Transcription
It happens in negotiations more often than anything else. Whether your sellers are asking you for advice or whether your prospect is giving you an objection, you always need to first understand the question behind the question. That's how I can actually properly handle the objection versus handling the objection that often times has a bunch of baked-in assumptions behind it. The script they know is a sales purpose sort of arguing, you know, and they're they're they're trying to get rid of the salesperson, but you're interrupting their pattern, which causes them to let their guard down. So, this is this is critical, which is you need [Music] to
All right, Jeremy Miner, welcome to another episode of Closers Are Losers. Now, if you are a salesperson, which I'm assuming you are watching us or listening to us here, you're a salesperson, an entrepreneur, a business owner, a coach, a C-level executive, anybody in sales leadership management, and you want to learn more about cold calling, pattern interrupting, if you want to learn techniques for outbound leads, even inbound leads, even door-to-door with pattern reps, it doesn't matter. You want to listen to the guest I'm about to interview.
Now, this guest, he's a good dude. His name is Arman Fur Oak. He has a cool last name, Fur Oak. And he's the founder of, get this, the number one ranked podcast in sales, an international bestselling book as well: Cold Calling Sucks and That's Why It Works. So the founder of 30 Minutes to Presence Club. You want to turn in to his podcast. I was on there a couple months ago. It was an amazing experience. His background, he's a VP of sales. He grew revenue from zero to 13 million plus ARR in two years at a company called Pave. Okay. A 1.6 billion fintech unicorn backed by blue-chip investors including, why contributor, a bunch of names, Horids I don't even know at Index Venture. Some really cool people and companies.
Uh Arman, welcome to the show. How are you, big dog?
I am stoked to be here. I'm stoked to replace the seats where now I'm in the guest chair. And dude, you had one of the most tactical episodes we've ever had on cold calling tone and sales tone.
Yeah. I wanted to ask you how did how did that go? I know we did the podcast, what was it, maybe three months ago or something?
Oh, it was great. Audience and the reason for that is one of the things that I know we're going to talk about today is way too many sales leaders, sales trainers talk about why you should do something and what you should do, but not how to do it. They say you got to
Why do you think Why do you think that is? It's like just tell everybody why you think that
I think everybody needs to know because I always say, you know, be careful who you're getting trained from because how do you know the advice they're giving you is actually really good? Because because what I always did as a salesperson is I would look at the sales trainer and I wouldn't be say, "Oh my gosh, that sales trainer is making so much money." I was like, they own the business. I'm like, how good were they were they when they were a salesperson like I am? How much money were they making when they were a salesperson selling one to one or if in a B2B setting selling one to four or five? Like how good were they? Were they the number one person in their entire industry? Were they just kind of they were good, but like you got to be careful who you take advice from.
Hey guys, Jeremy Miner here. Look, a lot of you leave comments wanting me to help you somewhere. So, the easiest way to get a hold of me, the quickest way is to text me. So, text me right now. It's 48-637-2944. So 48-637-2944. Listen, I started this company to help you learn how to close more deals, but do it the right way. Text me right now. Let's get back to the training video.
If you go to a restaurant, what's the easiest compliment to give to a chef?
Your food's good. You did a good job.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And in sales, that sounds like you got to get to pain or you got to get to business impact or you got to sell value. You got to sell the value. Obvious, easy, most low-hanging fruit. And it's like, yeah, obviously you've got to sell value, but there are 17 ways you can ask the most cringy impact question in the world that makes your prospect puke on the table because you tried to uncover pain in a way that felt like a leading sales trap question. So, a lot of people know what they want to do, but actually accomplishing that through questions that sell in a way that doesn't feel like selling is the hard part.
Well, and I and I see this all the time because I'll get into an audience, right? I I'll be I'll do and I I go into the audience. I'm in the audience probably 60 70% of the time, 30% on stage, okay? Because you typically start to lose the audience more if you're up on stage because you're just going back and forth to get in a zone. So, I'm out in the audience keeping everybody on their toes because they don't know if I'm going to call on them next. And I'll role-play with them. I'll literally stop because I can see the facial expressions. I can see people zoning in, zone out, or whatever they're doing. I'll stop and and I'll ask them like a question like, "Hey, you know, I'm thinking about, you know, I was at a a financial advisory u uh company, great company, uh training their top 450 reps, keynote training a couple weeks ago in Texas and I just stopped. I'm like, you know what? I'm thinking about changing. I'm with a prize. Like, why should I go with you?" And I put the microphone right in their in their face like, "Oh, because, you know, but I'm keeping on their toes." And I would ask them like, "Hey, let's uh so let's go into gap building. Let's talk about how do you build the gap from where the prospect is to where they want to be? How do you help them uncover problems they didn't realize they had? How do you problem-find? So instead of just stopping there, I'm like, "What questions do you ask?" You know, and they start and they give the questions. And I I I'm never going to be somebody that's going to criticize because that doesn't help them because people shut down emotionally if they get criticized. But I'm like, you know, that was really good. The way you asked it here, that was good. This was good. This good. Now, can I offer you a few suggestions that might help you even more? Because what you did was good. What if we could take it three levels up? They're like, "Yeah, yeah, give me some advice." And because a lot of times the questions they'd be asking like, "Uh, Mr. Prospect, what are some challenges you're having?" And I'm like, "That's good conceptually. However, do do you feel like your prospect knows where that question is leading?" Because how many salespeople selling them anything, ask them something. What are some of your problems? What are some of your concerns with who you have now? What are some of your challenges? See how vague and generalized that is. Uh what have been your experience with with uh with with people like that? Yeah. How have you quantified the impact of that problem? It's like oh so surface-level question. What would you do if you had all that time back in your calendar? And it's like dude this is just brutal. And so I find that if you're evaluating a really good trainer or just trying to learn from someone really really really force them to give them a situation, right? So my prospect said this. What would you say in return? And you'll get answers.
