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[Music] hey friends i wanted to make a quick video today to talk about what is one of my favorite medic hacks but is also as well as my favorite i also happen to think it's probably one of the most underused but easiest to use hacks in the whole of the medic methodology framework so i wanted to make a video today to talk to you a little bit about it what i call it is the what happened hack it's very very straightforward you can use it at any part of the sales process right from the earliest stages throughout until the very late stages and all it is is asking one very very simple straightforward question that can open up a whole world of useful answers and it goes like this it's what happened the last time you bought something like my solution now when you ask this question there's generally one of only two things that can happen the first is that the person you're asking to who should be your champion by the way or proposed champion they say the last time i i've never bought anything like this before and of course that is a red flag now it doesn't necessarily have to be a terrible thing because the person could be new they could even be new to their role and therefore they've never bought a solution like yours before because they didn't need that kind of solution in their last role or they could be new to the company this is not such a bad thing if this person is new and they have enthusiasm and they want to drive change if you find someone like that it's generally a good thing if you especially if you can attach yourself to them to kind of help them help you progress your deal through as long as it's sort of aligning with their goals and challenges then it can be a very very good thing the other side or the other thing that can happen here is the person that's never bought a solution like yours before they say no never bought a solution lights before but don't worry it'll be okay we'll get through it we'll figure it out and um the only thing let me tell you use the only bit of advice you should take of theirs in that situation when they say don't worry is to take off the don't and worry because this person is a nightmare for you this person thinks everything will be okay they think they get they'll get the deal done whenever it gets done and from a forecasting perspective it's a nightmare also from like a heartache perspective dealing with that kind of champion who by the way is very rarely a qualified champion is going to be a real challenge and therefore you're going to need a new champion is my advice in that scenario so that's the first thing can happen they can kind of go the last time you know we implemented a solution or board solution like this um there was no last time but here's what can be really really a good thing and this is the more common thing that would happen if you're talking to a qualified champion is you'll get into this whole flow chart this whole tree of golden nuggets of information they're going to help you uncover not just the decision process itself but also parts of the decision criteria parts of you know things like who the economic buyer is and how to work with them as well as things like the paper process let me give you an example when we're thinking about the decision process if we start to think about who is involved in the decision process likewise how long will it take now this is a really key part of why this question is so valuable because generally speaking the people we're selling to they don't understand our roles entirely they know that we're there to sell to them but they don't know the pressures we're under when it comes to things like forecasting they don't know the pressures around senior managers trying to forecast so they can report upwards but also so they can manage resources as well they don't necessarily understand those things if they do they certainly won't understand it to the level that we want them to so what you generally get when you start to ask your customer about time frames is a very very optimistic view of the world which is very very dangerous for forecasting because as we know it's very very rare that everything goes to plan especially in an enterprise level deal so it become very very valuable to use this question to kind of understand not in in a closed mind view of your deal but get the customer to open up their mind to previous deals they've done and what it will do is it will nudge all kinds of experiences they've had in the past probably mostly bad hurdles and traps and things that have come up that have slowed the deal down so you can use it this question to kind of bring those things to the surface that otherwise wouldn't normally have been thought about things like you know signers who take a long time to sign or things like a very very difficult legal process how often is it that we get a heads up from our customer about a terrible legal process it's not common and if you were able to spot a lot of things that come through on those red lines when you're you know up against it in time frames to try and get your deal closed within the timeframe you forecasted it a lot of those things could have been discovered earlier on things like termination for convenience things like limitations of liability all those types of things they existed before you found out about them so if you can use this as a question to tap into those things being problems in the past you can get on the front foot to tackle them up front likewise same goes with procurement not just about hurdles that they'll throw your way but you can learn from other sellers that have gone before you about things that procurement liked things that procurement didn't like things sped up the process with procurement when it comes to the economic buyer not always but quite often if you're selling a similar technology the economic buyer might be likely to be the same person and therefore you can take cues again from the person that's gone before you about how to engage the economic buyer what sort of language they like to talk in what kind of things that worked and didn't work all the way through you're going to help identify things that could either slow your deal down and how to mitigate them or things that your predecessor your seller before you your peer maybe from another company has done that works well that sped up the process and combining all of those things together is going to really really help you to be able to forecast more accurately likewise when it comes to decision criteria if you're still in the kind of validation stages and you haven't necessarily won the deal yet whilst it's unlikely you're gonna be able to bring technical decision criteria from previous deals you will be able to tap into things outside of technical criteria such as the economic decision criteria and the relationship decision criteria things that have helped other companies win you can tap into and win from their path they trump before you so that my friends is why such an easy question what happened the last time you implemented a solution like this can open up so much valuable information that's either gonna help you de-risk your deal or speed it up and reduce some of those hurdles that are coming gonna come and slow you down in the future thanks very much for listening may your champions be strong see you soon