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. 159 – “Sell Without Selling Out” featuring Andy Paul – Part 2
In this episode, Tom and Tab continue their discussion from last episode with Andy Paul – sales expert, author, and host of his own podcast, Sales Enablement with Andy Paul.
The next part of their discussion moves on to tackle: the four pillars that drive success, the value of curiosity, intellectual humility, and the nitty gritty tactics of what it takes to really be successful. Very few sellers can do what Andy is encouraging our listeners to do – but if you do, you will be different, you will make more money, you will be more successful, and you will enjoy your role as a seller even more.
Listen to the conversation here:
Resources:
- Check out Andy Paul’s podcast
- Check out Andy Paul’s website or connect with him on LinkedIn
- Check out Andy Paul’s books
Transcript:
00:14
Tom Stanfill
Welcome to another episode, another fantastic episode of SALES with ASLAN where our goal is to equip, elevate and encourage. That’s our bottom line. I think we’re successful. We’re going to dive into part two with Andy Paul. Love the last episode. If you’d didn’t hear that last episode where we talked to Andy Paul, who has a podcast called Sales Enablement with Andy Paul. He’s an author of three books and he’s talking about his best selling book, the Selling Without Selling Out a Guide to Success on Your Own Terms. If you missed the last episode, you got to check it out – the foundation he sets for the role of selling. I thought it was fantastic to have.
01:02
Tab Norris
Yeah, it was incredible. What we’re going to talk about this week is just amazing as well. We get into a lot of really good stuff. When he gets into the four pillars that drive success, which I think are amazing. The thing that just pay attention to his piece on curiosity. I love the piece on what is it? Is it intellectual humility, intellectual humor.
01:31
Tom Stanfill
Yes he talks about one of the pillars is curiosity. I’ve always said that curiosity should be a value, like being curious, it should be a corporate value: to be curious. Because it shows such respect for who you’re talking to that they know something that you don’t know, that you can learn from them. It also demonstrates that you’re willing to learn. What does it say about us if we’re saying I have nothing to learn from you? Anything you say, I don’t care. I have nothing to hear or learn or need to receive from you. That’s not a great message to someone who we want to influence. Plus it says that we’re at a place in our life, we have nothing to learn.
02:14
Tab Norris
Well, the intellectual humility sticks with me because it’s just the definition is: you might be wrong. I love that.
02:27
Tom Stanfill
That’s really where we need to pay attention is when we hear something from someone that we disagree with, that’s when we learn. If we only hang around and deposit information that already aligns with what we know or we agree with, we learn absolutely nothing. I really want to tune into when you say something that’s completely radical to something I believe, I’m like, okay, that’s an opportunity for me to grow.
02:51
Tab Norris
Yeah, that’s crazy, right?
02:53
Tom Stanfill
That’s what we need to pay attention to that. This is just one of the topics that he unpacks and when he talks about the four pillars that drive success and here’s the cool thing, it’s going to separate you. What he talks about in this part two of this wonderful podcast series that we’ve got going on here, we got a series, series. This is a miniseries. This is not a major series.
03:17
Tab Norris
Made for TV series,
03:21
Tom Stanfill
You and I’ve worked with thousands of sellers in our career. Very few people do what he’s encouraging us to do. If you do it, you will be different. You will make more money and you will be more successful and you will enjoy your role as a seller. So let’s dive into part two…
Let’s talk about let’s shift because it’s been a good dive into this current state. The problem I’d love to spend some time or carve out some time talking about the solution that you’re bringing to the table and the four pillars, connection, curiosity, understanding and generosity. That was very disruptive to me. I loved that. I can’t tell you how much I love seeing, oh, build that no generosity. I just thought that was great. I’d love to dedicate of time to all of them, but I don’t know if we’re going to be able to pull that off.
But let’s start with connection. I want to read a quote from the book. Engage with the Connection is about engage with a buyer on a human level, which is what we’ve been talking about, to earn their trust and the permission to stick your nose into their business.
04:38
Andy Paul
That’s it. Right.
04:40
Tom Stanfill
I talk about getting the invitation until the customer invites you in. Yes. They said, I’d like you to come in and nothing happens until you get an invitation.
04:48
Andy Paul
Right.
04:48
Tom Stanfill
Talk to me about how you teach sellers to get to connect, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on that once the meeting starts. Also apply to which I don’t know that the book really addressed getting the meeting. I think it was more about your yeah, but love to hear your thoughts on how to do that.
