what it is. Like, you know, the the the franchise model, right? The Sandler model. There's a lot about Sandler that's good, right? They talk about there's some [ __ ] stuff, too. But, um, they talk about their pain funnel, right? And and really getting to that quantifiable pain, right? And that's ultimately through reverse questioning and those type of things. And that's good, but I've always kind of been a little bit like roll my eyes at [ __ ] So, for instance, if you're like, you know what, John? Uh what's your main problem? Well, my main problem is uh you know I missed our quota last quarted our quota last quarter. Okay. Well, what does that mean for the business if you don't hit your quarter target? Well, you know, if we don't hit our quarter target, and this is assuming that this person is wide open and giving you this information. Yeah. Yeah. Almost never, right? But yeah. Uh you know what? If we don't hit our quarter target, we're going to be in trouble. That means I won't be able to hire the amount of reps that I need. And we're probably we're going for our series B round funding right now. If we don't hit that, I'm going to be okay. Well, what does that mean for you personally? Well, if I don't hit the you know that then I'm getting fired and then you have it like to Sandler's whole thing, right? It's like by the time you get to that now I got what I can sell you against because that's your pain. That's your third level pain. Okay.

Talk to me about the difference and and your philosophy on getting quantifiable metrics during that qualification phase that you can because I love what you say and Morgan and I are doing this all day long which is I'm confused but how do you get to the real [ __ ] that people like ROI calculators [ __ ] off, right? I don't believe any ROI calculator that's ever been put in front of me. So, how do you get the numbers that are real that that you can legit say, "Hold still, I'm confused."

Yeah, All right. So, here here's the deal. First off, what was interesting and you helped me because people ask me how do I compare Sandler all the time gaps the same as Sandler? No, it is not. And here's the first one. The the idea of going for the pain is a problem. And I'm going to use this word, stay with me, is is a problem because pain is a symptom of a problem. You cannot have pain unless you have a problem. So I don't even tell people to shoot for the pain that you're missing the mark. You just you're shooting for the the yellow or the green outer circle, not the red inner circle. So you're missing it. Okay. Um the red inner circle is the problem itself that your product or service solves. So in your scenario, you said, you know, tell me Mr. or Mrs. customer, what's your problem? FIRST, IF YOU EVER ASKED THAT to me, I'm telling you, [ __ ] OFF. REALLY? YOU GOT ME ON THE PHONE TO ASK ME TO BASICALLY DO YOUR JOB FOR YOU? NO. SO, I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU my problem is, right? But in your scenario, the problem was I can't make my quota. Okay, that's great. But you still haven't and if you followed your whole chain and people go back and listen TO THIS, YOU STILL DIDN'T TELL ME REALLY WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS THAT I CAN SOLVE. BECAUSE WHY YOU'RE NOT MAKING QUOTE, IT COULD BE sales training. It could be um it could be lack of uh um recruiting and not poor sales people. It could be A POOR SALES STRUCTURE. IT COULD BE A BAD PRODUCT. IT COULD BE A WHOLE BUNCH OF REASONS. AND I MAY BE A recruiter and can only recruit for you. So I can't address those. So why would I EVEN GO IN UP HERE? IT MAKES NO SENSE. So what I tell people first and foremost is you got to know exactly what problems you solve from your product or service, the impact of those problems, and the root causes. So then you go in and like we just did with the skiing. I DON'T SAY, "WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM WITH SKIING?" I COME IN at hey do you find in off piece steep things you DO THIS BECAUSE THEN I'LL FIX THAT RIGHT AND THEN I CAN go then I can do what you said there so let's just say we do that let's say we use the the same one with um sales um what sales problem we that training solves um okay do you find that your sales your average sales cycle is taking longer than it should you lose deals because OF PEOPLE GOING DARK and never getting back with you and because your sales team gets destroyed on price if they do come back. Okay.

