Welcome to SALES with ASLAN, a weekly podcast hosted by ASLAN Co-founders Tom Stanfill and Tab Norris, geared at helping sales professionals and sales leaders eliminate the hard sell. At the end of the day, we believe that selling is serving. ASLAN helps sellers make the shift from a ‘typical’ sales approach, to one that makes us more influential because we embrace the truth that the customer’s receptivity is more important than your value prop or message.
The goal of these interviews is to spotlight various experts in the world of sales and sales leadership – sharing informational stories, techniques, and expert interviews on the sales topics you care about.
The following are notes from Ep. 134 – Six Habits of Highly Effective Sellers (Part 1)
In this episode, Chris White joins Tom and Tab to discuss his best-selling book and share the habits that make or break our success when making a technical sale.
Listen to the conversation here:
Or check out the summary and full transcript below.
Summary:
Chris gives an overview and lays out the importance of each of these six habits.
Habit #1: Partner (solidify the relationship between sales engineer with their sales counterpart).
Habit #2: Probe (technical discovery).
Habit #3: Prepare for meetings and demonstrations with effectiveness and efficiency in mind.
Habit #4: Practice.
Habit #5: Perform.
Habit #6: Perfect.
Resources:
- Check out Chris White’s book, The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers
- Find Chris White on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Chris White and his business on his website
Transcript:
00:14
Tom Stanfill
Welcome to another episode of SALES with ASLAN. And I’m your host, Tom Stanfill. I’m here with my trusty sidekick, the best co-host in the podcast business. I think the most light close in the podcast business, Mr. Tab Norris. Well, you know what? I just downgraded you from doctor to Tab.
00:35
Tab Norris
I know, I know which I’m grateful for, by the way. I just, I it’s way too much pressure people. Aren’t stopping me, asking me like questions about like skin irritation. You know, they’ll have a skin irritation. I just pull me aside and they want to know my opinion. And I’m like, I really don’t know. I’m a doctor of sales. Anyway. Thank you, Tom. It’s always a pleasure to be here. I always get my fill of laughter. When we, when we’re on a fight,
01:03
Tom Stanfill
I love that. Hey, Hey, I heard you’re a doctor.
01:10
Tab Norris
You know what? This is.
01:12
Tom Stanfill
I always do find that funny on social situations where there’s a doctor in the room. I was like, no matter what they are, I always try to pick the most inappropriate subject and ask them a question about, Hey, while you’re here, could you look at this mole? I was hoping to get another glass of wine.
01:30
Tab Norris
Sure. I’d love to do that.
01:32
Tom Stanfill
I’m never serious, but I always just want to see the rags. Cause everybody asks, Hey, so you can save me maybe a couple hundred bucks in a co-pay. Can I ask you a couple?
01:42
Tab Norris
So are we talking about that today? Tom? Is that kind of our top middle?
01:45
Tom Stanfill
This is not on topic. What we’re talking about right now is not the focus. The focus of this podcast is to introduce the world. This is Chris White’s coming out party. He is coming out. He, everybody needs to know who Chris White, isn’t actually a plot. More people know who he is than to probably know who we are.
02:03
Tab Norris
Yeah, but I like how you did that. Like we make you kind of put us higher.
02:07
Tom Stanfill
It’s a little like we’re helping him out, but actually he’s helping us out being on our podcast because he’s got a hot best-selling book that we’re going to talk about today, but I’m jumping ahead. Chris White has joined us today. Chris say hi to our large and vast podcast audience.
02:23
Chris White
We’ll gladly say hello to both you and the listeners. I am an avid listener of SALES with ASLAN myself. It’s an absolute delight to have the opportunity to join you guys. So we’re very happy to be.
02:37
Tom Stanfill
Very excited about having you on the show, my friend, but let’s give the audience more Intel on Chris. What I love about Chris is he’s got experience in all the important categories. You start off on the front lines. He was a consultant. He was a solutions architect. Did he moved into sales and marketing leadership? He did that for about, oh, I don’t know, 10 plus years. He was in the frontline for 15 plus years. Starting, what about 2017, 18. You became an entrepreneur and joined our partners and launched that business, which I know we remember talking to you about that in San Francisco many years ago. I’m like, yeah, we would love to have you as part of our organization. So you obviously work with Chris. What other highlights you want to provide about Mr. White?
