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. 170 – Creating a Win Strategy
In this episode, Tom and Tab continue with their “back to the basics” theme.
Effectively delivering your recommendation and winning an opportunity starts with, of course, a strategy. Tab and Tom talk us through the four types of strategy and what top sellers do to effectively position their solution.
Listen to the conversation here:
Or check out the full transcript:
00:14
Tom Stanfill
Tab. We’re back in the studio for another episode. It’s good to see you, my friend.
00:20
Tab Norris
Good to see you, my friend.
00:21
Tom Stanfill
I don’t know if you really meant.
00:22
Tab Norris
That Tab, my friend. I’m reading a book right now.
00:26
Tom Stanfill
It’s called my friend Tom.
00:27
Tab Norris
No, haha it’s negotiation. This FBI negotiator, you’re going to become like, yeah, I think I’ll be an FBI agent now. I think when I turn 60, that’s going to be my thing, my new career. FBI. Agent Negotiator in the FBI, Tom. Can you see that?
00:42
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, I think it would be good. What are the people that go in and bank robbery, take hostages, whatever that person is called? Yeah, they can’t be like just your normal robber. They have to be the hostage. If I were a hostage taker, I think I would probably succumb to your negotiation tactics.
01:04
Tab Norris
I’ve been learning tactics. I think I could crush you right now. You get yourself a hostage and watch me go to work. Why I said that? What did you ask?
01:15
Tom Stanfill
I have no idea. I think I said, how are you doing? And you’re like, I’m reading a book. I think it’s my friend. And I said, you don’t mean that. The next thing, I was in prison. That’s the thing. Big.
01:31
Tab Norris
I love us. I did a downturn and how I said that. Yes, I do. And it’s part of the negotiation. We talked about downturn in your voice. I just found myself doing some negotiation.
01:43
Tom Stanfill
Okay, you can have $20. I will give it to you.
01:46
Tab Norris
Thank you. Let those hostages go.
01:49
Tom Stanfill
Now, since we’re on random topics, I had this thought today and, I’ve noticed that I’ve got when I look, we’re on video. For those of us joining us via, I guess, how you normally list up high audio. I noticed today that I like the way the lights that I’ve got set up in my office make me look. I think I’m not attractive. I mean, let’s just go ahead and get that up front. I think I have the best possible look on camera in my office. I’m thinking, how do I lug the lights with me? How can I take it with me instead of, like, if I go home to my wife tonight and if I could just do the same lighting. The problem is I can’t control it. I don’t know, because I’ve sought a lot.
02:35
Tab Norris
Think about how lugging that into Applebee’s tonight for your date night.
02:40
Tom Stanfill
Because I’ve seen a lot of pictures of me lately, and I’m like, I’m just not attracted. I got home last night for my trip and there’s all these pictures of, like, early marriage. I don’t know where they’re from because Claire was asleep. All these pictures, like, from, like, when the kids were babies and I mean, this is 30, 40 years ago because some of them were even high school and like, oh, my gosh, I’m so ugly.
03:00
Tab Norris
So not true. Don’t buy into it.
03:05
Tom Stanfill
We’re not going there. I’m just saying but I think with the lighting I’ve got, so I’m going to have to work out. So you’re going to be negotiator. I’m going to work on lighting. Perfect.
03:13
Tab Norris
Love it. So, Tab, what’s on Tab today, tom.
03:17
Tom Stanfill
As what we’re doing, we’re getting back to the basics. Right. Our goal is to eliminate the hard sell, which is a double meeting. Tab, there’s a double meaning. We’re limiting the high pressure sale, but we’re also trying to eliminate the difficulty or to make it easier to sell. So it’s not so difficult. We’re eliminating the hard sell, and we’re doing that so we’ll crush our number in 2023. We’re doing that by getting back to the basics. We’ve talked about a lot of things, Tab, as we’re kicking the year off. We talked about who we need to be, how do we need to work on us, our personal brand. Because if we’re not invitable, we won’t get invited, right? We talked about how to position a meeting. We’ve talked about how to create a plan. We’ve talked last couple of episodes, we’re talking about our discovery framework.