Yeah. That's it. And and and and look for your sales trainer, whoever you're getting coached from, not just to answer it. Because if they just answered, that means that they're very transactional in their thought process. You need the sales trainer to ask you, okay, what's the context? Like when did they actually say that to you? And what do you feel is triggering them to actually say that? Like what do you think's going on in their mind? Because then that gets the other person to think like rather than giving them a band-aid, like what's triggering them to actually say that to you? Because it's not like they woke up that morning and they're like, "You know what? 15 seconds into that cold call, I think I'm going to say we already have somebody for that. Call me back next quarter." Is that a planned-out thing that they woke up that morning planned out? Or is that them reacting based off maybe something you're saying or how you're saying it that's causing that reaction? See, then you get the salesperson to think, "Oh, maybe it is what I'm doing, not the prospect." Because then, as you know, when you start training them like how to prevent that from happening is just on a whole different level.
Well, to that point, so a lot of times what will happen is you talk about this all the time. People focus too much on handling objections. So, for example, someone will come to the table be like, "Your product is too expensive," and mediocre used car salesman says, "Well, here are all the reasons that our value is worth that price," or whatever it is, they immediately start to return to pitch. Whether whether you're sellers are asking you for advice or whether your prospect is giving you an objection, you always need to first understand the question behind the question or the reason behind the objection. Yeah. And so if someone is objecting to price, often times what that means is they have something else in mind that they've used to peg you against. And so the first thing that you do when you get an objection to price is often times you need to first seek to understand. And this is what we're doing on cold calls is when someone is like, "Oh, you're way too expensive." I'll oftentimes be like, "Oh, totally understand. We're not always in the budget range for everyone else." Hey, just so no one else calls you again, could you give me a sense is did you just feel like there wasn't enough value in it for what we were bringing to the table or was it that you felt like our product was valuable enough but you literally just couldn't squeeze a dime out of your CFO? Which one was it for you? And so if I can start to look at the objection and understand why they brought that objection to the table instead of trying to handle it on face value, that's how I can actually properly handle the objection versus handling the objection that often times has a bunch of baked-in assumptions behind.
Yeah. Cuz now you know what the their objection actually means. Cuz when they say it's too expensive, it could mean it could mean like too expensive to the vendor they already have. It could mean they literally do not have the funding for it. It could mean, like you said, that they don't see the value. I mean, it could mean like 10 different things. And as you to to your credit here, and I'll show you a frame that we use because I really like that frame. That's actually genius. Um, to to to going back to that, most salespeople, they just start answering the objection. And it's like they've got a one in 10 chance of answering the real objection because they don't understand what it means. Because if somebody said, "Hey, it's too expensive." I might say, "Oh, well, how do you mean by it's too expensive?" Or, "Oh, in what way?" Simple clarifying question. You know, now that that doesn't mean they're going to open up if I'm, "Oh, how do you how do you mean by it's too expensive?" Well, it's just too expensive for what we have now. When you say what you have now, can can you be more specific? And like I said, I've got to go in a few minutes, you know, and you got to clarify. And then like, oh, well, you know, the vendor we already have, it's 7% less. So, now you know what the real objection is to your credit. And now you know how to address it the right way.
Yep. And it doesn't just happen on a cold call. It happens in discovery calls, introductory calls. It happens in negotiations more often than anything else where someone would be like, "You're too expensive." First thing I'm going to ask in return is like, "Oh, but I'll be honest, this doesn't happen to me all the time, so I I might have messed something up. I guess what did you have in mind?"
Yeah. And nine times out of 10, they'll be like, "Well, I I just thought it should be cheaper." I'll be like, "Oh, I guess so. Is other solutions out there or are you looking at Sales Goon or Commission Carl and they'll be like uh well yeah I'm looking at Sales Goon and now you can start to pull up the things that you said earlier in the sales call be like oh you know you were saying that it was really important for you to have someone who was not only going to train your team but do ongoing reinforcement sessions you know Sales Goon doesn't do that and that's part of the reason they're a lot cheaper I guess for you is does that mean that the ongoing reinforcement isn't as important as we originally discussed is is that it because maybe I misunderstood and now you can start to actually unpack. That's good. Is so do you not want the sales of because we can take that out too if you if you just want the cheapest price because is the cheapest price the most important thing to you or actually and then you repeat back the result. What would be a result like from the the SaaS that you sold? What would be the end result of why they buy? I mean I know it's different for every prospect but give me an example.