03:25
Tab Norris
Yeah. Well, I mean, he’s, he really is a superhero, Tom. I mean, like you said, he swooped in, said I want to do this thing. He became one of our ASLAN certified resellers, we call them ACRs.
03:39
Tom Stanfill
Smarter than we are, find people who are always smarter than we are.
03:42
Tab Norris
That’s a principle. Anyway, he came in, he had a plan and he has crushed it. I mean, seriously from the beginning he’s he came in and had success from the very beginning. And, and that speaks very highly of you. It’s just been fun to watch you kind of grow and expand your business and, bring bigger and better customers. I always learned from you every time we spend time together, I learned from you. So,
04:08
Chris White
Wow. That’s very nice you to say Tab, and by the way guys. I mean, I’ve got to give both of you a tremendous amount of credit and I’m, I’m just going to make, a, an unashamed plug for ass when, I mean the truth. I know you both love talking about the truth. The truth is some of the things, many of the things that I’ve learned in going through the Azlan OCS program myself, is what has helped me be successful in this new role as an entrepreneur, as you, as both of, as an entrepreneur, you’re everything, but one of those things is a salesperson. I tell the people that I’ve run the workshop. I said, folks, I have two jobs. I run workshops and I sell. I, and I have to say when I have embraced the other centered approach that made all the difference in the world for me.
05:07
Chris White
I have to thank both of you for what you have done, not only for me, but for all the folks that you’ve worked with. So.
05:14
Tab Norris
Thank you, Chris.
05:16
Tom Stanfill
Well, I’m also a little mad at you, by the way. I don’t know if this is a good time for me to unpack this, but I was looking at our books that are on the market. Chris has got a new book out called the six habits of highly effective sales engineers. And I knew he was smart. I knew he was a good writer, but I’m thinking sell more books than me. And so I was looking at it. I was looking at the performance of my book and I was at 17. And guess who was at 16?
05:46
Tab Norris
I don’t even know.
05:49
Tom Stanfill
Mr. Chris White was at 16. I looked again today and he’s at number 12.
05:55
Tab Norris
And you were at 22.
05:56
Tom Stanfill
Is that to talk about it? It’s all about Chris, man. I’m really excited. Your, your book is doing well. I know your book’s been out. When did, when it actually did it hit?
06:08
Chris White
I actually published in June of 2019. If you can believe it’ll be three years. I know it’s funny. I was talking to somebody I in fact ago and she said, yeah, she said, I read your book. It’s been a couple of years. I found myself thinking, oh my gosh, like companies telling me that they read my book a couple years ago. Yeah, the, the it’ll be the three-year anniversary is June 21st happens to me. My, my father’s birthday passed about four years ago. So, that was , and I, he was who I partially dedicated the book to. Yeah, it’s just been, it’s just been a tremendous ride. I am honestly, to this day, just blown away by the success of it and humbled by it. And it’s just been a great experience. Well, not unlike I know you, it took you a long time to write the book, but I know that feel, I know you have that feeling of satisfaction that it, at least it’s, it’s done and it’s out there.
07:12
Tom Stanfill
Well, you did a great job. I really enjoyed reading it. I mean, seriously, you’re a good writer, so we need more books from you.
07:21
Chris White
Yeah.
07:21
Tom Stanfill
So, so let’s talk about, I think we all in our roles, whether we’re leaders, sellers, I mean, anybody that has to stand on a platform or deliver a PowerPoint presentation or talk to a small group can leverage what you talk about in the book. Give us of a background of why did you write the book and then let’s talk about kinda what the big, I guess the main concepts in the book.
07:52
Chris White
Yeah, yeah. And, and you’re right. I mean, the title is the six habits of highly effective sales engineers. For the listening audience, the truth is, is the title could have been something to the effect of don’t let your technical expertise or your expertise get in the way of an effective presentation, right. Or don’t let your expertise get in the way of engaging with your audience. Right? And, and so many of us who entered the sales engineer profession, we come from a technical background, right. We come from a background of expertise. We have, and when we’re given the opportunity to speak, present, demonstrate, we get so wrapped up in our own heads, right. We give the PhD version to, a room of first graders. Right. And the message is completely lost. And, you asked why did I write the book? You mentioned this in my background, I was 15 into an it consulting career before I made the switch to sales.