05:11
Andy Paul
Yeah. The idea of connecting is one again, there are people today have voices in the sales world who say you don’t need to connect with the buyer. What are you talking about? A buyer doesn’t want to connect with you. They don’t need human connection. They have friends. Well, there’s the problem right there, because you are so unuanced. If I can create a word in your understanding of human relationships and how humans work, that you think that just the need to be connected with someone means that you’re friends, it’s not bad at all, right? I mean, you’re right. Your buyers got friends. You don’t want to be friends. You don’t have to be friends with your buyers. If you want that’s fine. But it’s just humans. The trust comes from the connection. Talk with a human is you have to be connected at some level with them, some level of rapport, some level of empathy for them and them for you.
06:12
Andy Paul
Some level of vulnerability, some level of credibility. You have to demonstrate because they’re inundated with people, asking them questions. You’ve experienced this and I’ve experienced it. I’m sure I said it in this book, but I’ve said it before is buyers are no obligation to answer your question truthfully or fully.
06:36
Tom Stanfill
Right. Just because if you don’t have that information, you have that understanding, right? You don’t know what to recommend. You don’t know what they really care about. You don’t know who’s making the decision. Exactly.
06:51
Andy Paul
The point of connecting is to be able to get to that position of trust where, yes, they are basically giving you permission to ask these questions, to give you the answers you want, and permission to influence the choices and trade offs they’re going to make in terms of deciding what the ultimate acquisition purchase will be. People just want to glam right by it. Their sales trainers talk small talk. They don’t have time for small talk. It’s like, well, sure, they don’t tie for 20 minutes of small talk, but there’s been bodies of research about how small talk enables this connection and enables relationships. It hasn’t changed. People think somehow we’ve evolved in the last ten years that our brains have evolved and that’s just not important, it’s just not true. People are still people and they want to know that you’re interested in them. This connection is show up and be prepared to ask the buyer something that has interested them, right?
07:58
Andy Paul
It could be business, it could be personal. I like to say, if, I’ve written a post about this where I say, hey, I’m going to use the F word in this post. The F word is friend. Because the way you connect with a human being is the same whether it’s in business or social life, right? You go to a party with a kid’s party that parents are there, maybe soccer team parents there or whatever, and you don’t know them. You meet someone, what do you do? You ask something about them, right?
08:38
Tom Stanfill
You hope.
08:39
Tab Norris
You hope. I’m amazed how that doesn’t happen.
08:42
Andy Paul
Yeah, but that’s what you’ll do. Where do you live, what do you do? So on, so forth. How long have you lived here? Very simple stuff, right? Or as I say in this post or before you went, did your role play lines with your significant other about, how to make them best, our best friends, right? I mean, it’s like no, you show up as human being, you’re curious, you’re interested in other people. The way you make yourself interesting to other people is to be interested in them. It’s pretty simple. There’s never been easier to find out information about the people you’re going to meet with, to be armed with questions that you can ask that just start the conversation. It used to be and Tom and Tab, you and I were all out in the field in our careers, carrying bags. I’d walk into the office and I’d scan the walls first and foremost, right, exactly.
09:43
Tab Norris
Where’d you shoot that deer.
09:44
Andy Paul
Yeah. Where did you play your golf? Our kids are on a soccer team, right? And then yes, questions about it. It’s simple way to start building some level of connection with somebody. Sometimes you have people that were a little more difficult than others. There’s a great story with Jerry Seinfeld told that his father was a salesperson who would encounter people, and we’ve all encountered just aren’t giving you anything back. Right. Seinfeld’s dad was he played this game with themselves. They called break the face. His job is he wanted to make them laugh. Right. If nothing else, he got accomplished during that call is to make that person laugh. I feel the same thing and half throughout my career. It’s like you need somebody who’s so full of themselves or whatever, it’s like, yeah, what can I do to break that bubble with self importance and open.
10:39
Tom Stanfill
Them up and open them up?
10:41
Andy Paul
And it was fun.
10:43
Tab Norris
Well, you’re trying to be different, which I think we talk a lot about that we want to do it differently. I mean, like you say, the traditional approach is not really working.
10:56
Andy Paul
Yeah, well, you bring yourself to it, right. This is the thing, is, how do I bring the best version of myself to this thing I’m doing on a day in, day to basis that aligns with my values, my character, and my strengths, and it’s necessarily going to be different from the way other people do it, and that’s okay. Now, that freaks out sales leaders these days, because they want everybody to be a cookie cutter clone of the next person. It’s just not the way it works.