Yeah. So end result as in like a business impact kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah. So, for example, I used to sell compensation software. It would help companies plan compensation. And the thing that you would want to prevent is you'd want to prevent compensation mistakes because that would lead to employee retention. Oh, because it could lose employees to a competitor who offers them better plans. So, yeah. So, so this this is how I would do it with your frame because I thought your frame is genius. And I would add on to that because this is like a it's called a results-based frame that we teach. So is the and and notice I say the cheapest price not the price cuz cheapest sounds like kind of bad. Who wants the cheapest car? Who wants the cheapest computer? You know, everybody wants the cheapest thing. So it's all frame. So is the cheapest price the most important thing to you guys or actually getting the right compensation plan so you stop losing your top people to XYZ company. See, now I shift them from cheapest price to, oh, the reason I'm looking at this is because I got to prevent the bad thing from happening. And I get them to shift back into results-based thinking. I'll give you even one more on this is both you and I and these are examples are we're leading them to the answer that we know we want to get to, right? And that they want to get to and they want to get to too. If you can get them to come to that answer on their own first without you saying it, that's the money zone. The way that happens is like this. Let's say, for example, again, if I was a sales trainer, which I'm not, but let's say I were, and I was competing against Sales Goon, right? I'm going to actually push them away into the competition and I'm going to say, "Okay, it sounds like Sales Goon is 50 grand for the training." And I know we're 100. I I mean, I'll be honest. If if we do all the same things and they're 50k cheaper, I hate to shoot myself in the foot here, but I guess what I would honestly suggest you go with Sales Goon if that's the case. Why wouldn't you go with Sales Goon? And now what they're going to start doing is they're going to be like, well, you know, they they do almost all the same stuff, but I really care about the ongoing reinforcement. I'm like, "Ah, so what I understand is there's some value between the 50k that they're charging and the 100." Yeah. And some of that is in the ongoing reinforcement that we're going to do with your team. Is is there anything else? Just cuz I really want to make sure I understand like what they're quoting you and to make sure you're actually getting an apples-to-apples comparison. And now you can start to understand what is the thing that is what are the things that you're bringing to t to the table over and above their cheap bottom-of-the-barrel quote. And that's how you start to find a place where you can actually meet and price that value above the competition. And what you just did is that's that's a disarming technique. Because as you know, the biggest thing you have to do when they give you an objection is you first got to get them to let their guard down because if their guard stays up, if they stay guarded, it doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter what you ask. It goes in one ear out the other because they're guarded. So they're not going to emotionally open up. But what you just did there, that's brilliant. You're getting them to let their guard down by basically suggesting maybe they should go with them because now their guards comes down because they're not used to salespeople doing that. What are they used to salespeople doing? Push, push, push, right? You try to get them to justify the value, all that stuff. But instead, if you actually push your prospects away, if you start agreeing with objections more, if you start making people feel seen and heard, all of a sudden the guard comes down.
Yeah. Because you're emotionally connecting with them.
Correct. If someone says, "I'm not interested on the cold call," and you immediately start to say, "Well, the reason that I reached out to you is because I saw this about your business and this is why I think you should be interested." Or if someone's on a competitor, they're like, "Oh, well, here are all the things we do better than that competitor." You say, "Hey, I'm already working with Sales Goon on a cold call." First thing I'm literally going to say before I even try to quote unquote handle ask a question is I'm going to say like, "Honestly, Saleon, Sales Goon is a great group. Nine times out of ten it frankly like doesn't make sense to switch off of them. When I start with that the prospect is like it's like they tried to sit down in this chair next to me and I just pulled it out from underneath them. Like you can't keep fighting someone who's not fighting you. What you just did is you interrupt I was just training a a company on this yesterday. You interrupted their pattern. So that's a pattern interrupt right because they don't know they don't know that script. The script they know is a sales purpose started arguing, you know, and they're they're they're trying to get rid of the salesperson, but you're interrupting their pattern, which causes them to let their guard down. That's all you're doing. Cuz all we would do, and we're pretty much the same, but just the verbiage is a little bit different. Same thing, but like, oh yeah, just so you know, I'm not quite sure we could even help you yet. You know, we'd have to see disarming. I'm not quite I'm not quite sure we could I'm not quite sure. See, I'm neutral. I'm not you never like a lot of times sometimes when you train companies like this or salespeople they'll go like like negative like oh you shouldn't go with this that's not what Arman is saying you're more neutral yeah you might you might should just stay with them possibly might possibly you could possibly just stay with them you might be better off might don't say you will be better off that's too negative to we got to specify that oh I'm not I'm not quite sure we could even help you just so you know I mean we'd have to know more about kind of what what you're, you know, you're doing with them and kind of the results you're getting from that just to see if they can do anything good for you because maybe you're better off staying with who you already have. How long have you actually been with them though? Because maybe you're better off maybe you're better off staying with who you already have, neutralizing it, guard down, and then go into like, how long have you actually been with them? And you're right into a conversation. That's really good, Arman. I like that. So, what you did right there, I want to call it out. It's really important, which is you're pushing away. It might not make sense. It might not make sense for you to move forward with us, whatever it is. And then that allows you to pull another question versus if you just ask that question straight out, oh well, what are you using today? They're going to clam up because they gave you an objection. None of your business. It's none of your business. So let's take this example a step further and then we we can go to something else is let's use the competitor objection again. So first thing when I sold compensation software, one of our key differentiators was we could help people plan both salary increases but also stock option bonuses or equity bonuses. And I knew most of our competitors couldn't handle the stock option or the equity bonuses. And so if you said you're on Curo, which is another compensation planner, I'm going to hit my line. I'm going to say honestly Curo, great group. Nine times out of 10 doesn't make sense to switch off them. Hey Jeremy, just just so I make sure like no one from my team calls you again. That must mean you're not you're not issuing like stock option bonuses or anything like that, right? And so look at what I did is I laid a trap question.