09:03
Chris White
Guys, I thought I was going to be brilliant in this pre-sales role because I can move a mouse and talk at the same time.
09:12
Tom Stanfill
Damn. I mean, that’s impressive. Wow.
09:15
Chris White
I thought, I thought all I needed to do was be an expert in being good in front of an eye. I learned very quickly that there’s a lot more to being successful in this role than just being good in front of an audience. Frankly, and I wrote about this in the book, I thought sales was below, right? Like sales person, right. I’m an educator, I’m an enterprise architect, right?
09:38
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Peddler products.
09:41
Chris White
Exactly. Exactly. Look, guys, I made some mistakes or are we in this part of my career, I took some walks and I figured it out. I discovered there was a pattern of behavior that when I followed, produced repeatable results. Interestingly enough, I took over a team of pre-sales consultants, about five years into that part of my career discovered that many of them were making the same mistakes. And I created some trends. This was in 2010. I created some training and that original version of the training evolved over about nine years and became the six habits that I wrote about. So that’s sort of pause there.
10:24
Tom Stanfill
Okay. Well, I love what you said about Taboola you jumped in a second, but I know I love what you said about, don’t let your technical expertise get in the way of your sale or how exactly how you said it. Basically the villain in the story is knowledge, too much. I think that’s true for all of us. I mean, I remember being in a workshop where it was, I was part of my development and getting better at what I do. And the presenter talked about. I said, there’s a scale of knowledge from one to 10. I said, so let’s say you’re at the nine level, right. Where we typically start, when we have a conversation, is it the seven level, but you need to start it to be able to start from, and I tell you, that’s a struggle because the more, the harder it is to take the trip, or I should say, discover what’s important to them.
11:15
Tom Stanfill
It’s harder to listen. It’s harder to hear things fresh. It’s harder to back up. So I think there was great.
11:21
Chris White
Well, and the irony is that I think a lot of times we do that because we think that’s what the audience wants and we keep it ourselves while just trying to give them as much as I can. Right. The reality. And, talking about this notion of other centered, the reality is more times than not. That’s actually, self-centered because we’re trying to demonstrate how smart we are and we’re trying to show them, how Intel, as opposed to just feeding, one of my favorite sayings feed them what they’re hungry for. What is it that they’re hungry for? Well, you don’t know that until you’ve taken some time to do some discovery, so that’s really and now, and then it becomes, well, what are the techniques? What are, what are the habits? What are those patterns of behavior that put us in the right frame of mind and give us the ability to execute?
12:14
Tab Norris
That’s awesome. Well, yeah. Why don’t you tell us, I mean, give us the six habits, what are these six habits? You talk about dress,
12:29
Tom Stanfill
$16. You say $15 right now.
12:34
Chris White
So, so interestingly enough, by the way, I did this, even in the book, right. One of the things that, one of the, best practices is lead with the outcome, right? I think in the first page of the book, I said, here are the six habits, if are good, and you don’t need anything else, you can close the book and save yourself some time. The six habits are at fault for the first is to partner with your sales counterpart. Most many sales engineers are paired with account executives, sales, reps, BDRs, and the foundation of our success is the effectiveness of our partnership with our sales counterparts. I like to say that sales is a team sport, and there are some very specific things that we need to do. Here’s the interesting thing, guys, we’ve talked about this, I think is many of the skills that create an effective partnership with our sales counterparts are the same skills that create good relationships with our customers, right?
13:30
Chris White
So that’s the foundation habit. Number two is what I refer to as probe. And this is technical discovery. I learned very early on that I couldn’t just airdrop into a meeting site unseen. By the way, I, at first I thought I could write my ego was big enough that, just put me in front of the customer. And I got it right. Well, until I did. I realized that I had to do some discovery of my own. So probe is all around technical discovery. Habit. Number three is to prepare for meetings and demonstrations with effectiveness and efficiency in mind. One of the mistakes that we make you guys, I think w I think you’ve talked about this and we, one of your recent guests, Kelly Talamo, right. We tend to over prepare. We have a 30 minute presentation. We show up with 75 slots,
14:27
Tom Stanfill
Right.
14:29
Chris White
What do we do if we’ve prepared the slides we show up, whether you want to see them or not,
14:37
Tom Stanfill
I almost tied together and you’re going to list, you’re going to go through every single one of these slides.