So, so hold still those. So, pause. I love that you're okay with close-ended questions in this scenario, right? Absolutely. That's what I thought. Okay. So, so because because because and this is where I think people get it get it lost and and the challenge I think a lot of people have is that they don't want to miss they don't want to be so specific that they miss out on an opportunity to sell them the suite because like for instance I love the approach of hey people come to us for three reasons one two or three which one are you right and by the way if you're not one of those three things cool it's been good talking to you but we're probably not going to get along right so let's talk about it like so let's let's put it in context in the sense that a lot of people have a lot of different components of their solution that can add value to various stages of whatever that problem is. Right? For instance, like I I'll use for again like we got prospecting, meeting execution, negotiation, objection, hand closing, right? So I got five things. I also got an online portal that plugs in that you can do for on boarding, whatever. So those are the five things. But if I go in straight up and I get a VP of sales on the phone, I say, "Hey, do you have a problem uh balancing quality and quantity prospecting and ensuring that your reps aren't pressing play on something like a sales loft or a cadence and not actually putting any thought into it? Do you have that problem?" Now, what if they're what if they're just a straightup inbound sales organization and the guy's like, "No, as a matter of fact, like we don't do any of our own prospecting. It all comes inbound to us. If I just put myself in a pigeon hole because I got negotiations, I got this other [ __ ] that I can sell them. So, how do you position that question to get somebody to to not pigeon hole yourself into this one small area and open up the conversation to other other things?

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Great, great question. So, I think the first thing is you got to you got to know who you're calling and know what problem you're leading with. So, when you just said they're only inbound, my assumption is you probably would have know you would have known that, but if you didn't, that's okay. And you should have and your a salesperson should have enough uh industry and problem knowledge understanding that they or wisdom that they can pivot right there. So if he says no, we're all inbound, then you should know what problems inbound people have, right? So he let's let's OKAY, INBOUND PEOPLE HAVE THAT YOU THAT you solve that you should be able to pivot TO A NEW QUESTION. SO, let's just say we do use a skiing one because I don't know why it's easier, right? And someone say, "No, actually, actually, I don't have that problem, which I know is not true because I'm like even the best in the world have it. It's just it's not that frequent. It's not that impeding." But so, let's say they have it, but not enough to this negative impact. Say, "I really don't." And then he says, "Or they might say, "No, I DON'T BECAUSE I SPEND MOST OF my time in the terrain park." OKAY. OKAY. AH, [screaming] OKAY. WELL, THAT'S LIKE TO ME THAT'S A WIN. LIKE, HEY, I know. Yes, I KNOW MORE ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS NOW. OH, YOU'RE ALL THE INBOUND. SO, OH, YOU'RE IN THE TERRAIN PARK. REALLY? TELL ME about that. Now, again, you have to know your [ __ ] Are you rails? Do you do boxes? Do you do jumps? Do you I mean, tell me a little more about where you are and how you're doing it. Are you on THE MEDIUM TO SMALL JUMPS? You in the large jumps? And by the way, just so you know, a small jump is maybe a four or five foot what's called landing. Medium can be anywhere between, I don't know, 10, 15 or 20. Uh, a large can be any about 25 to 60. And an extra large could be 80 to 100 feet of flat before you get to the to the to the down. So, and you don't ever want to land on the flat. No, I've seen it. [laughter] SO, JUST BY ASKING THOSE QUESTIONS, I start to know where they are. And so, let's just say here's I'm on the medium and I'm saying, really, how come you haven't started to do the large yet? Right now, I know what I'm looking for now. I KNOW THAT HE IS PROBABLY HASN'T NAILED his air awareness well enough that as he stays in the air too long, he starts TO GET OFF ACCESS OR CAN'T HOLD IT and Right. So, I can I can address that. So, you struggle with air awareness when you're in the air longer than two seconds. Dude, exactly. I got him like I KNOW WHERE TO GO. SO, it's like So, in this scenario of, hey, we're all inbound. I could be like, oh, cool. So, are you round robin or are you uh do you assign uh inside reps to the field reps when those inbound leads come in? Right. Right. There pivot. Right. Yes. Or what I might say in this case, I might make it more business oriented because it's inbound. Do you feel that your sales reps are trying to rush the sale because they just assume the person needs it and misses vital information that could have closed the deal because they just assume that everybody wants to buy from them? Gotcha.

So, so go let's go back to that close-ended question. Why are you okay? because most sales trainers are are are always coach on. In the discovery phase, make sure you ask open-ended questions. And you're you're saying, "No, close-ended questions are legit and if used appropriately." How do you use closed-ended questions? And what's your what's your followup to a yes no answer?