Yeah. That sounded sort of like curious, furrowing the eyebrow of like, hey, ju just so no one calls you again like you must not be issuing stock options.
Oh, with your tone though, you're seeding doubt. That's brilliant. See how your tone is seeding doubt in their brain? Because they're like, "Yeah, we are. Why?" But it's your tone. Because if your tone would have been like, "Now I'm assuming you're not issuing stock options or anything, right?" No, no, no, we're not. They'll just lie to you. But now, hold on. You're And just to make sure they don't call you now, you're you're not doing like se like doing stock options, are you? Like like you got the concern tone that like you just did seeds massive doubt where they're like, "Well, wait a minute. What does that matter?" And now they're you just triggered curiosity and now they're asking for a little bit of education. And so that's how you secure the meeting on the cold call is you educate and then you sell the test drive. You don't sell the car. You don't sell the product on the call. You sell the test drive. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to educate you. I'm going to be like, "Oh, well, again, I cur a great group, but you know, usually what happens when you're planning your salary increases separate from your equity bonuses is managers will often times ask for a bigger salary increase for their employees because they can't actually see that the employees total comp package is much bigger. And so, look, my guess again is that you're you're probably not going to make a switch, but would you be open to taking a look at this thing just so you know what's out there? Because I didn't realize you were selling you had you had stock option bonuses. And so, what I'm doing is I'm selling them on the meeting. In other words, how am I going to make you smarter even if you never buy my product? And then once you're actually in the meeting, that's when I can start to do the test drive of the car.
Yeah, you're getting a smaller commitment. We call those micro-commitments. So what what are this brilliant Arman? So what Arman's doing is he's getting these smaller commitments. Micro-commitments that are just that are easier for the prospect to make that lead to the large commitment of of changing over to what Armand or whatever you guys sell offers. Cuz like you said, Arman, a lot of salespeople, they go in for the kill too quick and the prospect pushes back because it's too much. It's like you're giving them the milk. You give them the meat before the milk. Like Arman's, you're giving them the milk
Before the meat. That the little bit of milk before the meat. That's the way to do it. That's really good.
Well, this happens on sales calls, too. So, let's say that I take that for a sales call. A lot of sellers, they know they need to get to business impact, right? They need to get to the medium emotional problem. Yeah. And think about that. What? Because you're right. I want to say something, and I apologize for cutting you off. Business impact. They ask those type of questions. Think about what that means in the prospect's brain? Nothing. That is such a vague, generalized term. They cannot visualize that. So, to your credit, your questions have to be so specific that they can visualize the pain or what the future will look like. But if you're like, "What's the business impact if we do this for you?" It's too surface level. They can't visualize that. So they don't feel any emotion.
Keep going. Exactly. And so to your point, business impact is a sales term. It is sales language, and it's something that you use to justify a 100k software sale or any sort of sale, right? But in the prospect's mind, they feel the painful problem that they have inside of the day. They're literally just like living inside of their operational problems. And you need to find a way to turn their literal day in the life into something that can be quantified in front of a board meeting.
And so the way that I like to do that is I like to go from situation to problem and then to impact. And I like to do that in a prospect's language. So let's take this compensation plan example. This is obviously going to require way more questions than these three.
Sure. The first question that I might ask when they jump on the call. So I'm like curious, like probably have a 100 people call you a day. Like what prompted you to take this call with me? And they might say something like, "Oh, well, we're planning compensation in spreadsheets, and it feels a little bit unscalable." And that's a situation; like you could be planning compensation in spreadsheets, and that's totally fine. A lot of people do that forever. And so I'm going to ask a why question and I'm going to try to understand what's the problem behind that situation. And again, I'm going to take them one inch further. And so I might either just ask like, "Oh, I'm curious." Like, my guess is you didn't wake up yesterday and think, "Oh, these spreadsheets suck." I guess, did anything come up? Is there something that's bothering you? Has something recently happened that's caused you to even look into this?
Mhm. It's good. Exactly. And they might be like, they might give me a slightly more tangible situation. And so they might say like, "Oh, it's just taking us so much time to work in these spreadsheets." How much time is it taking you? Right? And so the sales question might be, "How much time is it taking you?" I'm like, that's a psychic. But what I want to do is I actually want to turn that high-level feeling or that problem that they're bringing up, and I want to add some emotional bite to it. And so I want to turn that problem into a story, right?
And so sometimes people will be like, "These spreadsheets take me too much time." But my favorite place to use this is actually when they'll say like, "Honestly, our spreadsheets are sort of unscalable, and our managers don't have the best compensation IQ. So, I'm sometimes worried that they might not be making the most equitable decisions." And so, that's when I like to ask a magic moment question. And it's usually sounds something like this. I'll be like, "Hey, like we hear this all the time. Like, it's crazy because you have all this compensation knowledge. You and I know that equitable decisions need to be made. We see it in the news all the time, but then you see three managers who are all making different decisions. I'm curious for you. My guess is you didn't wake up in the middle of the night and be like, you know, today's the day that no one understood compensation. I guess like when did you realize that managers might not be the sharpest on compensation?"