14:43
Chris White
Yeah. Bingo. Because I worked hard on these bloody things, right? Habit number four is arguably the easiest in theory, but the most difficult sometimes in practice pun intended habit, number four is to practice. One of the, one of the things that I discovered about myself is I would work hard to prepare. I wouldn’t leave time to practice. I get in front of the customer and there was a, an error or a mistake waiting for me behind the next click that would have taken me two seconds to find and five seconds to fix. Had I just clicked through, right. I still do this today, before I present, I clicked through this.
15:29
Tom Stanfill
Rehearsal.
15:30
Chris White
I just click every click. There’s two more, there’s two more per habits. I’ll come up for air habit. Number five is to perform at the end of the day, regardless of everything that we’ve done. Before the meeting, at some point, the spotlight shines on us. I do believe that there’s very specific things we need to say, show and do quote, in order to get the technical win, or at least to achieve the purpose of the presentation and demo. And certainly we can elaborate on that. Habit number six is to perfect. It’s just this notion it’s really the principle of continuous improvement. Anyway, so, if you want to just save every one some time and wrap it up. Now.
16:13
Tom Stanfill
There’s the book.
16:16
Tab Norris
We’re just going to wrap up a little early today. I appreciate that.
16:20
Tom Stanfill
That’s, that’s easy. We’ll just.
16:21
Tab Norris
Do that. Yeah. There’s a lot lingering up underneath each of those, you can tell and like you think about the selling environment we’re in right now is, and this may be, I don’t know if this is a good question or not, but do you see which ones are most critical? I know they’re all important, but are, do you see that one or two or like the most critical where we are right now?
16:46
Chris White
Really good question. In in fact, it’s, it is interesting tab. As I mentioned a moment ago, I wrote, I published the book less than a year before the world shut down from coach.
16:58
Tom Stanfill
That was going to happen.
17:01
Chris White
Because I knew because I ended up.
17:05
Tab Norris
Didn’t want to get this book out. This is all in seven.
17:08
Tom Stanfill
Day.
17:10
Chris White
Because I knew that was coming. I wrote no. I mean, literally in the book, I talk about walking into the room, right? I talk about the, the right so-so the inch. The irony is that there are things that I’d like to change, but tap to get to your, to answer your question. I think maybe even more so now in COVID, I’m going to submit that habit. Number one, the partnership with sales and partnership with your teammates. That’s the foundation. I’m not sure that’s the most critical, but I’m going to submit that to the foundation. Interesting sales is a team sport. Particularly if we, in particularly enterprise B2B software sales, we call it the four legged sales call, right? You have an AA and an se working together. The AAE is only as effective as the, his, or her tech whole counterpart presenting solutions. Right. The se is only as effective as the information, the collaboration, the coordination.
18:11
Chris White
All the other habits really build upon that partnership. So that’s really the foundation.
18:18
Tab Norris
Okay. Well, and you think about it. I’m sorry, Tom. I just wanted to follow up on this. The, the, we have a lot of listeners that are in this role and whether they’re the se or the AA, right. I just sit here and go, isn’t this great for the account? The sale quote, salesperson needs to be hearing this. It sounds like it’s the same truth, right? It works either way, whether you’re on the engineering side of the sales side,
18:41
Chris White
It’s such a powerful comment. In fact, I’m inclined to double click on it in this regard. I think you guys know this when I first launched the business was called demo doctor, but then last year, my largest client,
18:56
Tom Stanfill
Dr.
19:02
Chris White
If anybody asks me about skin irritation. So I know.
19:06
Tom Stanfill
You guys want to, you guys just hang out,
19:09
Chris White
I’ve avoided that one. This client asked me to run workshops for their entire sales organization and they wanted AEs and SES to participate together. At that moment, I, I, I, it occurred to me that eight years are not account. Executives are not going to be excited about attending a, a training program organization called demo doctor that’s literally it. That’s why change it to tech sales advisors. That’s and we literally run, we run sales training programs for AEs and SES together, and they’re just wired differently. One of the things I like to say is, what is an account executive fear the most in the context of the deal, losing the deal as he, or she should. I mean, that’s, it’s their livelihood. What does a sales engineer worry about? What do they, what do they fear most in the context of the deal, losing credibility totally different level.