So, I use closed-ended questions because I want to validate and I want I don't want wishy-washy. Does this problem exist? Yes or no? If it exists, I'm going this way. If it's no, I'm going this way. IF YOU SAY, "WELL, IT KIND OF DOES." SOMETIMES AND WE WORK THIS. WELL, NOW I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. I I I I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO YET BECAUSE do is it a problem or is it not? YOU KIND OF SUGGEST EITHER WAY. SO, NO. NO. When I want a customer to tell me exactly what's going on and I want to validate something, damn straight I watch I ask. But you said something important there, which is if it if they say yes, then you go this way. If you go no, then you go this way. So, the idea there is almost like if you were to think of tactically what to do, you figure out who your persona is that you're going after, right? VPC of sales SAS industry. What are their challenges? What are their priorities? I want to talk about that for a second, too. But then come up with your go-to kind of uh got like not gotcha questions, but the get you to think questions, right? And they could be close-ended, but if they're close-ended, you have to have an answer or a follow-up question. Yes. Whether it's yes or no, right? So, it's like I tell people all the time, feel free to ask a close-ended question. Just be prepared that if I say no, that you have an immediate rebuttal to say, "Okay, cool. Well, then and then ask me a little bit more maybe of an open-ended question again. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Rarely do I have rare I shouldn't say this, but rarely do I ever ask two closedended questions in a row. I mean, closed-ended questions are directional in my They're validating or they're directional. Got it.

Let's talk about pain and pleasure because I know you're you're the gap to you is about the pain. All right. Now, this is where you and I differ a little bit, but I'm start I I see the data and I see the statistics, right? I I think it's like and and I got this through Chris Voss, too. Like people are three or four times more likely to avoid pain than than achieve pleasure. Okay. Yep. So, but this was my question and I actually didn't really get a great response from Chris on this one. So, I'm hoping for one from you. Does that matter as it relates to the power line? And let me explain. Right. So, my experience is people below the power line are typically focused on today or yesterday, which is usually pain. They're feeling pain right now. But when I talk to an executive, if I talk about like kind of the pain about today and what's happening today, they see they get disinterested pretty quick. But if I start talking about where I can take them about what their vision is for the next 12 to 24 months of their business and what your goal is to spend some like for me, like to spend time with my daughter and get off of an airplane, like you get me talking about that [ __ ] man, and I am I'll light up like a Christmas tree if you want. I will tell you everything you need to know to sell me. You talk about today what's I usually delegate that down to somebody else who's dealing with that [ __ ] So what is your like is it is it a blanket you you just go for the problem or do you do you kind of segment out and and sprinkle a little bit of vision on top of like do you start with the vision and then back it up or do you start with the pain and paint the vision.

So I always start with not the pain the problem. I always start with the problem and but if you look if you look at gap selling what is gap selling? What what are the two elements of gap? Well the street but what are the two elements of gap selling? Current and desire current state desired state. Close future state. Future state. Okay. Might not know it yet. Yeah. Yep. Current state is what? Uh problem. I guess the paint. Well, yes. Okay. Sorry, this we're gonna confuse people, but in your scenario, in the psychological scenario, it's the pain. Yeah. The pain lives in the current state, right? The future state is where the pleasure lives. Yep. So, really what I do is I don't go in, and you said it yourself again, and I do this to sales people, and I try to be as respectful with people I love, LIKE YOURSELF. I DON'T TALK TO PEOPLE, and I BEG PEOPLE IN GAB, DON'T TALK TO PEOPLE. GET THEM TALKING THEMSELVES. So what I whether it's A WHETHER IT'S ABOVE THE POWER LINE OR BELOW THE power line, if I can get them talking about the problem [clears throat] and I can get them to give me their current state in whatever particular order, but the physical and literal, the problem, the impact, the root cause, THEN I CAN START moving them into a conversation. Well, if we did this and we did that and we did this and WE DID THAT, THIS COULD BE THE OUTCOME. THEN THEY GET EXCITED. BUT BY DOING THAT IN THAT order and getting them talking, NOT ME TELLING, I DON'T TELL UNTIL THAT WHOLE PROCESS IS DONE. UNTIL I FIND THE GAP, I don't tell a thing. I ask and get them talking. And if we get that whole thing done correctly, the level of credibility you have that you can actually solve their problem, then you talk about the future.