04:07
Tom Stanfill
Now, Tab, I think it’s time for this is a good time for Drumroll. I think it’s time for us to talk about how do you deliver your recommendation, how do you build value in your recommendation, how do you determine what you want to recommend and how do you deliver that recommendation in an effective way so that the people say yes.
04:32
Tab Norris
Do you just talk loud?
04:35
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, that’s one of the steps. Yeah. Talk loud. Talk loud. I was thinking about the guy in Elf when he goes, yeah, I don’t know why I came up with that. But it’s Friday, Tab. It’s Friday. It’s Friday. We’re going to talk about the first step is develop your strategy.
05:00
Tab Norris
You’re a big fan of that, Tom? I picked up on a theme. Strategy, then implementation or strategy.
05:06
Tom Stanfill
Strategy. Yeah. Well, it’s kind of like a plan. Well, maybe it’s because that’s not an intuitive thing for me to develop strategy. I like to really work on that because I’m kind of more of a fire. Aim, ready.
05:23
Tab Norris
Yeah, that’s true.
05:25
Tom Stanfill
I have a lot of ready, aim, aim, fire. I’m more fire then what did I just do? Let’s fire again. That worked. One thing’s good about me, Tab, is I fire a lot. Right. But I also assess what happened. So then over time, you fire tighter. Little no, but I really learned throughout my career in sales that the planning and really determining what’s my plan here to win. Right. It’s a competitive it’s almost always competitive. I’m always competing against something. Even if it’s just status quo, I’m always competing. And my biggest villain is time. Right. I mean, it’s like I only have a limited time of an attention to deliver my recommendation. I can only say so much. If you said well, if somebody said you could talk as long as you want, tell somebody everything you need to know about your solution, how much time would you need?
06:32
Tom Stanfill
I’d say probably six to 7 hours. Yeah, I don’t know. Have you ever thought about that?
06:37
Tab Norris
No, but I’ve gotten myself in a position where I thought I just talked for 7 hours. Felt like it because I didn’t have a good strategy. To your point. It was just I was talking to a client today, a new client, and they were just going, I don’t know why my team so struggles. They just can’t shut up. They drove on and on, and these are very seasoned salespeople people. People just fall in love with their content. They fall in love. They want to share everything that they have. And that is why I’m with you. It’s like you have to have a strategy.
07:17
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, that’s a really good point. The reason we talk a lot is because we’re thinking, hey, if I cover everything in there somewhere, you will find what you need. Actually, what happens is when you talk a lot, they remember zero.
07:31
Tab Norris
Yeah, that’s right.
07:33
Tom Stanfill
They don’t know anything. I was just in a very competitive situation where there was like nine firms we won, and I was debriefing with the person, the decision maker. When she started describing to me what the competitors did, I’m like, how did they miss that? It’s like there was one central thing that the person wanted, and so she was describing the post win loss meeting analysis, post mortem meeting. I can’t think today, but with the competitors of mine and the people that lost, just like the guy said, well, I wish I’d have known that. We could have done that. I could have done it. I said it over and over again. He’s like, If I just talk, you’re more successful when they’re talking than when you’re talking. I remember learning that early in my career. We got to start with the strategy. You have to know, you got to limit down what is it.
08:34
Tom Stanfill
And I think of it this way. Tab, answer the question. You will win if you will win if this happens. If they understand this, if they believe this, they understand it, they know we can do this, then we will win. That’s ultimately where you need to start.
08:52
Tab Norris
It’s excellent. So that’s the strategy. You answer that question, first and foremost, you will win if so, I know that. And that’s discovery, right? I mean, that’s what we’ve been talking about. That comes out of discovery.
09:07
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, that’s why Discovery is so important, because if you can’t answer that question, like my competitor, they would win if they could demonstrate that. In this case, it was a customized program. The client needed a custom program. They needed a blend of several programs. Everybody they were talking to could provide the content but they needed to be able to blend it uniquely to the client. That was it. It was like that’s it.
