Unlock the Power of Sales Discovery for Export with airSlate SignNow

How to create outlook signature

more appreciate you hopping on another video to coach me up and the viewers up I actually just hopped off a first conversation with a prospective customer I typically kick these conversations off agenda objectives up front contracts unfortunately all of my opportunities and deals that I'm working with this is a good thing I work with business partners so sometimes when I hop on these calls a business partner another sales person might kick that call off this happened today just before hitting record on this call the rep didn't have an agenda didn't have objectives didn't have an upfront contract and we were defaulted to the buyer's process on this call can you just walk me and the viewers through how you coach your students when you were a VP how you coach your reps how to kick off a first conversation with a prospective buyer specifically that first discovery conversation sure but do you want me to contextualize it based on your specific use case from today where the prospective buyer was on the call plus the partner or for the sake of the audience maybe they're just talking with prospects just prospects yeah so this is the first call right this will be the first call you've done with this conversation yeah um so there's a few few things um that I'll mention report building um is obviously pretty important but I don't think Rapport building has to be about personal stuff it could be about business and Report building also shouldn't be forced uh what I mean by that is you know it's forced when someone's talking about the weather um I was also literally listening to a sales call that one of my students I'm coaching and they were talking about the weather for a good three minutes and three minutes doesn't seem like a lot but it's a lot um it's like oh where are you based out of oh the Miami oh what's the weather down there like it's like oh so uh that's shitty small talk or poor building uh not that small talk is bad uh because small talk over time leads to relationships Etc but um what I would recommend is I think we talked about our last session but when you're doing research before the call around the prospect around the industry around the company around the competitors and you're going through Linkedin maybe they're they're Pro their Tick Tock or their Instagram if they have one wherever your prospect lives and hangs out that'll be based on your research if you find something that you can speak to whether it's something that you can relate to like a commonality maybe they love golfing or golf or they like bourbon or whatever it is and you like it too that could be a way to build a rapport um if you couldn't find anything but you found something that they posted about on LinkedIn or um you notice something about their company that they recently raised 20 million dollars in funding whatever it is you can build rapport on that so let's just say you speak to a VP of sales and you have nothing to talk about on a personal level um but you did notice that they raised a ton of funding what you could do is you could say something like hey Matt um by the way imagine the call starts Matt Priestly jumping on the call by the way I owe you a huge congrats because I saw your company just raised 20 million in funding you must be excited and really swamped at the same time that's a rapport build um and you're calling out something that is not personal but it's more business but you can integrate the personal side because you're talking about how excited and busy he is at the same time here where she is um so that's a natural way to do it so that's report building you can't really set true Frameworks to Rapport building like you can for a discovery because it has to be natural and organic um so that's let's put that aside okay what I would always recommend on a on a call is to do these three housekeeping rules um is objective time check and agenda so an objective is essentially telling the prospect why you're there the time check is literally just making sure that you're mindful of their time and we'll role play this in a second and the agenda is telling to prospect what you're going to cover I I don't know if we did this in our last call and if we did I'll just repeat it just in case but I think we did do this whatever have you ever been to have you ever had to go somewhere drive anywhere that you've never been to all the time what do you do the first thing that you do address put it into ways exactly so we did talk about it's okay so that's what setting the objective is and the agenda is it's telling the prospect why are we here so we're going to x what we're here to talk about your challenges and to see if we can solve that problem I'll role play it exactly how that would sound and what are we going to cover that's the agenda that's like putting your address into Google Maps or Waze and it's spitting out the address and how to get there so if we were to do this like package this up in like a role play you want to make sure that I'm going to repeat it again because I think I went two in the weeds there for a second when you're on the call with a prospect you want to make sure that you're telling the prospect why you're there you want to make sure that you're going to tell them what you're going to cover so if they have a roadmap for the call not just for you and that would sound something like imagine I build a rapport with you already so Matt we built Rapport I just want to be mindful of your time I see we have a uh our time is blocked out from 5 30 to 6 p.m um do you have a hard stop on that hour or or can't bleed over a little bit yeah great and and one of the best gifts that I can give you and I'll see if we can make it if if we end up covering exactly what you need to see and less time I'm going to give you your time back because I know you got to go back and you just erase a ton of money and you're probably swamped so I'll refer back to that report build so that's time check the goal today today's call Matt really is just to figure out a little bit more about some of the challenges that you may be experiencing and some of the goals you want to achieve and see if our company can help you solve that and if we can great if we can if we can't then not a problem I'll just refer you out to maybe another solution another competitor