20:10
Chris White
When to your point have when a I’ve literally had eight ease here, that part of the workshop and say, oh my gosh, I’ve never thought about it that way. Right. I need to, I need to change the way I think. So your point is really well taken. The more we understand each other, the more we develop empathy for one another, honestly, the better we’re going to be as a team.
20:30
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to also want to apply this concept too. I really haven’t thought about this before, Chris, you just said that. To people that aren’t working with a sales engineer, like I see this all the time in our organization where we’ve got an opportunity, we have to make this critical strategic presentation. What we do is we meet as a team and we decide the roles not based on rank, but based on who’s best to fulfilling the role. Sometimes mark Lampson, who’s a key is one of the co-owners and key leaders in the company. He’s maybe best to lead. Sometimes as John Sequeira, it might be Jenna, it might be tab. It might be me. It’s all based on who’s best to serving the role. So there’s this interdependent relationship. So I love that idea. Even if there’s not a sales engineer, we need to think about who’s best equipped to serve the client.
21:21
Tom Stanfill
And then define the roles that way. Not it’s my deal. I should present.
21:26
Tab Norris
Well, and we sell deals together. Just not just engineered everybody. You think about any organization you’re bringing other people in. It happens all the time. So yeah. That’s.
21:36
Chris White
Absolutely. Absolutely. Go ahead. Go ahead, Tom.
21:41
Tom Stanfill
I said, I want to dive into prepare, not prepare. I’m sorry. I want to dive into perform. There’s all these peas I want to dive into perform. Before that, I did want to, I wanted to ask you a question about prepare, but w did anything you were going to say,
21:54
Chris White
Well, I was going to go back to tabs question about what do I think is the most critical. And, and I mentioned that the partnership I think is foundational, but also submit that it’s ha I believe it’s habit number two. I, and I, and I, which is to pro, which is all around discovery. I know you certainly, you all talk about discovery lot in your programs. In fact, I think I put this in the book. It may be one of the most important things we do in our role. I think a lot of us, a lot of people that enter this particular profession, frankly, even sales, right? We, we get so focused on the message, right? We get so focused on what we want to say, what we have to say. It there’s, it’s an old cliche, there’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth.
22:49
Chris White
Right. But it’s so critical. I think particularly now tab to your point, we need to put our agenda second and we need to focus on the customer and if there’s anything, and if there’s anything I would change about the way I wrote the book, I talk about discovery more as a discovery call and I’ve come to really know that discovery is a process, right? Discovery never ends. There should be some level of discovery in the beginning of every conversation. Right? To me, if I had to pick the single most critical habit, it’s devel it’s constantly developing and working on that habit of discovery.
23:38
Tab Norris
Yeah.
23:38
Tom Stanfill
Oh, I so agree with that. I think not only does it lead to having the right accurate information, that’s relevant to the listener, which you said, feed them what they’re hungry. It also magically tank changes the temperature in the room when people feel heard when people really, because a lot of times we listen, but it’s the other person doesn’t know we’re listening. It’s like we’re taking the information and then jumping into what we want to say. If you really know how to do that, well, they become very receptive to the message that follows.
24:09
Chris White
Exactly.
24:10
Tom Stanfill
I think what I want to get your take on of a thought I had about what my belief about the probing piece of the discovery is. I think what happens is that people are listening for the information, needed to say what they want to say. There were con there are listening, like, okay, I heard that you said, blah, blah. I’m kind of, I’m trying to, I got these things. I want to say, I got my 75 slides and I want to hear, I’m looking for a sound to connect to my 75 slides versus listen, as if I’ve never heard anything before, like I’m starting over. I know I’ve met with 200 people in your role, and I’ve talked about this 200 times, but you’re unique. I’m going to start over. I’m going to go back to my slides and I’m going to figure out what I need to then present and what I’m going to say uniquely to them, which ultimately drives what prepare is all about, which is building a new narrative and building new deck based on this fresh discovery.
25:03
Tom Stanfill
Do you feel like that’s kind of the main gap and probe, If it’s not agree with me anyway,
25:11
Chris White
It’s certainly one of the big ones. I think, when we think about the account executive, the sales rep, we like to use the term happy ears, right. That they have had for years. They’re just looking to hear the one thing, the truth is sales engineers, that the technical sales counterpart that we have quote, unquote, happy years as well, but it’s like techie ears, right? Like we’re just looking for the one or two things that we can attach our solution to. Right. In fact, one of the mistakes that we make in discovery and particularly the expert, as soon as we hear the one or two things that we can address, we want to pounce on it like a tiger. Oh my goodness. Well, let me tell you all about right. I said, whoa, slow down. Right? Like we’re gonna get the opportunity to present our solution.