09:41
Tab Norris
We love everybody’s content, don’t worry about everybody else is just banging the drum about why they’re so great. And I think you’re missing the point.
09:50
Tom Stanfill
I realized through discovery and through listening not talking that’s what they needed. They had a unique role and the role had unique needs. I could tell it was obvious through discovery that they needed a custom solution. That became my strategy is to demonstrate I’m going to demonstrate to them that we can build a custom solution.
10:25
Tab Norris
Your presentation was that’s what it drove towards everything you talked about? Because that was what was unique, one word customized. That was customized so it all flows see and see. Why do you think that is so hard for salespeople?
10:39
Tom Stanfill
I think because it’s because if you listen it means you have to change. Yeah, you have to change what you say. You have to think it’s hard. Let me show you what I did. Everything I shared so what I did is I said you guys built your process because everybody’s got a process for the people that they want to train and they’re saying, yeah, we’re in the process of building that. What I did is I built everything around their process. I changed everything we did instead of building our content around our process that we created because we have to because most people don’t have one or they need ours. I built it and changed it around their process. I changed the colors of everything so it matched their colors. I changed the language of where I could to change the map. So everything continued to tell one story.
11:28
Tom Stanfill
We will customize and you not only.
11:31
Tab Norris
Set it, I kind of almost like role modeled it. I mean, you did it, you started the process of doing I’m not just giving this lip service you’re seeing me do this.
11:44
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. I also would say things like customization. One of the things I said is that a lot of people ask the wrong question around customization and they say what do you mean? I say, well, they ask what do you customize? I said that’s the wrong question. And they’re like, what do you mean? That’s how the question is who customizes it? Because is because who works with you is a lot more important than the what because if you get the right people working with you, they’ll build it. You get the wrong people, it doesn’t matter what you want to build.
12:12
Tab Norris
Yeah.
12:13
Tom Stanfill
You need to meet the people they’re going to customize. It was just a real clear now we’re going to talk about under developing your strategy. There’s really four options and these are military terms. Have thought about changing these terms but they’re so familiar in the market that I just stuck with them. Tab and you’re familiar with this as well? I love them, but there’s frontal, flank, fragment, and delay. Those are really the four types of strategies when you want to win. In this case that I’m talking about, it was a frontal strategy. In other words, what the client wanted. Every client wants something, they need something. You look at what they want you to assess, can I provide that better than everybody else? If I take a frontal attack against my competitors, will I win? Am I stronger than my competitors? I don’t need to do anything fancy.
13:12
Tom Stanfill
I just need to show that I do exactly what they want, and I do it better than the competitors. That’s frontal. In other words, my strength is greater than their strength. So I’m just going to be straightforward. You want a company that’s global. We’re global. We’re the most global company you’re going to talk to. So I’m just going to do that. I’m going to stick with their decision drivers. Basically, I’m just going to demonstrate that’s frontal. So in this case, it’s frontal. So, for example, like a real estate agent, I was thinking about an example that would be applicable to everybody. I think one that I thought about tab as I was thinking about how to unpack this topic is if you’re trying to assess a Realtor, so you’re selling your house. You’re selling your house, and a Realtor is coming in, and you’re the Realtor, and you want the listing.
14:00
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, right. The Realtor comes in and says and you tell the Realtor, which I was kind of in this situation back in July. I was in the exact situation. I want to sell my house. I want to make up numbers. I want to sell my house for a million. I want to sell it in three months. I want an agent that knows my market, okay? I believe I want them to be experts in my market. I live in a unique place, and I want them to know where I live. So they’ve got connections there. They’ll understand what it’s worth. They’ll know how to contrast me with the competition. And that’s what I want. That’s what I’m telling you I want. A frontal approach would be a Realtor has the most experience from where I live.
14:42
Tab Norris
They’re like, if you’ve got that, you come straight in, you will win. If they’re like, they’re so excited.
14:48
Tom Stanfill
I’ve been in this market for 40 years. I’m the number one agent in this market. That’s who I am.