um does that sound okay sounds great cool um and so if we can solve your problem then what we will cover is um we'll go through I'll have a couple of questions to understand if we can't even solve your problem and then what we'll do is we'll go through the product to show you exactly how to solve those pieces we can do that in today's call and then if it looks good we'll cover what onboarding looks like some customer success and pricing and then next steps I'll stay quiet a little bit I'll wait for a response Prospect says great then I'll transition into my upfront contract I'll say something like and and Matt by the way my only ask is if for whatever reason I know we're not like there's no perfect software out there but for whatever reason um I know if the pros If the product is going to work for you based on what you're telling me then you're you're obviously going to tell me but my only ask is if for whatever reason it doesn't fit what your needs would you feel comfortable telling me that's my prune contract got it got it got it awesome so you're you're talking next steps objective confirming time any hard stops that I should be aware of agenda this is what we're going to cover if we're a fit grade if we're not no worries whatsoever I'll refer you out to some competitors that might be a better fit and then you're going into that upfront contract yeah but I like I like starting off the call again whether it's coming before the report build or after the report build but I find it really important to include the objective of the call but why are we here early on because that gives me permission to start asking my questions now more being the sales coach that you are coaching account Executives account executives are having these conversations every single day this is their primary job what disconnects are you seeing between the amateur sales people who are maybe just getting set up with you for coaching and the professional sales people when kicking these calls off I take it they probably don't have an agenda even prepared what does that look like yeah so I would I would add another layer test you have amateurs really experiencing somewhere in the middle they're they're it's like the transition from amateur to slightly becoming experienced so the amateur ones aren't even doing these things they're just they're maybe asking one question and then uh you know maybe asking like hey what if they're just going straight for like the demo they're not even trying to build a rapport really and if they are trying to build reports relief Force it's someone told them to ask this question it's it's not there's nothing natural about what they're doing um and then they just forget to like set the tone for the call those are what the amateurs are doing so they're they're not doing the time checks they're not sending the objective they're not setting that gender for the call the trend oh and I'll go I'll skip the middle for a second the really seasoned reps are doing all those things but they're doing it in a very natural organic way though the middle tier folks the ones that are not amateur but they're not yet super seasoned they're setting the objective in the time check and the agenda but it sounds really templated it sounds like they're following some sort of sales methodology yes yes the problem with a lot of sales methodologies is that you sound like a Salesman theology you don't sound like Matt that's asking a question out of from a place of genuine curiosity you sound like Matt I was asking these questions because that's what you were taught to ask yeah and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this because I I completely agree with everything you just said around The Upfront contract it seems to me that this maybe in the past two to three years is a New Concept I don't know more where you and your reps when you were a VP back in the day were you guys having an upfront contract within your agendas or was this a new thing to add in I wasn't um my sales strategies approach have evolved over time and they're still evolving but I'm hearing something and like I like the way that sounds um I believe The Upfront contract came from the Sandler methodology now I didn't study Sandler methodology I didn't officially study it I just heard about it I'm like oh someone said that that's a Sandler method like I like it I like the way that sounds and so I've just incorporated into my my sales talk track um I'll I will make this sort of like disclaimer that if you're selling to a sales person that's relatively you know especially in the B2B SAS space pulling The Upfront contract is really obvious they know exactly what you're doing um and so you may get a response like oh I know what you're doing that's Sandler that's an upfront contract so you can either play stupid which I wouldn't recommend or you can agree and be like yeah it looks like yeah it isn't that exactly it like I'm so glad you recognize that what do you think sort of joke around with it or you don't ask The Upfront contract in The Upfront contract way like you find a way where you can ask it in your own words but either way I don't think you should hide or hide from from it if you're selling to a salesperson I think it should be pretty candid about about what you're doing about your intent that's why setting an objective is so important um although my goal today Matt Michael today VP of sales I just wonder if we can solve your problem I'm not here to sell you I'm here to help you because if I try to sell you something that isn't a fit yeah maybe great it sells me you may end up signing up but if I lied and because I was just trying to sell you and you use our product and you realize it's not a fit you'll cancel leave a better review and there goes my reputation so it's not in my best interest and more I know we cover this on the last video for the people who didn't watch that video and guys if you didn't see our first conversation on the mindset going into a first conversation with prospective buyer you can click on that video above our head right here to check that video out and I would definitely suggest checking it out we went through or you went through the concept if there are callbacks for a salesperson you are including a specific word track I believe it was after The Upfront contract was that correct more uh um let me think about that for a second I mean I