All right, so here's the So check this out. Let's back that up. Let's let's push on that with some data. Uh, Bong says, "But the average uh the average sales rep through a qualification call asks 11 to 14 questions, right?" Above average, above average, it last 11 to 14 questions. Below ask more or less, whatever. Except for when it comes to executives. Yep. So now when you when you got an executive on a phone, you got four questions that you can ask them before the conversion ratios drop to the floor. And I can tell I I know that, right? You know that as well. Like you and I are both pretty impatient people. We're pretty educated with when we want to buy something, we've done our homework. It's rare that you and I are just going to pop on a call and be like, "Yo, what's up?" Right. So, we've kind of we know and we get impatient. So, after like three or four questions, it's like, "All right, when am I going to get mine?" Yeah. So, to your point of doing it, right, which I agree with, like if in a in a perfect world, we get that scenario when I get you, I ask you those right questions, you start flowing, you start talking, and all of a sudden, I can understand that and then paint you that picture. But say you got that executive that gives you two, three, four questions before they're like, "All right, Kenan, tell me how the [ __ ] you g like what so what what the hell is a sales guy all about? like what can you what can you bring to the table for me and I've answered like what first of all do you have like three or four like [ __ ] you questions that that can give you that answer or do you push back and say look I still don't have enough intel to be able to tell you how I can help. Yep.

That's what I do. I push back. Okay. And I've lost one or two deals by pushing back but I was perfectly okay with it because I didn't know how I could help. Right. So what I really try to do is is my big go-to question is tell me a little bit about that's my big go-to question. Tell me a little bit about what anything. Tell me a little Tell me a little bit about your process. Tell me a little bit about how your sales team delivers. Tell me a little bit how you compete. Like I don't know whatever was on the table at the time, right? And yeah. And I listen intently. Like that's the one thing I don't know how to teach people. Like I pick up on [ __ ] THAT PEOPLE JUST WHOA. AND I'M LIKE IT'S RIGHT THERE. HOW'D YOU MISS IT? I DON'T KNOW IT. So I don't know how to teach that. But I listen and I listen for the connections like the mortar. No. I don't want to hear the brick. Brick's easy for me. It's the mortar, right? And I pay very close attention. And then that's why with executives above the line, that's where I'll push some of the provoking questions because executives have this attitude that they know everything and you're wasting their time. So rather than asking is too many probing questions. If I can get them just talking a little bit about what they do and then I can provoke them rather than probe deeper. So he's like, "Oh, you know, our sales team is great. Um, you know, they do this, this, and this and they're fantastic." And they might have said in their answer, "All I need is this much." I'm like, "Wait, you did say that when that happens, do you find this?" Right? I'm sort of provoking them, right? To get them to think about that. And if I get them thinking, that's the thing people need to understand with executives. If you can get them thinking, you got them LIKE THEY'RE THEY'RE JUST TOO BUSY. AND THEY'RE AND LOOK, I LOVE GONG'S RESEARCH. I love it. But here's the only and it's not a knock. It's just they can't do it. is it's it's one level too high. In other words, in most cases, BECAUSE I AGREE WITH THE GENERAL PREMISE, MORE QUESTIONS, better discovery. But what we're not seeing is what questions are being asked. Absolutely. Right. And and that is the gold right there. And I watch the questions sales people ask. And I watch questions some super impressive sales thought leaders ask, AND I'M LIKE, "WOW, YOU GET PAID TO TEACH THAT SHIT." So [laughter] I just I I I just am like, "Yes, gong." I love gong. I agree with 90% of what they come out with. I just wish we could get one layer deeper because I think that's where the gold is. Yeah.