This is perfect. Everybody pay attention. If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're hearing it, what did you hear in Arman's tone? Kind of a confused tone. Not confused like he's 97, has dementia, confused, like, oh, I don't know what's going on, but he's confused because he's not understanding something. So, what that confused tone does in this context, because we talked about this, Aranda, when I was on your show, that the five types of tonality you have to master, that confused tone triggers your prospect's subconscious brain to say this in an instant. Oh, he didn't understand what I meant by this. I need to expand on that more. And so, they emotionally start, this is where they start to emotionally open up. And there's still clarifying and probing you have to do to get them to go deeper, but this is the path to get them to emotionally open up.
So, if you're asking a lot of questions out there and you're getting vague, generalized, surface-level answers, it's because of the way you're structuring the question and how you're asking it, the tone. Because if he asked that question like, I'm sure you didn't wake up last night thinking that, you know, you have these problems, so what's really changed to cause you to look at this? See, that's a monotone, dead tone. There's no emotion there. But he's slowing down like, you know, I'm assuming you just didn't like wake up last night and say, "Hey, it's taken us all, you know, a lot of time with these spreadsheets." Like, has something recently gone on that's caused you to even look at automating this or what's actually going on? See, like you're confused, and their brain starts to open up because they're not used to that pattern. It's all about the pattern. Your prospect's brains are not used to. They're used to like, um, what do you not like about your manual process? They know where that question leads.
Exactly. You're just walking them through a sales trap. You're literally trying to build an ROI equation verbally with them. But to your point, you lead with curiosity like you're not understanding with a little bit of empathy. And now, if you can just practice turning problems into stories by asking when was the moment you realized that that was a problem or what changed. If you ask that question whenever a prospect says they have a problem, nine out of ten times, if you ask it the right way, they will return with a venting, frustrated story of, "Oh my god, you're not going to believe with this manager what they did. They gave the person who was a one out of 10 on the performance scale, a 20% comp increase, and then the top performer was complaining." And those are the stories that'll actually get you. Those are the stories that you use to justify the business impact later on.
Yeah. Yeah. Because then now they're open and and see what we always say, you know, we talked about on your show. What are the two biggest emotional drivers that cause a human being to want to change? Pain and fear of future pain. So if you can't help them relive their pain of what's going on now and in the past and then have a fear that this pain's going to continue and possibly get worse, they feel no need to change. And when they feel no need to change, that's why you get lots of objections. That's why they stay surface level, and that's why they don't buy from you. And it's because of how you're structuring the questions and the tone you're asking them. Because if that question you most of the time would not pull it off unless it's a lay-down sale without using that confused tone. Because what I would do in situation questions is find out, you know, what they're using, how long they've been kind of using it. Uh, and then I might go into, you know, if they say like, "Oh, it's just costing us a lot of time." Oh, I mean you guys have been with them a long time. How much how much time is it actually causing you to use it? But see, I can't ask that question at the beginning. I have no right. They haven't I they cannot rightfully ask that question yet because I'm asking it way too soon. Just like your impact. And then I might go into the problem stage, problem awareness we call it, and be like, "So you've been with you've been using XYZ vendor, whatever that vendor is, for the last 5 years. I mean, they're fairly decent." Said to me, "What's caused you to feel like you might want to look at someone else?" And see, now they start to defend themselves on why. Cuz they'll be like, "Oh, well, don't get us wrong. They're good, but" and then they start venting on what they don't like. But it's because of the way I'm structuring the question and how I ask it. That's the difference.
It's really good stuff you're bringing out here. I like this, dude. We need to do more of these shows together. That's right, man. You got to earn the right to ask the harder questions. And so you start with situational questions where in order to ask about problems, they need to believe that you know enough about their situation, right? You need to earn the right to ask about problems because you understand what they're using today, what problems there might be with their current solution. Once you understand their problems, you have the right to ask about stories. What are the key events that happened because of those problems? And then the last thing that you talked about is actually turning the stories into a trend. And that's the last piece is you gotta this is where where you start to go from like story to trend or story to impact. This is when you you got to nail the tone. If I start asking after you tell me, oh yeah, these managers are making these bad comp decisions. If I just come in hot and I'm like, oh, does that mean that employees are leaving because of it? Guard's going to go.
Yeah. No, no, no. We're fine, right? But if I'm like, "Hey, this geez, like I can't believe you had to deal with that." You know, I guess this might be a little bit of an out-of-bounds question, but has this stuff come up a lot with the different employees or was this just like a one-off instance or something like that? How long has this been going on for?