14:53
Tab Norris
Yeah, there are people out there that do bigger markets. They do other things. But I’m super duper focused. I’m just rifled in because I find that being living in one market, you own that market. I know all the details. I know exactly what things are worth when other people don’t. Blah, blah. Gosh that’s so good.
15:12
Tom Stanfill
Now the other strategy is to flank. Now, you’re the realtor who’s not experienced in that market, okay? You believe that you have a better solution. You’re like, you don’t really care about somebody in that market. Let me tell you what. You don’t want to sell it for a million, and you don’t want to sell it in three months. You want to sell it now. So I’m changing your criteria. You don’t want to wait three months. If you wait three months, you’re going to miss the market. The market is exploding, and people are going to pay 20% more for your house. You need to sell right now. But I’m not ready. This is my strategy. I’m going to tell you to buy right now. I’m also going to tell your number one thing you need is not an agent who knows your market. You need an agent that understands financing.
15:57
Tom Stanfill
Because what’s going to happen is everybody’s going to bid on your house, and then there’s going to be this bidding war. You’re not going to know who’s going to qualify because if the first bidder doesn’t qualify and they fall out, then the next bidder comes in much lower and you won’t get a million, too, which is what you should get for your house, not a million. Completely different strategy.
16:15
Tab Norris
Yeah, well, that’s fine. Can I go back? Just so everybody is tracking with us frontal, just for you guys. They’re not familiar with military terms.
16:26
Tom Stanfill
For those of you who haven’t gone to war.
16:30
Tab Norris
Well, no, the frontal is the patriot. The movie the patriot. For any of my movie buffs out there, frontal is they mark, they get a big feel.
16:38
Tom Stanfill
You mean the English soldiers?
16:41
Tab Norris
They walk out, there they are right here, and then the Americans and they’re the colonists or whatever, they’re a big, huge field, and they just pull out their guns. They just start shooting each other. We have more men. You’ve got gladiator. You’ll see that? Then flank is, I think, a gladiator. I don’t know, early in one of the early scenes, they’re kind of losing out here. They feel like they don’t have that winter, they don’t have the strength. So they got to get creative. They send a group around, swing way back around here, and they swing a group on the left side all the way around here, and they come in on the back side and they take them out because they weren’t going to win frontal. So I get it. It’s the same exact thing is sometimes if you’ve got the win, if you’ve got the strength, go frontal if you don’t.
17:50
Tab Norris
You can come up with a flank strategy, kind of an end around it’s.
17:54
Tom Stanfill
An end around. The simple way to think of it is you’re changing the criteria. They came up with a set of criteria. These are five things we want to happen and you’re like, two of those are correct, and I’m going to change three of those.
18:05
Tab Norris
Okay.
18:06
Tom Stanfill
You should almost always go for a flank strategy, because even if you’re frontal and somebody outflanks you’re screwed.
18:14
Tab Norris
You can go frontal with a touch of flank.
18:16
Tom Stanfill
With a touch of flank. It is almost like you almost want to do some something you’re looking for. At least you want to be prepared for the flank, for somebody. If you really strongly believe that you should wait three months, you should focus on somebody that has experience in the market and you really believe that you’ve got to prepare them for flank, but you’ve got to always be thinking about flank. You’ve got to always be thinking about how could somebody outflank you? How could somebody come up with a different and now the customer is going, well, I didn’t think about that. Why didn’t somebody else, why didn’t the other people tell me about that? Frontal? Yes. You’re the strongest based on the need. You’re the strongest and you’re going to win based on it. If nothing changes, you will win. Be careful if something changes and things always change.
19:05
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
19:06
Tab Norris
I feel like you’re always fearful, but.
19:08
Tom Stanfill
In this case, like in the case that I’m talking about this recent situation opportunity that we won, we didn’t flink. We strengthened our frontal position because it was the right position that was unique.
19:22
Tab Norris
And you knew that was unique. We do that better than anybody else.
19:26
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. A lot of times when it’s customized, we will send the customization team in there and I’ll say, I want you to meet the people you’re going to work with. We’ll fly them to the meeting. And so you’re like, here’s your team. You said, this is what’s most important and there’s the team. So I took a gamble. We’ll take a gamble on something like that.
