Podcast episode
Using the humbling disclaimer to ask your hardest discovery questions (Charles Muhlbauer, Training @ CB Insights)
30 Minutes to President's Club28 Oct 202025 min
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Join the most tactical sales newsletter in the world: https://hubs.ly/Q01-R33G0 Four Actionable Takeaways The humbling disclaimer: “I feel a bit crazy asking this question, but…” Use the scale - “is this a 1 meaning it’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen, or a 10?” Take the headtrash out on your calls and be overly transparent in your discovery Clarify, isolate, address the problems in a negotiation Charles Muhlbauer’s Path to President’s Club: Sr Biz Dev Training Manager at CB Insights Founder at SalesShare RESOURCES DISCUSSED Join our weekly newsletter Things you can steal 30MPC Training: 30mpc.com/training
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different mini upfront contracts, where it's the obvious one, you have a hard stop, everybody knows that. And then the second one is, naturally, you'll have a lot of questions for me about what we do and how we might be able to help you. I don't know if we can or not. “And I'm probably going to have a ton of questions for you just to make sure that we are a fit.” Not everybody is a fit for what we do. Would that be okay also? Right? So it's like a mini part, also kind of asking for permission, right? It's all about asking for permission. And then the third part is what I mentioned earlier, which is the two outcomes. And Armand, you know, of course, this may be obvious, but they're one of two outcomes from this call. We like to make a joke about it.
And I say, great. I guess I don't really know how to ask this using a humbling disclaimer and saying, well, what were you thinking? So now I'm negotiating. We're beginning to negotiate before I tell you what I need to get that price point down. “You might give me an unreasonable price point, and then there's nowhere to go from there.” You might give me a price point where it's actually reasonable. Now if you do that, now I might say, well, okay, out of curiosity, pardon me if this is an out-of-bounds question, but if we were to hypothetically agree to that price point, when do you think we can get an agreement signed? Now he may push back on that, right?
So, I might be like, Arman, you mentioned you're looking to fix this problem, assuming I was lucky enough for you to admit to a problem, right? A lot of people don't even do that, it's in a separate conversation, but if I'm lucky enough for you to admit to a problem or to hint to admitting to a problem, I might say, Arman, I'm not sure how to ask this, but is it fair to say that you've exhausted all “internal resources to fix this on your own?” Now, you might say, no, we haven't. I as a salesperson, if I'm pretty confident and experienced, I might just push you away and say, well, why don't you just do that first, right? Why are you looking at someone like us? This is an example of me like pushing you away, that's kind of like at the end, me getting
I don't believe it. So I said, well, if I were to be able to prove you wrong, do you think it would make sense to speak further? He's like, I'm not doing anything, all I'm doing is asking questions. I'm not selling, I'm not pushing, I'm not pitching. I'm just like, it sounds like you're amazing. Now if a prospect says, yeah, we are amazing, we don't need you, I'd be like, great, sounds “like we're not a fit.” Do you know anybody else that this might be more relevant for? Right, it's just much more fun. I guess one last question I have for you is, are there other times that head trash and emptying it onto a prospect can be helpful besides like the discovery and negotiation side of things? Yeah, the cold calls, absolutely the cold calls.
And this is kind of like Josh Braun-ish, where he's using a humbling disclaimer. He might say, well, I don't really know if what I'm about to tell you is gonna be very important. It's not important for everybody that we talk to, but the reason why I'm calling is X, Y, and Z, and I was wondering to what extent do you think this might be relevant for you, “or do you think I called the wrong person?” So I'm like neutralizing the question at the end, I'm giving a bit of a disclaimer in the beginning, right? Well, honestly, I feel like such a buffoon asking this final question, but Charles, do you mind if I regurgitate the same question that I ask every single person that comes on this show? Please. Thank you.