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's how you turn one-off stories into broader trends because broader trends are the things that you can use to be like, "Hey, this is causing that whole retention issue." You talked about and this is Arman, this is a beautiful subject because at at one of my last uh we just had a big virtual event a couple weeks ago and uh I talked about there's four types of salespeople, okay? Uh you know, you're one of these four, right? And it's good to kind sometimes salespeople we just we just don't know which who we are, right? right? We just out there trying to figure it out. First type is you got the the wingers, the ones who wing it, right? So any prospect, they're saying something different. They're asking different questions. They don't really have a process. They're just kind of winging it. And then when they don't make the sale, instead of blaming their lack of skill level, they blame who? The leads, the prospects are bad. They're broke. Blah blah blah. Most of those salespeople, wingers, usually get fired. That's the first group, right? The second group, which is where probably at least 50 to 60% of salespeople are, at least probably 60%, they're the dabblers. The dabblers buy a couple sales books a year. They go to a free event. They follow some sales trainers on IG or YouTube, some for some basic free content, and they feel like, hey, if I just stay in long enough, if I just get enough reps, eventually I'll figure this out. That's where most salespeople in. And those most of those those salespeople are average. If they ever get good, it's because they work 12 to 14 hours a day. They play the numbers game, and they eventually burn out. Then you've got the know-it-all dollars. They used to invest in sales training, but then they got up to maybe making a couple hundred thousand a year, multiple six figures. They think they're they don't know. They need they they have huge egos at that point. They know everything there is about to selling. They stop investing in their skill level. Then their income gets capped. And then you have the ones who are committed to mastery. Those invest major funds all the time into sales training. Okay? They're always training every single day like an NBA basketball player would or a top CEO or a top neurosurgeon or top trainer. They're learning new skills every day because they know to get in the top 1% they have to invest in their skill level that's tied to your income. And that's the top 1% of salespeople. And then I asked like which one do you feel you are? And most people will identify this. It's like ah I'm I've been a dabbler. I need to commit to mastery. So it's just about it's about getting your prospects into identity frames of where they are now compared to where they want to be. So in in your case let's say I'll give you another example. Let's say if I sold um oh I don't know let's say if I sold life insurance. That's a a huge industry of training along with SAS as well. And let's say if you know I've already found out the real situation like you talked about. I'm starting to find out their problems and they open up. You know, has something recently happened or what's caused you to even look at getting a a more coverage in your policy? Well, you know, this happened this insurance clarify and probe all that stuff. And then I might say, you know, this is after I found out their problems and and they've emotionally opened up. And I might say, good for you. You know, I talked to a a lot of people and you'd be surprised, you know, good for you. I mean, your your uh you know, your kids, your your your spouse, I mean, they're lucky to have a a a dad like you that cares about them that's so selfless that much that you know, cuz I talked to a lot of dads out there, and you'd be surprised how many of them, they don't care about leaving that burden and responsibility about paying everything to the kids and their wife they leave behind. You know what I mean? and they'll be like, "Oh, I would never do that." Because I'm putting them in that identity. Even if they're not that identity, they want to be. And so, I'm putting them that's called an identity frame. I'm putting them in that identity. And then I'm saying, "You know what I mean by that?" And they're like, "I would never do that to my kids. I would never do that to my spouse." Well, I mean, for you, what why is this so important to you now, though? Oh, the reason why it's important now, and now they're telling themselves why they have to change rather than me telling them why they change. So this is this is critical which is you need to reward your prospect for giving you the right types of problems they want to solve. Yeah. You need to push before you you need to continue to give them little rewards before you try to pull more pain out of them. So using that same example, right, you're basically saying, "Hey, I even look at something like disability insurance today." And they start saying, "Oh, I care about my family." And then you start rewarding them saying like, "Oh, there are a lot of people who don't care about that stuff. Good for you." And they want to reaffirm, "Yeah, you're right." This happened with me too when I was selling compensation software. Is a lot of times we're like, you know, I I really just care about making sure that we keep our employees who are about to hear like hit their four-year vesting mark and I'll be like, honestly, I talked to a lot of compensation teams. It's like the top ones who really recognize that there's this big drop off in employee retention at year four. And so I can tell you've been around the block a couple times. So like good for you for actually getting ahead of this thing. And it's hard for them to get out of that frame. It's hard for them to get out of that frame and say, "Well, I don't think we're going to move on. We're we're going to do this later." They can't now. Yeah. Cuz now they're like, "Wait, no. They they told me that I'm this kind of person who's like the right type of compensation leader. Now I'm not going to be that." It's like, no, that's literally no, they got to lean into that identity because you painted them in a positive identity.
100%. Identity framing is very, very important. If you're a salesperson or a sales leader, executive or a business owner listening to us right now or watching us, identity framing and learning how to take, you know, because my background, I think we talked about this, you know, I went to school to become a psychologist. And you're taught that every patient, which is a prospect, that's what I always call my prospects. I was in sales, their patients. Yeah. Every patient, very much like being a doctor. Every patient has a frame or a way of thinking. They a way of thinking or belief system psychologists like psychiatrists we call that frames. So that's how they see the world. So if you're a psychologist or a psychiatrist and let's say you're a patient is like saying they want to commit suicide. That's their belief system. Okay? That's typically by the way they're raised as a child from the ages of four to 13. You know Milton Erickson talks a little bit about this famous child psychologist. And so how do I take them out of that way of thinking? That's called a de-frame. And then how do I reframe them? That's a process. Into a new way of thinking or a new belief system. I can't tell them. Just goes in one ear out the other. But my questions have to allow them to tell themselves why this belief system is what's holding them back and they have the power to change that. It's the same thing with prospects. That's what I took this as a as a psychologist into sales when I was 22 in college. It's the same thing because everything I was told by these sales trainers in their in their training programs went completely against the way the brain makes decisions. And I'm like, this doesn't make any sense. Like, I just have to take them out of frames cuz prospects have frames. It costs too much. Your price is too high. Uh, if you sell to consumers, I need to talk to my spouse. I need to think it over. If you sell to businesses, you know, down the road, we'll do this. Like, need to do more research. Need to get 17 different quotes. These are frames or ways of thinking. So, how do you take them out of those frames and then reframe them into a new way of thinking where they don't have any of those belief systems? And that's what we're some techniques that Arman has given you guys here today. That's what he's doing.
