Embracing competitors and asking the right questions at the right time (Ryan Staley, Founder & CEO @ Whale Boss)

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1. 2:33

   And this is absolutely beautiful. In my opinion, it's a new category that sits in between inbound and outbound. And what it does is it accelerates the sales process, sometimes cuts the time in half while also making deal size 125 to 150% of the size. Now the beautiful thing is the pathways, that's really like the incentives. “Most people default to money or a gift card.” A lot of times it's just helping people and being a good person by connecting them to someone who has a problem solved that they need to solve. The peaks, what are the emotional experiences that the buyer goes through and how to align and ask at the right time? The next step is the process. How do you drop that into an existing process and mirror that with your sales process so

   In Referral incentive models

2. 2:33

   And this is absolutely beautiful. In my opinion, it's a new category that sits in between inbound and outbound. And what it does is it accelerates the sales process, sometimes cuts the time in half while also making deal size 125 to 150% of the size. Now the beautiful thing is the pathways, that's really like the incentives. “Most people default to money or a gift card.” A lot of times it's just helping people and being a good person by connecting them to someone who has a problem solved that they need to solve. The peaks, what are the emotional experiences that the buyer goes through and how to align and ask at the right time? The next step is the process. How do you drop that into an existing process and mirror that with your sales process so

   In Referral programs and incentives

3. 2:36

   And what it does is it accelerates the sales process, sometimes cuts the time in half while also making deal size 125 to 150% of the size. Now the beautiful thing is the pathways, that's really like the incentives. Most people default to money or a gift card. “A lot of times it's just helping people and being a good person by connecting them to” someone who has a problem solved that they need to solve. The peaks, what are the emotional experiences that the buyer goes through and how to align and ask at the right time? The next step is the process. How do you drop that into an existing process and mirror that with your sales process so it's simple and hyper actionable? And then last is persuasion.

   In Referral incentive models

4. 2:36

   And what it does is it accelerates the sales process, sometimes cuts the time in half while also making deal size 125 to 150% of the size. Now the beautiful thing is the pathways, that's really like the incentives. Most people default to money or a gift card. “A lot of times it's just helping people and being a good person by connecting them to” someone who has a problem solved that they need to solve. The peaks, what are the emotional experiences that the buyer goes through and how to align and ask at the right time? The next step is the process. How do you drop that into an existing process and mirror that with your sales process so it's simple and hyper actionable? And then last is persuasion.

   In Referral programs and incentives

5. 4:33

   Okay. Cause that's the invisible force that influences everything. So whether they're venture capital backs, whether they're private equity backed, whether they're publicly traded or whether they're private, those ownership structures totally change the focus, the priorities of people as you go through. So that's one example. “Another example is the functional components down to a psychographic level, you know, are” those customers that fit in those five biggest and five fastest deals, you know, do they like sports? Are they heavy drinkers? What do they enjoy outside of work? Right. Some of those details you get into. And then, you know, another one that I think is really, so many people forget this guys and it's like, it's the trigger event.

   In Ideal customer profile

6. 5:40

   talking to their shareholders. So obviously, that uplifts the priority of cost savings, which a lot of times is a trigger event that we as reps or leaders don't get to. And that uncovers that why deals are getting done. And so then basically you hunt and find those. “And so then you're not like chasing, you know, it's the right time and they're really hyper” responsive. So that's how I break it down. What people fail to do is they fail to learn from the losses, especially there was a there were a series of events that were like we were getting these meetings booked on our calendars from a certain persona at Pave. And Pave sells

   In Buying signals and triggers

7. 8:11

   And so I'll walk through those and hit those right here. So that one is like, does this solution exceed your expectations? Okay. Very carefully worded because even when customers don't give you an answer with these questions, they give you an answer, right? The second one is, is there any “reason why you wouldn't move forward with this solution? Right? So once again, you're surfacing” objections. Number three is, is there anything that our solution is missing that the competition has proposed? Okay. So mind you, people are afraid. A lot of times I've seen reps afraid to ask that question. They're like, oh, we don't want people to go to competition. Here's the thing. They have policies in place where they have to go to competition. They have to get competitive bids.

   In Objection diagnosis and probing

8. 8:15

   And so I'll walk through those and hit those right here. So that one is like, does this solution exceed your expectations? Okay. Very carefully worded because even when customers don't give you an answer with these questions, they give you an answer, right? The second one is, is there any reason why you wouldn't move forward with this solution? Right? So once again, you're surfacing “objections. Number three is, is there anything that our solution is missing that the competition” has proposed? Okay. So mind you, people are afraid. A lot of times I've seen reps afraid to ask that question. They're like, oh, we don't want people to go to competition. Here's the thing. They have policies in place where they have to go to competition. They have to get competitive bids. They're not going to sign off on a hundred thousand dollar deals without anybody else looking at it.

   In Needs and requirements discovery

9. 8:48

   policies in place where they have to go to competition. They have to get competitive bids. They're not going to sign off on a hundred thousand dollar deals without anybody else looking at it. That means it doesn't happen. Right? And then number four is, is there anything that you don't like about our solution compared to competition? And so it does a couple of things. The way that “that's structured is it tells you who the competition is, what they're proposing, what” they like versus yours versus they don't. So it starts to shape the solution. And then that way, if you really want to identify like, okay, is this apples to apples or is this not apples to apples, right? You can start to frame that up. And basically you get complete visibility to what

   In Competitive differentiation

10. 8:48

    policies in place where they have to go to competition. They have to get competitive bids. They're not going to sign off on a hundred thousand dollar deals without anybody else looking at it. That means it doesn't happen. Right? And then number four is, is there anything that you don't like about our solution compared to competition? And so it does a couple of things. The way that “that's structured is it tells you who the competition is, what they're proposing, what” they like versus yours versus they don't. So it starts to shape the solution. And then that way, if you really want to identify like, okay, is this apples to apples or is this not apples to apples, right? You can start to frame that up. And basically you get complete visibility to what

    In Discovery question design

11. 21:50

    other 20, and the other 10. So you better darn well have alignment at that 70% group. And that needs to be the key focus area. So that's the first question. The second question, this is what bit us in the butt with that $18 million mistake. So the next question is, who, after we implement “or after the solution is implemented, who is going to own the budget then? Right? Because” what happened was we asked the question the right way of who owned the budget now. But what we didn't account for is when they implemented this new solution, there's going to be a completely new owner of the budget. And so essentially, that person had the final final

    In Economic buyer identification