11:26
Tom Stanfill
The way that I always attack that. I hate that way. I set that up. Address that, because there are people that are thinking about the rep that doesn’t know how to have that conversation. Way too much small talk to a high D driver, a type decision maker who you say, hey, I see you. Remember you like golf? And they go, yes. The decision maker is saying, Look, I got 30 minutes. Get to it. Right. But there is a way. I always just drill it down to, you can either talk about what you want to talk about or you talk about what they want to talk about, and so find out what they want to talk about. There is usually some agenda that they have about, hey, you’re here for a reason. The bud Fox meeting with Gordon Gecko. Hey, why are you here? I hope you’re intelligent.
12:12
Tom Stanfill
What do you have? I meet with 50 brokers a day. What’s up? What’s true is everybody has the same deeper emotional needs. They’re doing what they’re doing to meet an emotional need. It might not be the first three minutes, and you may not be the funniest person in the world, so that doesn’t work for you. If you find out you can connect with a five year old or you can connect with a 15 year old, you can connect with an 80 year old. Or you can connect with the CEO of FedEx if you focus on what they’re interested in. Yes, they’re all interested in something.
12:47
Tab Norris
Yeah. That’s the game you got to explore, find. Sometimes they’re mean upfront, or they’re hard up front. That’s okay. Stay focused on them, and you’re going to be okay.
12:56
Tom Stanfill
You’ll figure it out. You’re genuinely interested. I think that’s the key thing. People will ask a question, and they’re like, okay, Andy told me to ask a question, and I did. They don’t even know what the person is saying. Because you talk about the ability to make the follow up question, which is still a great question, is a poor follow up question, but the ability to look at somebody and say, how did you do that?
13:21
Andy Paul
Or, how did you get here?
13:22
Tom Stanfill
What’s important to you? Or, you may have to wander around a bit. I also think it’s important to clarify, and you point this out in the book, relationship Determines influence. It’s not about the friend thing. Right. It’s about you’re opening the door to have the difficult conversations and have that level of connectedness that leads to trust, which means they listen to you.
13:46
Andy Paul
Yeah. I mean, you brought so many great points there. I like to relate a story and early part of my career, my first sales job, selling big computer systems, fraction of the processing power of an iPhone.
14:02
Tom Stanfill
It’s $10 million, and it’s more than an iPhone.
14:06
Andy Paul
That’s right.
14:07
Tom Stanfill
And it takes up three floors. But you can do your spreadsheets now.
14:15
Andy Paul
Your payroll. Right. Selling into the construction industry straight out of college. I can show you a picture. I looked 16, made a generous, knew nothing about business, certainly knew nothing about the construction industry. I was like, well, why are these business founders and CEOs and someone giving me their time? Because I showed up as interest. I was curious. I wanted to learn. Right. I wanted to learn about their business. I found as long as I was demonstrating a sincere interest and learning about them, that I got almost as much time as I wanted.
14:56
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, when they were sincere, you weren’t sincere.
15:00
Andy Paul
That was just because I was sincerely I am still sincerely curious. I mean, it just served me.
15:07
Tom Stanfill
I was one of the four pillars.
15:09
Andy Paul
Yeah. It’s just like, we can all be curious. Unfortunately, curiosity gets trained out of people these days, right. We got more compliance and more it’s funny. One of my writers I’ve read widely is Ralph Waldo Emerson. I quote him several times in the book he was writing back in, like, the 1840s about the damaging trends on American societies, this push for conformity. The fact is, it’s still present that this is worse in sales than ever before. What we do is we start tell people, well, here’s the script. Go ask these questions. Or if people have too many questions. Say there’s research of Crayons out of Canada published last year that showed that people consider people asking too many questions to be disruptive. Often somebody heard, well, enough of the questions. Just do what you’re told.
16:12
Tom Stanfill
Tired of all these questions.
16:14
Andy Paul
Well, but saying this is from the boss to the seller.
16:16
Tom Stanfill
I know.
16:17
Andy Paul
Yeah. It’s like, sure happens all the time. Stop with the questions.
16:24
Tom Stanfill
Do you think curiosity is a DNA thing? Because you do see people that are, quote, unquote, naturally curious. They’re always, they’re wondering, why do things work and how did that happen? There’s other people with the head down focus on simple and is it teachable? Yeah, I’m assuming it is. What’s the key to learning to be curious? Because I think curious is a value.
16:55
Andy Paul
Everyone’S born of Sam out of curiosity. Right.