Well, the last thing I want to add on this is good salespeople are like doctors. If I go to the doctor and I'm like, "Hey, can I get Ozempic?" A good doctor doesn't say like, "Sure, here's your Ozempic." A good doctor starts to understand what are your eating habits, what are your workout habits, etc. And they earn the right to challenge your diagnosis, right? A doctor's job is to come up with the right diagnosis. And so if you come in as a patient with a self-prescribed solution of I want Ozempic or I want the product with the lowest price, it's on me as the doctor to teach you what's important in the evaluation. You got to give the right diagnosis so you can make the right decision. And so we had to start with the right diagnosis. And so a lot of times what will happen is I'll just be giving my buddies advice for example on running their sales teams and they'll be like hey dude can you come and like just like teach our team how to cold call and I'll be like always love talking about cold calling. Would be what?
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like I'm curious like why why cold calling? Yeah. And they'll often be like well we're not booking enough meetings. I'll be like, "Oh, you're not booking enough meetings, so you want us to change your cold call scripts. You know, let's say that your team connects with like 10 people. Of those 10 connects, how many folks will you usually book a meeting with?" And if they say three, I'll be like, "Oh, don't change your cold call script. You're booking three and 10." Yeah. I was like, "You might not even need cold calling scripts." Yeah. And so that's a disarming technique. You might not even need cold calling scripts, but hey, how long does it take your reps to make 40 dials? Is it like a three-hour thing? Is it like a one-hour thing? And they might be like, "Oh, they they do like 40 dials in a half day." I'm like, "Oh, $40 in a half." See, now you just seated doubt. Now you've just put in now you've seated this is brilliant because what you just did is you kind of downplayed their problem. So now their guard is down. That doesn't mean that it's still not a problem you can bring up and now you started seeding doubt of another problem they never knew they had and so now you just the gap got bigger because maybe that one problem they feel like well maybe we can just figure out this on our own but now Arman you just seated two problems and I know you with your tonality and other questions you ask you'll see another problem and another problem and eventually there might be five problems when they came to you with they thought they had one now they really understand and feel that they have five. So even if they feel like they can solve the one on their own, there's still four they can't solve. And that's why they have to buy from you. They won't buy from anybody else cuz nobody knows how to get that information out of them.
If you can practice one thing on that note, it is number one, your prospect comes in with a diagnosis or a prescription for themselves, challenge it if it's wrong, and then find the right answer. And then two, Jeremy, to your point, if you go into the doctor and you're saying, "I have knee problems or I have blood pressure problems." Yeah. Your patient understands maybe 10% of that problem. I went to physical therapy because I tore my LCL. Next thing you know, I thought I needed to do like these weird hinge exercises to just train up my knee. He's like, "No, your entire stabilization is messed up because the way you're walking is literally building your muscles in a way that is causing instability in your knee. So, we actually need to do these like weird inner groin exercises to solve that problem." And so as a seller, what that means is if people come in with an initial symptom, yeah, you solve that problem, but then a great seller starts to point out other problems that are related to that problem that they don't know they have that the prospect didn't know they had. So you earn trust on the problem that they came to solve. Yeah. And that gives you the right to educate them on other problems nearby. And that's what we see so much is like a a a prospect will come with a problem and so the salesperson just starts selling to that problem. Well, what most what they don't understand is most prospects don't know what their real problems are. That's why they need you. So, if you start selling to one need, you're just shortchanging you're keeping the gap small because they might eventually feel like, oh, well, we can just do that our own or maybe this other company can solve that one problem they thought they had better. But the questions you ask and how you use your tone when you're able to help them find three, four, or five other problems, I can guarantee you 99.99% of salespeople out there do not. They've never mastered that skill because they've never been trained by people who've mastered it themselves. So, they don't know how to do that. So, they'll always buy from you, even if you're way more than anybody else, simply because they feel like you understand them the most. And when a prospect feels like you understand them the most, that means they feel like you can get...
them the best result. That's why they go with you. And it doesn't matter about the price. I I can literally count on both of my hands. I had an 18-year sales career in the trenches, like all of you watching or listening to this, before I retired and started this company. As a W2 employee, I can count on this many hands. How many prospects ever said, uh, we decided we're not going to go with you. We're going to go with XYZ company? Literally because I took them out of that frame of price or cost into results-based thinking, because I knew how to help them find problems they didn't realize they had, which none of my competitors knew how to do. And so, in pretty much every industry I sold in, which was four, we weren't the cheapest. Sometimes we weren't even necessarily had the best product or service to solve the problem that I found. But I was the best to communicate and frame it. That's why they always went with us.