No, I I think the um the idea of I I think I I say to people all the time outside of prospecting because a big funnel fills every, you know, fixes all problems. I think the number one skill that every rep can get better at, I don't care how good you are, I don't care how experienced you are, is asking better questions. Yes. Is being able to layer on those questions in a sequence. Because to your point, if I can get you to pause for a second there and say, "Fuck, you know what? Like I don't that now all of a sudden we're having, you know, one of the things that Jeff Hoffman, my you know, my mentor, one of my mentors does, like I love the way he does this is is after he listens to whatever you say, you know, your you know, describe to me your process or whatever it is, he'll go he'll actually go, you know what, I I really liked what you said there about the lead flow, about how it comes in and what your follow-up process is. you know, I I don't necessarily agree with how you're handling X, but you know, and he and he almost like throws it out there like it's no big deal, but he's like, "No, I really like what you said here, but I you know, I I I kind of differ in my opinion about that." And the whole idea there is to get that person to go because as soon as you do that, the executive is going to go, "Excuse me." Like, why don't you agree with that? And then that's the now you got them, right? because now now we're talking about something they they are definitely interested as far as your opinion on that scenario. I like that approach because it's similar scenario here. So you asked you and I don't think I answered the question well so you brought it back and I want to answer for you. You asked how do you get the specifics? That's was the original question. I don't know how I got over in left field like how do you get the measurable Yeah. Yeah. Like I mean I was going to get back to that but yeah like how do you like and and Yeah. So like the the stuff that matters, you know, like so you when you just use that example with Hoffman, right? I would have done it slightly differently. Okay. I heard everything they said and I saw an area where he said, "I'm not I don't agree with this." Yep. And I I bet Hoffman knows. He just has a different style. I I'm I'm paraphrasing it, so he probably does it a lot better than that. But that's the I thought it was good, though. I thought it WAS GOOD. WHAT I WOULD DO THERE IS I WOULD USE THAT TO get the information you're looking for. So, I would go to that situation and say, "Hey, Tom, you know, I liked what you said here. This stuff seems pretty solid, but when you sit over here, when you said your team does this, this, and this, what's been the outcome, RIGHT?" LIKE, I KNOW IT'S NOT A GOOD OUTCOME. I'M NOT GOING TO JUMP IN AND TELL THEM I DISAGREE, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. LIKE, THIS IS WHAT I KEEP TRYING TO PILE ON. EVEN WHEN I KNOW THE ANSWER, I don't tell them. I'm like a therapist. I'm not going to tell you the answer. I'm going to get you to tell. And he'll he might say, "Oh, you know, we we don't really get the closure rate we'd like." Really? What closure rate are you getting? Right. So then he tells, "Well, what would your closure rate like to be?" Y blah blah. OKAY. FUTURE STATE NUMBER ONE. THERE IT IS. RIGHT. AND I DIDN'T HAVE to tell him anything. THIS IS THE ART, JOHN. AND IT'S THE HARDEST THING FOR SALES PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY LOVE TELLING PEOPLE [ __ ] I don't tell people anything until I get the gap. And then what I tell them is the how. How we're going to fix it, right? That's when the product stuff comes in. But I don't tell them about THEIR PROBLEM. LIKE A DOCTOR, RIGHT? As doctors hate clients who come in and tell them what's wrong with them. Doctors, right? I'm a doctor. I'm going to get you to explain it. Right. I'm sorry. People hate when the doctor tells them what's wrong before they've had a chance to talk to. They hate it. Right. I'm the doctor. I'm going to get you to tell me everything that's going on. And then when I'm completely done and I've diagnosed your problem and the gap, right? Then I'll tell you what your options are to fix it. I like it.

All right, now, I'm going to end on this one because this is the big re this is the big question I got. And this is the one that Morgan and I are struggling with actually right now, right? Because he read your book. I read the majority of it. I love the whole concept. I WANT TO GO ON RECORD. WORLD'S GREATEST SALES TRAIN IS REESE GAP SELLING. I'M FEELING GOOD. First of all, that that ain't me. Like I I'm a sales guy that happens to be able to to articulate some value a little bit, right? But but that said, um with the So the concept here, and I love this, and I think that that and if you could explain this because this has really resonated with Morgan and I, which is you've got to get to the point where when they push back on you on price, when they push back on you on timeline, when they push back on you on all this [ __ ] or they ghost you or whatever it is, that you can legitimately say, "I'm confused." Like I'm legit confused because you said boom boom boom. So now like let me give you a scenario here. All right. Um we we ask the the qualifying questions, right? We asked we we give the kids some structure, but then they they get it and they ask those questions that gets under and I'll give some basics here. So in our world, right? Your average deal size is 50 G's. You miss your quota by 75% by 25% last uh thing. You know, the problem is is you're not attracting the right talent uh that that gets you to be able to sell at that level. You're not making any investments. Your sales cycle is 60 days. And so, and my training is going to cost you $15,000. Okay. So, now I have painted a [ __ ] holy [ __ ] picture here. ACV 50,000

60-day sales cycle link. Your problem is you're not attracting the right talent. You're not retaining the right talent to be able to do all that other stuff, right? And you've missed your quota. So now it's compounded on top of this quarter and now you're ghosting me.