16:57
Tom Stanfill
Okay, that’s good.
16:59
Tab Norris
I’m very intrigued by this.
17:01
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
17:01
Andy Paul
Really?
17:02
Tom Stanfill
That’s an interesting point.
17:03
Andy Paul
Yeah. I think how we’re socialized as we’re raised has a lot to do with it. If you’re brought in a household where curiosity is discouraged, everything’s disciplined, so on and so forth. Questions, don’t ask questions. Just do it told, then, yeah, you probably get to grow up and think, well, curiosity is not something that’s rewarded. It’s punished.
17:30
Tom Stanfill
I made to feel stupid or incompetent. For the questions that you ask.
17:33
Andy Paul
Yeah, for the questions. I grew up in a household where, yeah, we have fairly strict rules, but dinnertime conversations were pretty lively because I was the youngest of four, and my oldest brother is a genius level smart, and everybody else was. The family loved reading. My parents were both avid readers, and my mom always had a book. She probably more than any of us, was reading books constantly. We all it was a fight to compete to talk at dinner table, but it’s all based on everybody read the newspaper and want to talk with books. Yeah, it was encouraged. I think people can overcome that if they get in an environment where they’re supported appropriately by the people that are mentoring and coaching them and giving them the rope to explore their curiosity. And this is right about the book. The difference between sales leaders and sales.
18:34
Tom Stanfill
Bosses, I love that.
18:37
Andy Paul
I think, unfortunately, most leaders these days are trending into just being bosses. Just dictatorial. Do this. This is the way we do things. Don’t ask questions. Just these are the numbers. Do these activities.
18:50
Tom Stanfill
Do what I tell you, say what I tell you. Deliver the billboard.
18:54
Andy Paul
Right. I obviously was fortunate in my career to have a number of bosses that said, okay, yeah, we’ll give you the rope to hang yourself, but go do it your way. It wasn’t disruptive, and it’s still a team player. I still need all the resources of the companies to help me sell but I thought, okay, that would be a better way to do it. That was just purely driven by curiosity because I could see that the way everybody else was doing it, or most people are doing it. It wasn’t going to work for me.
19:25
Tom Stanfill
Wasn’t going to work.
19:26
Andy Paul
That’s interesting.
19:27
Tab Norris
I’m sorry, Tom.
19:28
Andy Paul
Go ahead.
19:29
Tom Stanfill
Well, I just wanted to comment on what you taught me. I remember something you did at Scan Source, one of our clients years ago, because he was trying to teach the reps to be curious, because they were a very kind of reactive customer call, and they would order and they were account managers, and they would order certain things. Were trying to get them to be more proactive and be curious and ask questions and move beyond the stated need. Tab had him ask just three questions, like he just said, I want to add three questions. It was so simple. It blew their mind because all of a sudden, it opened all these doors to, oh, wow. I think that was a great learning for me and them. Just if you grew up in a family or you don’t feel naturally curious or you feel barriers to curiosity, it’s just that maybe add a question or two or three to every meeting.
20:22
Tom Stanfill
That is not part of the script, as you’d say, and you’ve given some great frameworks for leading discovery and being curious. I encourage people to read the book and learn about what andy, you’ve got six types of questions. You just got a real tactical, which we’re talking philosophical in this podcast, but there’s a lot of really rich tools in the book. But I thought that was great.
20:41
Tab Norris
Tab no, it’s funny you said because this is one of my favorites alone. She was probably 75 years old. She came through that’s in the sales. Yeah, I love this class, but I’m petrified. I’ve been taking orders at this company for 30 years, or whatever it was. I’ve never really asked a single question other than what part do you need and how fast you need it? I said she goes, but now I’m kind of interested in curiosity, being curious, but I’m scared to death. And I said, Susan, just one question. Just one. And you pick your favorite. You got a favorite. I can’t wait. I’m going to be back here, and I cannot wait to find out what you start learning about some of these people you’ve been serving for so long. And, I mean, I’m telling you, I saw her about a month later, and she was beaming.
21:33
Tab Norris
She said she’s 77 years old. She completely transformed herself by that one thing, being curious how.
21:41
Andy Paul
Much more she was enjoying the job.
21:43
Tab Norris
Yes.
21:44
Andy Paul
That’s the thing that I try to impress on people. You’re hopefully in this for a career. You have to enjoy it. To me, the key to enjoying it. I’ve been extremely fortunate in my career. I’ve done some really interesting, fabulous things, sold number things that are first and of type in the tech world, selling every continent but Antarctica.