definitely did include I'm trying to think what that was I think to prevent flawbacks to prevent clawbacks correct that was it there's a lot of ways you can do that but um it could have been something like it's not in my best interest to um sell you something that isn't a fit because if you decide that you sign up and you find out later that it's not a fit um then you'll cancel and just to be candid and sort of lift the curtain part of my job the way I get competent is to bring in new business that's a fit for the company if it's not a fit um then whatever commission I make I get uh it gets taken away it's called clawback so Prospect my intention is generally to help you advantageous that right there is what I need to start adding into my kickoff for my conversations because that piece right there that happens to me I get callbacks I need to start adding that into to my agenda so I'm adding that right below The Upfront contract yeah I mean so add it wherever you feel that it naturally fits within your Discovery if you're if you're if you're forcing it because sometimes the conversation takes a different direction right like maybe the prospect says something and you have just it sort of deviates from like the natural flow of things and you're like all right I gotta ask this question so let me go back to that question just make sure it's coming in naturally so sometimes like I may not sometimes I may not do The Upfront contract because it just doesn't fit the conversation it's not the appropriate time to do it so I skipped do I'll skip it sometimes um I definitely do the time check all the time I like to do the objective all the time um but sometimes I like to I've done it before where I've built some Rapport I go straight into my discovery I complete I didn't do an objective I didn't do the agenda and before I do the demo I do the objective and I do the agenda so we'll go it'll be something like oh Matt I love whatever report report by the way curious what led you to book a demo with me today and then I go and naturally go into the discovery I've gotten my information and then I say something like okay I appreciate I appreciate you sharing that feedback and by the way the goal of today's call really is just to learn a little bit more about your problems so you can see if we can solve it if we can great um if not I'll refer you out and if it is a fit then I'll set the agenda I will show you the demo and I'll show you this and we'll talk about this sound good cool and and by the way my only ask is so you'll notice my Discovery went for it was report Discovery objective agenda upfront contract initially this video it was Rapport objective agenda upfront contract Discovery yeah it works both ways it has to be very natural a few different ways to do it would you recommend for newer reps in an account executive we're all watching this video to first start with time check objective agenda upfront contract before they deviate and do Rapport building durated Discovery yeah it's like uh yeah when I I used to play varsity basketball um but before I did I was like a really crappy basketball player and so I would train but I would train like watching and one videos and like all the mixtapes and I and someone could be like what are you what are you doing you're trying to do all these trick dribbles and trick shots you don't even have the fundamentals in place and so he said do the fundamentals first get comfortable with that then you can start adding in your own you know Pizzazz and so my recommendation for any new on any new reps coming through is don't try to do the time check the objective The Upfront contract be in general all at once pick one of those things and do that consistently until it's second nature because then the problem is you're gonna try to remember all those things and you'll miss one and then you'll remember on the call you're like oh crap I forgot to ask that and then that will throw your game off and then you'll just start mumbling it happened or actually early earlier on this particular call what we did today this real-time call early on the call I found myself mumbling and getting I found myself the way I was explaining was really confusing because I was thinking about something that I made a mistake on when you asked me a question like I shouldn't have said that and I got caught in it and then I was just dumping diarrhea out of my mouth because I was trying to catch up and like pull back from it so my recommendation is pick one thing pick the one thing that you think would be the import time check all right start asking on the call hey Prospect I just want to be mindful of your time I see that we have uh 30 minutes blocked out until 6 p.m um give a hard time at that time or can you bleed over do that to the point where you can do it in your sleep then start adding other areas of the uh opener baby steps gotta start with baby steps especially when you're just getting started out any final thoughts here more without a kick these calls off um yeah I mean so I'd recommend um writing out some sort of framework or Playbook um if you're a sales rep um into your CRM or having like a sticky note like having to stick you know for Discovery or stick you know for demos stick you know for a reportable etc etc so I have a sticky note for like in call It intro call intro call intro time check objective uh uh agenda upfront contract if you want yeah and this is actually you guys probably can't see this but this is one of my agendas upfront contracts and sometimes I will literally show the prospect that I came prepared and read that off I mean I've done 70 of these conversations this year so it's natural for me when I was just starting out I would show up to the calls and read that but it does show that you're prepared ready for the call you have a good game plan and you're good to go but more I cannot thank you enough for hopping in this video and coaching us all up on how to kick off sales conversations guys let us know what you think in the comments section below let us know what types of demo Discovery closing questions you have and more will come in here and drop some knowledge and Coach us all up like the video subscribe hit the Bell to be notified every Tuesday and Thursday when we post new content on this channel but more can't thank you enough man for appreciating Karen Gaston hopping on the channel yeah absolutely thanks