So what I, what we do is we quantify a lot. That we use like a summary email. So you and I have that conversation to show active listening. We, "Hey Keenan, you know, could you do me a favor? Here's a brief, you know, outline of what we talked about today. Anything I'm missing here, right? Whatever. Could you please confirm?" Because that's the key here is that you send the summary email, but you get them to confirm. "Yes, John, that's accurate." So now I've got all that stuff, right? And they still don't. You're good at that. They still don't move. All right.

And what I had Morgan is my, my theory is this is that either, either you didn't articulate the value good enough or you're missing something. So, so what we're having Morgan do, and this is actually legitimately like for deals that are stuck in the pipeline that he has all that data that I look at. I listen to his gone calls. I'm like, "Man, you asked the right questions to the right person too, right? And and they're still not moving or they're still pushing off till next quarter." So, I told him to send this, and we're having some luck with this where we put in the subject line of of the email, "What am I missing?" Literally, that's the subject line. And and then it's like, "Hey, Keen, we've been working together for a while now. Could you confirm that below is still accurate this, this problem?" Blah blah blah blah blah. Because if it is, I'm having a hard time understanding why you're not jumping on this and doing it tomorrow because either I haven't articulated the value enough or I'm missing something. So, what is it? Right? We actually gotten a couple of people feedback. "Yes, you're missing something and this is what it was." Or, "You know what? Yeah, I just don't believe that that you can solve that problem for me." But, but what do you do when you, when you seemingly have done everything right and they're still, and you say, "I'm confused," and they're like, "Yeah, you're," and they actually even say, "Yeah, you know what, Keenan, you're right. All that stuff that you just said to me right there, that's 100% accurate. We still got to push this till Q3."

Okay, so there's, there's three answers. Make sure I get to. They all play together. The first answer is, um, and I say this all the time and you get this, is sales is like baseball. Okay? If you can bat 350, you're a Hall of Famer. Top first, first ballot, right? If you bat 295, you might, maybe depending how long you can bat it, you might be a Hall of Famer and you, but you'll get a good 10, you know, 10, 15 years, but you're, you're not a big name. Right? Right. Well, the difference between 295 and 300 is only like 35 hits in an entire season. I think it's pretty small. Maybe it's even less than that. Right? So, my point in that is even when you use the "I'm confused," you're not going to bat a thousand. It just, it, it's, I'm teaching you how to go from 290 to 350, right? So, keep that in mind. Number one.