22:11
Tom Stanfill
Wow.
22:12
Andy Paul
What made it fun was just yeah. Just meeting all these fun people, fun experiences. I wouldn’t have been able to have any of those if I hadn’t started a place of curiosity in my career. I progressed from different types of selling to different types of products that I had no basis in at all. That’s what drove me in my career, was I wanted to find somebody really smart to work for, and I wanted to find something that just was different. Seemed like it would be really interesting.
22:43
Tab Norris
It’s awesome.
22:45
Tom Stanfill
Your idea of and I know we mentioned this earlier, and I think this is so important, we have to address it, but this idea of intellectual humility, is that what you call it?
22:53
Andy Paul
Yes.
22:53
Tab Norris
I never heard that before.
22:55
Tom Stanfill
I was at a rap concert Sunday.
22:59
Andy Paul
Now I’m curious.
23:01
Tab Norris
I’m really curious.
23:01
Tom Stanfill
Let that sink in for a minute. I was at a rap concert. I did not meet the profile of the typical participant in this kind of audience. It doesn’t matter why I was there, but I can go into that concert, go, this is not music. Right. Music is billy Joel. Flywood. Mac Eagles. John Mayer.
23:25
Andy Paul
There has been new music in the last 20 years.
23:28
Tom Stanfill
I know. Not for job. Or I could go, there’s a reason these people are going crazy. Right? There’s a reason that my 15 year old grandson, who’s standing beside me, loves KB.
23:44
Andy Paul
Yeah.
23:45
Tom Stanfill
Hip hop. I can either go, like, there’s something I don’t know, there’s something I don’t understand, or there’s something that they don’t understand. They’re wrong. Which is a ridiculous way to connect with people. It’s a ridiculous way to influence like, we should start with the fact that I’m wrong. There’s a reason all these people are doing what they’re waving their hands and they’re doing their thing, and, I mean, there’s people with their phones on, and it’s just a whole different world that I grew up in. I love that idea because it ultimately comes down to this idea that they’re important. Like, you’re respecting who they are and what them and what they care about. It’s really not that complicated.
24:26
Andy Paul
No, and I say this specifically in the book, is making an effort to understand somebody gives value to the things that are important to them. Yeah. Think about that in a life context and a sales context. That’s hugely important. Right. Is respect. When you’re out there, the heavy push, heavy persuasion, you’re just trying to plow through things. There’s no respect there you’re not respecting the buyer. You’re not respecting the things that are important to them. Yes. We live in this world where products and services are increasingly lookalike, just by nature of the technology and so on is the margins of winning. Between winning and losing are really small. You have to assume they are. One of the favorite questions I love to ask sellers is tell me how much did you win your last deal by? What do you mean? I’ll say, well, what was your margin of victory?
25:38
Tab Norris
Right.
25:40
Andy Paul
You can’t quantify it. Yes.
25:41
Tab Norris
I have no idea. What do you mean?
25:44
Tom Stanfill
Sometimes you can if you get the spreadsheet.
25:47
Andy Paul
Well, that’s true. But it’s not always dollars and cents.
25:51
Tom Stanfill
Right.
25:51
Andy Paul
Low price doesn’t always win. I said you have to think about it. These things you do, one of them could be really important to your buyer. You just don’t know. That’s why everything has to be your A game. You have to be connected, you have to be curious, you have to ask great questions. You have to make sure you really understand because the margins are so fine. That can be the difference between winning and losing. You should assume that is always the case.
26:21
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
26:22
Andy Paul
It’s just that respect comes across very clearly to people. Argument with somebody a couple of months ago about relatively well known person the sales is saying you don’t even need to be friendly to your buyers. Sure. Absolute sense. You don’t have to, I guess. Right. It’s not zero sum. You might win some, but why wouldn’t you be? It costs you nothing. It costs you nothing. We know from Robert Chandini’s follow up book called presuasion and as well as his new book just came out, forget the author’s name but it’s called Platonic. It’s about building relationships as adults and research is very clear. People are more likely to want to do business with people who they think like them. We always talk about people I want to do business with people they know, like and trust. Actually it’s equally important to the people they feel that you like them because that’s a form of respect as well.
27:29
Tom Stanfill
That’s what makes you attractive. What makes you attractive is how you treat them or not.
27:35
Andy Paul
These things that seem small and insignificant, people think, oh, people are too busy for these things and so on. It’s just not true. The more you bring yourself as a human being to this pursuit of selling, the more you’re going to win.
