Podcast episode
Break up with the prospect before they break up with you (Richard Harris, Harris Consulting)
30 Minutes to President's Club27 May 202021 min
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Join the most tactical sales newsletter in the world: https://hubs.ly/Q01-R33G0 Four Actionable Takeaways: Use the respect contract as your agenda to give the prospect the right to say no throughout the call Set a timer 5 minutes before the end of your call to drive next steps every time Use “commercial terms” instead of “price” when negotiating your deals When you give price, don’t just go silent. Ask “how does that feel?” Richard Harris’ Path to President’s Club: Founder, Harris Consulting Director of Sales Training, Sales Hacker Host, Surf & Sales Podcast RESOURCES DISCUSSED Join our weekly newsletter Things you can steal 30MPC Training: 30mpc.com/training
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Cause if you're just trying to be nice, that's cool. I get it, but I don't want to bug you. And then when they say, no, Richard, I really want you to send an email. Then I'll say, great. What do you want to see? What do you want to talk about? Like I'm happy to send that. And then the third part is to say, after I send this, can I ask you for time on the calendar now or should I wait? “Don't forget to ask what you really need, which is that next meeting, right?” We always forget that we always take the, this is an inmate, send me an email, send me some information, but we never asked for the most important part, which is great after you get it. And after you review it, can we then have a meeting? Because in greater, most people are going to say no, but it's more about you exercising
Cause if you're just trying to be nice, that's cool. I get it, but I don't want to bug you. And then when they say, no, Richard, I really want you to send an email. Then I'll say, great. What do you want to see? What do you want to talk about? Like I'm happy to send that. And then the third part is to say, after I send this, can I ask you for time on the calendar now or should I wait? “Don't forget to ask what you really need, which is that next meeting, right?” We always forget that we always take the, this is an inmate, send me an email, send me some information, but we never asked for the most important part, which is great after you get it. And after you review it, can we then have a meeting? Because in greater, most people are going to say no, but it's more about you exercising
now or should I wait? Don't forget to ask what you really need, which is that next meeting, right? We always forget that we always take the, this is an inmate, send me an email, send me some information, but we never asked for the most important part, which is great after you get it. “And after you review it, can we then have a meeting?” Because in greater, most people are going to say no, but it's more about you exercising the muscle to ask for the meeting, which is the real purpose of how you handle, how do you send me an email? That's really nice. There's a ton of gold that we can pull out of there. One of the big ones is you're getting to the heart of whether or not they're actually interested in talking with you.
you send me an email? That's really nice. There's a ton of gold that we can pull out of there. One of the big ones is you're getting to the heart of whether or not they're actually interested in talking with you. Because if they want, they are actually interested in an email, like they'll give you more detail and it helps you do a better job. “And if they're not, you figure that out also.” And a lot of times a rep here is, hey, send me an email. And that's kind of a win and they stop, but you've got to finish the job. That's not even any kind of a win. Send me an email is not a kind of a win, right? Send me an email is giving you a maybe. I want yeses and nos. I don't do maybes.
Nothing will exhaust the spirit and will of any human being more than chasing maybes. I don't care if it's in sales. I don't care if it's in marketing. I don't care if it's in dating. Don't chase maybes. One of my best SDRs will do something similar where he'll say, I know you want me to send you an email. “Do you mind if I ask you a really honest question first?” And the prospect will say yes. And he'll say, usually when people tell me they want to see an email, they're honestly just politely telling me to go away. Is that what's happening here? And you get people to open up and you get the real answer that you're looking for. So Richard, okay, so we've gotten that person, we've sent him an email.
Don't chase maybes. One of my best SDRs will do something similar where he'll say, I know you want me to send you an email. Do you mind if I ask you a really honest question first? And the prospect will say yes. And he'll say, usually when people tell me they want to see an email, they're honestly just politely telling me to go away. “Is that what's happening here?” And you get people to open up and you get the real answer that you're looking for. So Richard, okay, so we've gotten that person, we've sent him an email. Now they've said, Hey, actually, I do want to talk with you. You were sharing some really interesting things with us before about the question behind the question.