Number two, I know it was an example, so I, I don't want to lean too much on it, but I can't help but I heard the example in your example. There was some good stuff, but there wasn't enough, right? There really wasn't a good solid understanding of the desired future state, right? Just, just not losing, getting to 100% of quota from 75 is not enough of a future state. We need to understand what the impact of not being at quota is. Okay. The, the impact is a huge piece people miss. Like, "Okay, great. You're at 75%." Tell me the impact of that on your organization. And so, "Oh, well, you know what? I'm not making my, my um, my commission," or, "You know, the management's getting pissed." Okay, great. But can you please tell me some more? Like, is that it? Right. And how much money is that? Right. So, is that, uh, half a million dollars? Is it a million dollars? Is it 50 million? 100 million? Right? Like, so, so it's sort of the open-ended answer piece. I like 25%, but what does that represent? So, I think in your example, there was a lot more future state impact information you could have gotten that could have taken you two or three layers down that you could have said, "Oh, you know what? Although this seems like a big deal, I, it's really just about missing quota. There's no Series B on the line. There's no jobs on the line. There's no competitive loss. I don't like, there's, it sucks." Yep. But there's really nothing there, right? And to know that upfront could answer some of those questions. And I think just the last piece then is, um, as you described it, is, um, um, okay, this, the situation. What was the other? Oh, [ __ ] It was one of the third piece and I, ah, it'll [screaming] come back to me. But yes, but those are the two main. Jumped up. You just, I guess the last one is in your discovery, you just got to get, you got to go further than you think you've gone. We, we think we get there. Gap selling demands so much more than people understand. And that's my biggest challenge is selling it. Oh, wait. Oh, we already do a discovery. No, you don't. Not a gap selling discovery. You don't, right? You, you. Oh, that's the third one. The third one. You can't start selling until you know the gap and you can quantify the gap. And it's more than just, as you said, the ROI calculator. Right? Right. It's more than, and I'll give you a really brief example, and I'm not going to use any names, but I talk about in the book. I won an account that turned out being a two-year account. So, it was worth well over six figures, right? Monthly retainer for two years. And the reason I won is all these other sales expert influencers got there before me actually, and they all did a discovery. But what I was able to do in my discovery is I was able to push the impact further. And as I dug into, well, why does it matter that you're not at quota? Why does it matter that you're, because they weren't growing, by the way, they were growing at 20% year-over-year. Why is, why are you not happy with the 20%? As I pushed and pushed and questioned and questioned, finally got to they had a behag of $48 million in three and a half or four years. And that they were, even though they were growing at 20%, they were $7 million behind. Mhm. And and I was like, "Well, how are you going to make? You got to make up the seven million and do that?" Yeah. And he hadn't have thought that. And none of the other experts got that level of information. So a discovery is not a word. It, it, it is an action. And you can't hit bunts at a discovery and say you've done a discovery. Your discovery has to be a home run every time.

So do you think one of the most important discovery questions is "Why?" "Why is that important?" "Why does that matter?" "Why is it valuable?" Yes. Yes. Yes. I, I, I hesitated only in that once you get it's a, I actually, I wish you would ask me this question two years ago because it would have made it to the book. I've never processed this before, but it's a great question. Um, the, the, once I understand your first layer of your problem, like, "I'm not getting," so first the what is, what's going on? "I'm not making quota. I'm not growing fast enough. We're not hitting our number," whatever the case may be, right? Okay. Well, then the next one for me is how. Well, tell me a bit of how you're doing it today. So, first, what, what the problem is. Secondly, how are you performing? Like, what are your execution strategies? Right? So, I want to understand what's going on. That gets me to the root cause. And then after the how. Then it becomes, "Okay, now is why does that matter?" Yeah. So, I, I want to go through it like that process. Some people might say, "Well, put why first." I'm like, "I can. But the problem with that is why is a natural conduit to the future state. And if I do that too early, it's hard to come back and have them explain the how. And the how is where I win my credibility. The how is where I really find the, I can use the the triggers to anchor my solution and fixing it, right? Because the how is, is the, the real problem that's happening. Like, it's, it's the cause. It's the root cause. And so if I, if I, if I don't get to the root cause, it's hard for me to do what you did. What you were talking about is explain why I can fix it. I can tell you why I can fix this because the problem is the root cause of your problem is that, and I can fix that this way." Does that make any sense? Absolutely. Absolutely.

So, it's, I like that framework, right? It's, it's what's the problem? How are you currently dealing with it now? And why is the problem an issue? And then I can tailor my conversation towards the components of my solution that fit, fit that fix, that problem. And then I can use the "I'm confused" because I got the, the why it's a problem. Yes. Right. So, okay. Yes. Why? Like, so using the one where I just gave you, you said, "Well, you're too expensive, Keen." I'm like, "Well, wait a minute. You told me that you're not going to hit your behag." Oh, I'm sorry. The other part of that behag story I didn't tell is they had an exit plan and they based on their research and some other things, they found that that number was the difference between a small exit and a massive exit. Like, I don't know, it's some magic number in their space, right? And so not only was it, did we get to that and make more money, our valuation goes from like 4x to 12x. Yeah. So that's where you, by me getting there had, which they didn't, but had they pushed back and said, "No, Keen, that's awfully expensive." I could say, "Wait, I'm confused. We're talking about a 12x valuation on $48 million a year. We're talking about the fact that you're seven million behind now. We're talking about, I'm confused. Why do you think I'm too expensive?" Right? I love it. I love it.