27:52
Tom Stanfill
Three.
27:53
Andy Paul
Awesome.
27:53
Tom Stanfill
Let’s close. I know we’ve spent a lot of time together going through these great concepts but we got to at least address this last one.
28:04
Tab Norris
Generosity.
28:05
Tom Stanfill
Selling, when well done, you wrote in the book, is an act of generosity.
28:10
Andy Paul
I love that.
28:11
Tom Stanfill
Connect this idea to the building, the value of your recommendation which cause you do talk about value.
28:19
Andy Paul
Sure. I mean just at the beginning to expand on that sentences. As I say in the book, your job is to listen to your buyers. Right. Really listen to somebody that’s an active generosity, understand the things that are truly most important to them, that’s an act of generosity. And then help them to get that. That also is a generous act. So just break down selling itself. It is an act of generosity. The thing is they talk about the book is how to be an effective giver, right, with the buyer. Because we have the obligation to make effective use of the time and attention of the buyer that they give us. In order to do that, then as we have to be effective in how we give them things of value that move them closer to making a decision. It requires a level of intentionality about how you give, which I think is generosity, to help the buyer do that.
29:23
Andy Paul
Because I’m a huge believer and I’ve experienced this throughout my career, is that I talk about the last chapter of the book is that most people aren’t most buyers. I’m not looking to make the absolute best decision. They’re trying to make a good enough choice.
29:42
Tom Stanfill
I like your comment about that.
29:46
Andy Paul
Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize winning economist and psychologists, written extensively about this. He came up with this idea that people are fall into one or two categories. They’re either satisfiesrs when they make decisions or they’re maximizers. Satisfying is a conjoined word he made up that says it’s a combination of satisfy and suffice he found in his research. And people are looking to make decisions. They typically research the alternatives until they find one that satisfies the requirements and suffices to enable them to achieve their desired outcomes. You combine satisfying and suffice and that’s satisfies. What I’ve seen numerous times and experienced many times myself is that I knew I set these milestones. I knew that if I could be the first to connect, the first ask the questions, really understand the buyer, the first to build trust, the first to get to this point, we could start creating this vision of success together with the buyer of what success will look like using our product and service.
30:56
Andy Paul
That I could be the first to get that customer to the point where they said, oh, this is good enough, right? It didn’t always mean that you got the order right at that point in time, but oftentimes it meant that I was their choice, right? Short of doing anything to screw it up, I was going to get the order. Once I understood this in my career, it’s like, oh my goodness. Yeah, this changes things because I really want to focus on how can I help the customer through what we’re calling the what stage before, right, is to help them really understand what the problems they’re trying to achieve address and the outcomes they want to achieve faster. I can make that happen. I knew I was in the inside track because then look. I had the understanding, I was the first real understanding, then we can start working together.
31:53
Andy Paul
Okay. What’s success going to look like using a product service? Yeah. That’s a generous act to them because suddenly you’re saying is, look, I don’t think buyers set up to spend in general a year to make a decision that they could make in six months if the seller enabled them to do that.
32:11
Tab Norris
Right.
32:12
Tom Stanfill
Especially in today’s market.
32:14
Andy Paul
Right.
32:14
Tom Stanfill
They are so overwhelmed. Everybody’s so overwhelmed with information, the amount of choices, if you’re like, hey, this is good enough, and they can move on to the next thing, it makes sense because they don’t have the time to even respond to or do the research.
32:31
Andy Paul
The thing about that in his research was that the reason people satisfy is they make the calculation that the incremental return I’m going to get from the additional investment of time just isn’t there. Yeah, I love that. If I have a problem, why not start addressing it now? Right? I found a solution. It’s going to work, it’s going to help me. This is the way most people operate. You look at stakeholders and the decision today, they are yanked away from their day job. We’ve made part of this committee and I was on a committee. I was buying an ERP system years ago.
33:10
Tom Stanfill
I haven’t heard that term in a while.
33:12
Andy Paul
Yeah. It was illuminating but painful at the same time. People, what do they want to do when they have the sales extra burden put on them? They want to get it done right. They don’t want to last forever. If you can be sensitive to this idea, look what’s the buyer trying to do. The buyers trying to quickly gather and make sense of the information they need to make a decision, an informed decision with the least investment of their time, attention and resources possible. That’s the best of the buyers job. Make that happen. Win the deal.
33:50
Tom Stanfill
Don’t overthink it.