Don't chase maybes. One of my best SDRs will do something similar where he'll say, I know you want me to send you an email. Do you mind if I ask you a really honest question first? And the prospect will say yes. And he'll say, usually when people tell me they want to see an email, they're honestly just politely telling me to go away. “Is that what's happening here?” And you get people to open up and you get the real answer that you're looking for. So Richard, okay, so we've gotten that person, we've sent him an email. Now they've said, Hey, actually, I do want to talk with you. You were sharing some really interesting things with us before about the question behind the question.
way better than us. But this is how you use question behind the question. And that is to be able to say, hey, Nick, actually our product doesn't do that. But just so I understand how important is that for you to make this decision? Because that's what I really need to know. I'm not trying to go head to head against my competitor. I'm trying to go head to head “against the picture that's in Nick's head.” So let's say there's not a question to ask the question behind the question. Let's say you're just kicking off the discovery call. You've set some sort of agenda. And the third point that you talked about is open versus closed ended questions. How do you start to pry the prospect
yeah, we got till four here. No problem. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to set a timer at 25 minutes and we're just going to call a timeout no matter where we are and just assess where we're at. Does that work for you? Yeah, that's fair. We can do that. Excellent. So, and just so you know, my only goal of this conversation, “I just want to get a mutual frame of reference about what you're up to.” I want to understand what you're looking for in terms of sales and sales training in your world, ask you some questions, certainly want you to ask me any questions, explain what I do, and let me know if there's something specific you want to talk about. Anything in particular you want to talk about on the agenda today? Yeah. You know, I was reading a blog post of yours about great discovery questions,
Does that work for you? Yeah, that's fair. We can do that. Excellent. So, and just so you know, my only goal of this conversation, I just want to get a mutual frame of reference about what you're up to. I want to understand what you're looking for in terms of sales and sales training in your world, ask you some questions, certainly want you to ask me any questions, “explain what I do, and let me know if there's something specific you want to talk about.” Anything in particular you want to talk about on the agenda today? Yeah. You know, I was reading a blog post of yours about great discovery questions, and I want to make sure that we dig into that because that's something the team's having a lot of trouble with. Great. So we'll talk about that. So thank you for sharing that. Then, and one thing I want you to know, Nick, look, the last thing either one of us need to do is
You can answer it. It's okay. Because people will say things that matter. Like if you say, how does that align with the budget? Are you comfortable with that price? First of all, they've been trained and conditioned to not answer those questions, right? Oh, it's a little high, right? I'm always going to say. “Yes. But I would much rather say, how does that feel? And have them say it feels a little high.” Because now when I say compared to what, there's a feeling of what number were you feeling is a good number. You get honest, emotional responses that work really well. That lets you know, like I have people go, that feels about right.
hey, if I send you an email, that means I got to keep calling you and emailing you over the next couple of weeks. And so do you really want me to send you that email? Or can we just have an open and honest conversation? The third point is that there's the question behind the question. Whenever somebody asks you for how you differ from a certain competitor or how you integrate “with X solution, understand the use case, understand why they're asking that question.” Are they looking at the competitor? What does that actually mean? And then the last fourth takeaway is phrase your pricing conversations around commercial terms instead of price. Do not use the word price. The reason is that it means a lot more than dollars. Commercial terms could include the terms of service. It could be payment terms. It could be things that come up in
hey, if I send you an email, that means I got to keep calling you and emailing you over the next couple of weeks. And so do you really want me to send you that email? Or can we just have an open and honest conversation? The third point is that there's the question behind the question. Whenever somebody asks you for how you differ from a certain competitor or how you integrate “with X solution, understand the use case, understand why they're asking that question.” Are they looking at the competitor? What does that actually mean? And then the last fourth takeaway is phrase your pricing conversations around commercial terms instead of price. Do not use the word price. The reason is that it means a lot more than dollars. Commercial terms could include the terms of service. It could be payment terms. It could be things that come up in