So this is one one final send-off for everyone, which is a lot of times in sales you learn to apply the pressure. You learn to set next steps at the end of every single call. And the best sellers set next steps on the right calls and they call all the other junk out of their pipeline. So, for example, if you have someone, Jeremy, I know you're not the cheapest sales trainer out there. You can kick a rock and find someone to show up for $3,000 tomorrow, and someone will show up. Sure. At the end of a discovery call, if you find out that all they care about is price, they literally don't care about the experience. They don't care about ongoing reinforcement. They are literally just looking to check the box. That's what you frame up to them at the end of the call before you set a next step.
So, for example, when I was at PAIVE selling compensation software, there would be some people who like ran this company that didn't really care about compensation and they just wanted to literally have the cheapest possible tool to finish a compensation review. They didn't care about how it was communicated to the employees. And so, at the end of the call, if I felt like that was the case, is I would frame it up to them and I would say like, "Honestly, Jeremy, like here's what I'm hearing. It sounds like you really just want a tool to make these comp cycles faster. It doesn't sound like, you know, telling employees how much their equity is worth, all that stuff is really going to like keep them around. It doesn't sound like that's super important to you. And honestly, like a lot of the solutions that are going to get you from point A to point B are going to cost 10K. Yeah. and we're we're going to do these three or four things that are, you know, they're they're going to do a lot in terms of retaining your employees and whatnot, but it's probably going to cost closer to 50. It honestly, does it even make sense for us to take a look deeper at that given that it sounds like a lot of those 10k solutions would probably do what you want them to do and just get the job done." And so before you set that next step, push them away into the competition and see if they push back. Yeah. And that's how they can justify you even wanting to take another next step with them.
Dude, that is so brilliant. And and to your point here as we wrap it up, um it it you know, we teach our our our like here's here's here's the thing. As a salesperson or a business owner or a sales executive, you have to understand is selling something you do to people or is selling something you do for people? It's for people, not to people. If you have the belief system it's to people, you will never be that great at sales. You always play the numbers game because you're transactional and you come across that way with your tonality. Like you're just trying to make the sale because you're doing it to them. Like you're trying to manipulate them. If you come from the concept, I'm doing this for them. I'm getting them to let their guard down for them so they're open to what I have. I'm getting I'm going to learn. I'm going to master tonality for them. I'm not doing it to manipulate them. Because if you don't master tonality, if you don't invest in learning the right questions to ask, unfortunately for your prospects, they don't buy. That means their problems stay the same. They stay in the status quo and nothing ever changes. So, you're doing it for them.
I just want to specify that because, you know, if somebody came to us like, "Well, you guys are more than XYZ trainer." And usually it's a trainer I have no idea who they even are, right? Like, well, I mean, how much? It just depends on the results you want. Well, what do you mean by the results? Well, XYZ trainer, what type of success did they have as a salesperson? I don't really know. Like when I don't really know, but well, do you feel like somebody that only made 200 grand a year as a salesperson is because you said you wanted to make 300? So, how are they going to train you the skills to make 300 if they never made it themselves when they were in sales? Mhm. So, how much is that going to cost you in lost sales because you haven't mastered the right skills from somebody who actually mastered it? See, now it's costing them because they're paying a cheaper price. That's a cost, right? You pay the cheapest price and you don't get the the end result you want. How much did that cost you as a salesperson? That's the thing. I like that.
Hey, where would they go to learn more about what you do? How can they tune in your podcast? I love your podcast. Hopefully, you'll have me back on. And I think it was one of the uh best podcasts because we talked about tactical stuff. A lot of times they get on podcasts they want to ask me about like what my favorite sandwich is, you know. Yeah. Exactly. So folks, the 30 minutes to President's Club, the whole premise it is a 30-minute podcast that is designed to be the most tactical sales podcast in the world to get you to President's Club, which is where they send the top 1% of sellers every year. So, if you're on Spotify, Apple podcast, what have you, literally just type in 30 minutes to President's Club, Jeremy Miner, and you will hear Jeremy's episode. And so, I would recommend for everyone here, start there, see if you like what you hear. And if you like that, every single week I break down one topic in written form as well. So, I do a step-by-step tactical breakdown just like this. And our newsletter is at 30mppc.com/newsletter. So, those those are the two best ways. I love that. Thanks. Thanks for being on the show, man. Tremendous value. Uh, everybody put, you know, if you're if you're listening to this, uh, you know, on on Spotify or maybe iTunes or or wherever you're at or maybe you're watching this on YouTube, leave a comment about your your the biggest thing you got from this show from me and Arman. We'd love to to to hear to see what you feel like uh, helped you the most and then maybe something that you'd like to hear in the next podcast. So, make a comment on here of what you really liked, the biggest thing you learned from me and Arman. Maybe would you like to see in the next show? And if you have questions about, hey, how do I apply what Jeremy and Arman's talking about with what I sell? Best way to reach me is simply to text me. I'm going to give you my number. It's 48-637-2944. 48637-2944. Write it quick. Uh I actually take about an hour a day with me and two sales trainers. We go into this conference room over here and uh we just answer questions. I actually like it. So Arman, it was a pleasure having you on here, man. That was a really good show. It was a blast, man. Cheers. Okay, we'll do it again. Love you guys. [Music]