33:51
Andy Paul
Don’t overthink it. This is what they’re trying to do. Can you help them make it happen? If you can, then more often than not, you’ll win the business. We’ve made things so complex, unnecessarily complex, and we focus on the wrong metrics in sales. I started a Twitter war with VC about this number of years ago. He’s like, there’s no art in sales. It’s just a numbers game. It’s like, well, first of all, you’re a buffoon, but secondly, that’s good.
34:21
Tom Stanfill
That’s a good like that in the book.
34:28
Andy Paul
Secondly is, yes, every has numbers and sales. Right? I knew what my ratios were. They’re inescapable. It is a numbers game. At some level that’s fine, but it’s not the game you want to be. It’s not the primary game you’re playing. Right? I mean, if you want to have numbers, say sure, instead of having 100 dials to yield two meetings, how can I do it in 20. Right. Whoever to point tab you’re making before is early in the conversation. What sales leaders saying to their SDRs, let’s approach this differently. Yeah. If your quote is five meetings a week, if you can do that in 20 calls as opposed to 100, I’m going to pay you extra money. Yeah. You don’t think they would be making less calls within about a month? Of course they would be right. We just have these incentives that are backwards.
35:23
Andy Paul
It’s all about more as opposed to better. What I can say is you can’t do more until you do better first, then you can do more better.
35:35
Tab Norris
Well, that’s truth to live by. Right there.
35:38
Andy Paul
Right there.
35:40
Tom Stanfill
I think one of the biggest challenges to implementing, driving change and helping sellers become more effective and increasing their close rate and implementing all the things we talked about is really I think the frontline leader plays a critical role in that. I think they’re so distracted and they don’t trust their ability or give them the bandwidth. I remember one time we trained this organization and we rolled out this huge initiative and we spent all this time and everybody bought it and everybody was excited. Literally a week later they had all the managers doing all these analysis on what doesn’t matter, but completely removed them from coaching their reps right after we implemented the training. It’s like, what are you doing? They’re athletes. Selling is very similar to learning any being an athlete, learning to play. It takes practice and you have to learn these core capabilities.
36:36
Tom Stanfill
It’s not complicated. The ones that we’ve studied this over and over again, it’s like this is part of us validating the impact of training and saying, here’s all the people that are hitting your number, killing your number, crushing it, or in this category of high performers, this is what they do. Well, let’s look at the people that don’t do that. This is what they don’t do well. This is what they’re doing. You just compare it’s clearly a capabilities thing, which means they have to learn to sell, they have to learn how to do these things. These are skills that you develop. Yes, some of them can do it, they can self develop, but most can’t.
37:08
Andy Paul
Yeah. This extends back to what we’re talking about here in the conversation. There’s this coaching is I agree, 100% is the single most thing of biggest impact you can do. Here we have this huge disconnect these days and we assume that these young people that were bringing into sales and we put them into a 90 day on boarding program and throw them into the sharks is we assume that they know how to connect with a human being. We assume that they know how to ask a question, how to be curious. And the fact is, oftentimes they don’t. It’s become more pronounced because we have in the younger generations coming through. And it’s, again, not a criticism. It’s a different world they raised than when were. They’re not on the phone talking to people. Their life is asynchronous messaging. We throw them into an environment where they need to pick up the phone and call people.
38:06
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, right. Good point. It’s like I’ve never done this before.
38:08
Andy Paul
Wait, they’ve never done it before?
38:10
Tom Stanfill
Connecting to a human being.
38:12
Andy Paul
Wow. This is why this has to be part of this or the gap that we’re exposed with the book and so on, is this, people buy from people, which means we have to train people how to be more human and give them this knowledge because they don’t have it. It’s hard to acquire through trial and error. Some will, but we can help people with that. It just has to be done because it’s just a different world out there that people are coming into. Then we assume 90 days is enough. It’s like, well, why is 90 days enough? Why is that the benchmark? Every VC back company says we’re losing productivity and pipeline. It’s like no one’s ever done the correlation to say, well, maybe we took them six months on board, that a year later they’re more productive than if we only gave them 90 days.
39:06
Tab Norris
Right.
39:07
Andy Paul
Again, no one’s looking at that. And I’d be wondering. That probably the case.
39:11
Tom Stanfill
That’s what we learned from. We had to rename Riemersmith on our podcast at the VP of Enterprise for MuleSoft Podcast recently, and it’s exactly what they’re onboarding. Six months and it’s all in.
39:27
Tab Norris
It’s a lot of the things you’re talking about.