And is that, I mean, do you give the same advice on on, you know, products? Because I always hear this a lot from reps like, "Oh, we're, we're a like to have, not a must-have." So that's why it's hard to sell. Do you call [ __ ] on that one? 100%. That's product-centric selling. It look. Yeah. Okay. You ready? Ah, this is the best. Okay. Gum. [snorts] Oh, I wish I had a piece of gum. I could hold it up. Is gum a like to have, a a nice to have? Oh, thank you very much. Gum. Is that a Is that a need to have or a like to have? What would most salespeople tell you that is? What that is? That's a like to have all day long. It's not a need to have. I don't need that. Okay. If you're a product-centric selling salesperson, gum isn't a like to have. Yep. Until I, every person who comes up to me and says they want to buy gum, I'm like, "What? Tell me what's going on. Why do you want to buy the gum?" Right? And that person that comes to me and says, "I've got a date in 15 minutes with Molly Sims." That is no [ __ ] life to have, bro. That is a must-have. Right? So, I don't, again, people listen to me loud and clear. I don't care what I'm selling. I do not focus on what I'm selling. I have trained my mind, trained my mind to only focus on the scenarios where the problems are the biggest to the people I sell to. I'm selling gum. I'm talking about people going on dates. I'm talking about people, um, uh, getting involved in meetings. I'm talking about the embarrassment of bad breath. Like I'm talking about [ __ ] that they don't want to deal with. That is not a like to have. Having shitty breath at a business meeting or on a date is not a like to have.

I couldn't agree. And that's why, and we're going to come all the way back to the beginning of this. This is why I think companies need to do a much better job at profiling their ideal customer profile. Because if you just give a list to a kid of a thousand names that are demographically profiled from five to 500 or whatever it is in these industries, you ain't giving them the tools to be able to ask the questions to the right people. They're forced to be generic with their message. And with generic questions and generic messaging, you get generic answers and you get [ __ ] answers. Yes. So that's linked to that. Please do. So everything you said, y, and the problems that inflict them. Educate your young kids on the problems. And if your organization doesn't know, then good for you to admit it and go do your research. Get with your existing customers. Ask them what problems were they, were struggling with, why they bought, and how it's affected their organization. Make new reps sit with existing customers or your customer success team and hear about what problems they're trying to to eradicate and get them be experts in the problem so they can look like a partner that says, "Oh, wow. You get what I'm dealing with." Yep. Again, that's me. That's me, right? Not, not that's right. Not your right. That's right. That's what you got to get to those problems. Yes.

Love it, my friend. All right, man. Well, tell everybody how they can find out more about you, follow you, do whatever. Where you want people send people to get more information on a sales guy and gap selling and everything else. Yeah, you can go to, look, you go gapselling.com. You can go to asalesguy.com. I mean, if I really want to make it easy, just go Keenan or Jim Keenan and Google and I think I'm every page. Keenan's harder one to, harder one to win. There's a lot of big famous Keenan people there, but I'm still in the top three. I just don't own the whole page. Um, but Jim Keenan, the whole page. Like, just go there. You find me on LinkedIn under Keenan. Um, I'm easy to find if you want to find me.

Awesome, man. Definitely keep follow him on LinkedIn. He yells at you every day with something. Uh, it's all good [ __ ] It's just coming at you hard. So, you better. So, for my audience, my audience is pretty pretty, uh, attuned to me being like straight up in your face type of [ __ ] Uh, Keenan takes it up a notch. So, if you want to, if you want to get, you know, if you, if you're too sensitive, then back off either one of us. But if, if you really, if you want to get punched in the face a couple times because we all need to get punched in the face a couple times, follow Keenan because he knows his [ __ ] All right, everybody. Thanks, Kenan, man. I really appreciate you coming on board here. Thank you, my man. It was a great time. Absolutely. And we'll take, we'll, we'll do this again. We'll do this again because I'm looking forward to some more [ __ ] coming out from you. Uh, but for everybody out there, thanks for listening. If you do nothing else today, as usual, go make somebody smile. If you made somebody smile today, you know you had a good day. All right, have a great week, everybody. Let's make it happen. All right, cool. Thanks.