26:05
Chris White
I, we liked, Azlan, we’d like to talk about this notion of taking the trip, right? Like let’s probe deeper, right? Like let’s make sure we have the full story. The other thing that I think is worth our listeners hearing is I think, I think understanding the roles of the account executive and the technical counterpart in the context of discovery, I refer to a definition of IQ that I heard a number of years ago. Allow me to explain, I think, I think one or both of you are golfers. And am I correct about that?
26:47
Tab Norris
Our Tom’s a good golfer. I’m not a good golfer, but we both love golf.
26:52
Tom Stanfill
We both lose golf balls, but not as many as we used to.
26:55
Chris White
So, so then this is, so you’re the perfect example. Then I’m not a golfer. I just, I’m just not at all.
27:02
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
27:06
Chris White
Would you say it’s fair to say that Tom has a higher golf IQ than me? Probably both of you do, but tab I’m going to submit the Tom probably has maybe even a higher golf IQ. What does that really mean? He has the ability to make finer distinctions about the game of golf. Tom can watch a golf game and you and I can be seen looking at the same game tab. Tom sees things that we don’t see. He can make finer distinction. The sales engineer’s role in discovery is making finer distinctions about what the is trying to do, making finer distinctions about how best to position the solution that’s out because they have a higher technical IQ or a higher product IQ. I think if we understand that we can collaborate more effectively as sales, professional, and sales engineers, that resonate.
28:05
Tab Norris
Yeah. Well, and it’s what I really love about it is remembering the beginning. You said foundationally the tendency for the salesperson. They’re just trying to jump on for the solution. Right? They don’t want to lose the deal. They want to win. The technical wants to show credibility was the Zach’s are happy years around those two things, right? That’s what we’re battling. Both sides are battling the same.
28:29
Tom Stanfill
How did you say that again, Chris? A, I love that A’s goal is to win the technical person’s goal.
28:36
Chris White
So, so I’m glad you asked and, and as you guys know, I mean, words are so important. What do we fear the most fear of in context, a deal, right? AEs losing the deal as they should SES losing credibility. Right? Go get me wrong. I want to close the deal as much as pot, as much as anyone, but this is my reputation. That’s on the line. Right? Totally different level. When we understand that about each other, now we can better communicate, right. We can better collaborate.
29:11
Tom Stanfill
That’s where I think that’s worth the podcast. I mean, I don’t know what we charge now charging now, but I think that’s worth.
29:18
Tab Norris
It. That’s a takeaway right there.
29:20
Tom Stanfill
I love that because if we’re working with our team, it’s, it goes back to we’re selling as a team. First of all, we need to land on our United goal. What is our United goal, which always needs to be about serving the customer.
29:33
Chris White
Absolutely.
29:34
Tom Stanfill
Look back at our roles and we need to understand what each other’s goals are and how we play our role. I think that’s so great to understand that it helps us work more interdependent. That’s that’s amazing. I would love to double click on the, the perform habit, which is now we’re basically making the we’re making the presentation. What emotion, what mistakes do most people make when they’re delivering or performing? When they’re actually in the presentation demo meeting where they’re, again, they’re saying, this is what we offer,
30:15
Chris White
How,
30:15
Tom Stanfill
Whatever role w the, the listener may be in, but this time it’s they got the mic. It’s time to go.
30:23
Chris White
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to answer that question in full frankly, as an entire podcast in and of itself, but I’ll open with this. It’s, it’s a saying I picked up a number of years ago and I love using it. It’s, we like to use the disruptive truth. Here’s the disruptive truth. The problem with your product demonstration is it’s all about your product, right? And I.
30:52
Tom Stanfill
Think I’m gonna use that at dinner tonight. I don’t know if anybody’s doing in the role of sales or sales.