39:30
Andy Paul
And it works, right? Because you can’t lose sight of the fact that to some degree or another, sales is an apprenticeship. It’s a skill, it’s a craft. People learn at different rates. People learn it may take six months or some people to get it after they finish their onboarding. It may take some people more or less, that’s fine, we have to be able to accommodate these individual differences. Yeah, this has been mindset become so pervasive for the most part about these things have to happen in this time. This time. We’re not enabling people with the right skills. To the point, Tom, which is perhaps the most important one of all, we’re not enabling our managers with the right skills to be able to coach these people and develop them. Maybe it requires a complete rethinking of how we structure sales that I advocate. If managers aren’t going to coach, then hire coaches, right?
40:26
Tom Stanfill
I mean, provide some level of mentorship.
40:29
Andy Paul
Yeah, there are some people, professional coaches hire them, change the organization. I mean, oh, we don’t have the money. It’s like, yeah, there’s plenty of money, right?
40:38
Tom Stanfill
You go to a trade show and spend.
40:43
Andy Paul
Or even mental health issues. I know sales is incredibly stressful. We know from the Uncrushed survey that came out last year that 75% of sellers are reporting some level of mental distress, anxiety, whatever. Put a therapist on board, right? I mean, if you got a 5% uptick in performance from a number of people, how many people do you have on your sales team? It makes financial sense to have that resource available. It’s not rocket science. We’re living in the real world. Leaders just need to take a new look, being generous to them, a new look at how you’re supporting, enabling your sales teams. Unfortunately, technology is notwithstanding, we’re still fundamentally managing sales the way we did 100 years ago.
41:35
Tom Stanfill
That’s what I was saying earlier. This kind of comes from the Industrial Revolution and how it managed manufacturing versus it’s evolved and it’s got to adjust.
41:48
Andy Paul
Right. Anyway, lots of things that if we.
41:52
Tom Stanfill
Were in charge of the world if.
41:54
Tab Norris
We were in charge of the world.
41:56
Tom Stanfill
Well, we fixed a lot of things on this podcast. Every sales organization in the world. We’ve taught people how to have a human connection and the four pillars that drive influence and success in sales. So I think we can probably chill.
42:18
Tab Norris
I think our work is done here.
42:19
Tom Stanfill
Our work is done here.
42:20
Andy Paul
I think we are in a cold beer or a beverage of choice.
42:24
Tom Stanfill
Beverage of choice?
42:26
Andy Paul
Yeah. Where you guys are.
42:30
Tom Stanfill
A couple of meetings. Andy, tell our audience where they can find more information about you. Obviously the book, but anything else, they need to be aware of that. You sure you got a podcast, so let them know how they can find you.
42:45
Andy Paul
I have a podcast sales enablement with Andy Paul. I don’t know, we’re just getting off the ground. We got about 1100 episodes so far, so just started.
42:55
Tom Stanfill
Okay, good luck with that.
42:57
Andy Paul
Yeah, thank you. And you can buy my book. Sell Without Selling Out subtitle a Guide to Success on your own terms. Which we didn’t really talk about subtext were talking about.
43:06
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
43:08
Andy Paul
Available wherever books are sold. If you want to connect with me, LinkedIn probably the best place to connect. Search randy, Paul and LinkedIn. You’ll find me.
43:17
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, you definitely. Excellent. Well, thank you for joining us, my friend. I loved our conversation when I was on your podcast, having you. I’m just so passionate about your message. Thank you for encouraging. We talk about our podcast, encourage Equip and Elevate, and you did all three well.
43:38
Andy Paul
Thank you. It was a lot of fun.
43:40
Tom Stanfill
I did.
43:40
Tab Norris
It was great meeting you because I use your podcast with my team.
43:46
Andy Paul
Oh, wow.
43:47
Tab Norris
I love it. I encourage them to be listening, so thank you.
43:52
Andy Paul
Yeah, well, it’s part of the Elevate mission. Just give people something to think about. Yes.
44:01
Tom Stanfill
For those of you listening, thanks for again for joining us for another episode of SALES with ASLAN and I hope you’ll join us again on our next podcast, Tab. Who do we have on the next podcast, is it Biden?
44:11
Tab Norris
It’s Bill Clinton.
44:13
Tom Stanfill
Clinton, ah it’s Bill Clinton. Okay. It won’t be as good as Andy. No, but it will be.
Obviously give us some feedback, tell us how we can better, and we always love your comments. Thanks for joining us again for another episode of SALES with ASLAN.