31:00
Chris White
I’ll, I’ll, I’ll drop another one of my favorites. Lord knows I’ve got plenty of these. I think you guys have heard me say this before he or she who buys a shovel, doesn’t want a shovel. They want to hold, but they don’t just want a hole. They want a fence or a tree, but they don’t just want a fence or a tree. They want privacy or shade or fruit or flowers. Yet we show up with the shiny shovel and we want to talk about the blade and the handle, and every, how wonderfully made it is. The truth is most people don’t actually care all that much about the shovel and those who do oftentimes don’t have the budget. Right. So, Tom, coming back to your question, what’s the biggest mistake. I think the biggest mistake is we focus too much on the problem. We focus too much on us, our stuff, our features, our functions, and not enough on the customer.
31:54
Chris White
One of the things that we like to talk about at Azlan and in our programs is lead with the decision-makers whiteboard. That’s now something that I use with the sales engineers. I, I, I say, when you’re entering the meeting, do you understand what’s on the decision wife and is your demonstration about, is it addressing what’s on their whiteboard? So I’ll, I’ll pause there, Tom. That’s the first thing that comes to mind for me.
32:20
Tom Stanfill
I think that is dead on I, and I actually go back to where you solve that problem is prepare. So let’s just assume they probed effectiveness. Right. They have the information and they know how to triage with all the things you’re going to say, or all the things are going to present because they’ve been effective at probing and discovering and figuring out what’s important. In, by the way, when we go into prepare, I, my rule of thumb, I’m interested to get your comment on, this is five minutes a slide, right? If I’ve got, I’ve got 30 minutes, seven slides, tops, and some slides are just, it’s orientation it, I don’t have to cover it, but if I’m going to dive into a slide, it, none of them have five minutes. So, so that’s kind of where my prepare, but the biggest time suck for me when I’m preparing is to be able to describe the slide in the context of the customer, based on their whiteboard.
33:16
Tom Stanfill
I got to begin the sentence with, because you, right. Because you, blah, blah, blah. I’m going to, let’s talk about this or let’s go to this slide.
33:26
Chris White
Right.
33:27
Tom Stanfill
That’s that’s hard. The prepare is where I have to figure all that out.
33:31
Tab Norris
Yeah. That’s a great litmus test that I love is if you can’t say, because you really aren’t prepared for this slide and that’s a great way to think about it.
33:43
Chris White
Well, and if I may guys, it’s interesting, of course, I’m well familiar with the, because you model, there’s a similar litmus test. If I can use that term, particularly for a sales engineer is what I call the, so what test do, I mean by the, so what test our solution does this fancy little thing with these fancy buttons and whiz, bells.
34:16
Tab Norris
Yep.
34:17
Chris White
So what. With all with, with the most respect and, courtesy I can muster sincerely, like, why is that important? Right. If you don’t have a good answer for that, if you can’t, if there’s not a good answer to the, so what it doesn’t belong in the demo. If, and if you can, and ideally there are some good, so let’s lead with the, so what, the reason this is important is right. That to me, that’s how we align the demonstration with the, because you, right. As my, as my sales counterpart, Bob suggested because you blank, our solution enables you to do X. And the reason that’s important is right. That’s the litmus test for a sales engineer.
35:16
Tab Norris
Yeah.
35:18
Tom Stanfill
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
35:19
Tab Norris
I am. I’m really thinking what you’re thinking. Cause I’m sitting here going, I got like 12 more questions. I want you to.
35:24
Tom Stanfill
Ask for at least another 45.
35:28
Tab Norris
Me too. Well, I, I want to keep double clicking into perform. I I’m, you know, perfect. I have some questions. I know you probably do. Why don’t I think we ought to maybe just make this a two-part are you okay with that, Chris?
35:41
Chris White
It would be my pleasure guys.
35:43
Tom Stanfill
Travel. We’ll pay for travel and entertainment.
35:47
Chris White
Good to know. Did didn’t realize that was part of the contract, but ,
35:51
Tom Stanfill
Oh, we pay for travel for all our virtual meetings, all the.
35:54
Chris White
Excellent. I get paid by the mile, but it’s by the step, but I think it’s 20 steps from my kitchen and back.
36:03
Tab Norris
Exactly. No, I think that’d be great.
36:06
Tom Stanfill
Let’s do it. Let’s wrap here. Thanks for joining us for this episode of SALES with ASLAN. We’re talking to Chris White, the author of seven, six habits, not seven. That’s the second book, six habits of highly effective sales engineers. We’ll pick it up next week with part two.