19:46
Tab Norris
Yeah.
19:46
Tom Stanfill
So that’s frontal, that’s blank. Then there’s also fragment. Right. You just go for a smaller piece of the pie. That doesn’t apply to our real estate agent scenario, but yeah, I just want.
19:56
Tab Norris
To sell your closet.
20:00
Tom Stanfill
We’ll sell piece of your property, a little slither. I just want to do your mortgage. I don’t care if I’m going to do you.
20:07
Tab Norris
It definitely comes into play in corporate America.
20:12
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. If you’re a B to B or selling a solution, you almost always can fragment where you look at it honestly and you say, I’m not going to win the solution, I’m not going to they’re talking it’s a global opportunity. They need a big provider. They’re going to go with the big boys or girls. You’re like, yeah, but I could do this one division because this one division is unique. I’m just going to focus on that or one aspect of the solution. And so that’s fragmented.
20:44
Tab Norris
Tom, it’s interesting, I’m in the middle of on the winning side of a fragmented strategy. I think this would be encouraging to some of our listeners because sometimes, I mean, I’ve fragmented and it’s just kind of petered out. You know what I mean? Like I tried it and sometimes that happens. I had a situation with the client, same exact thing. They had a very well known provider in there. One little piece of the business was thinking about. We need to fill a little gap here.
21:15
Tom Stanfill
Right.
21:15
Tab Norris
I’m digging, trying to figure out if I have any like you don’t have a prayer. All that other stuff so ingrained in our culture and how we’ve already spent a gazillion dollars just you’re wasting your time. So which is fine. I said, Good, get in the door. I’m telling you Tom, we’re at year three, got in with a fragment. We’re at year three. It’s finally going to pay off.
21:37
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, right.
21:39
Tab Norris
It’s been a slow drip, big company slow drip. What happens is you’re there, you try to meet with somebody. I got to meet with the VP and then this VP and I think I told you I send him your book and he reads the book and then we connect on that. Don’t forget about the book. We get a presentation just to encourage people. It can work.
22:03
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. What I’m hearing you say is fragment can lead total solution. It can be a great way to get in the door and demonstrate the value and then it can lead or it may just be you’re only getting a part of that business well and.
22:17
Tab Norris
You can make nice money for a part of the business for a long time. Which is fine.
22:20
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, which is fine. I think the key is to be honest with yourself about where there are is there really an opportunity to fragment? Because I think sometimes you can spend a lot of energy and time on something where it’s just not worth them working with another vendor partner for that one segment. You got to be really diligent about determining if that’s something you can do. The other one I think I want to bring up, even though it’s not complicated, is delay. Even though you’re like, well, why in the world would you delay? Why would you ever delay? Which basically you’re saying, don’t buy something now. You don’t need to invest in the solution now. I saw this play out with one of our clients. We were working with the partner. We didn’t have the relationship the partner did. She did something that I was shocked out.
23:23
Tom Stanfill
They were literally lined up to buy training. They’re like, we want to buy training. They were saying, we’re going to represent Azel’s solution, we’re going to sell it. And the clients like, we want training. The partner was acting as a consultant, said, you don’t need to do training right now. I was wait a minute, hold on, I’ll pick it up from here. She says, you guys aren’t even holding. No one even is comped right now based on selling anything. So there’s no compensation. You want these people to learn all these new skills, new strategy, and do the heavy lifting of learning something, and they don’t even get compensated for selling anything. The first step is you need to change your compensation plan before you ever implement sales training. That literally. She was saying, I want to take this big commission check and set it over here because I’m more interested in this working for you than I am about getting an initial commission check.
24:22
Tom Stanfill
And sure enough, I think tab. That was ten years ago.
24:29
Tab Norris
Yeah.
24:30
Tom Stanfill
And so that’s exactly what they did. They set aside, they stopped the process, changed their comp plan, implemented that, then they implemented sales training. They’re still training today. They’re still a client. And so that’s brilliant. That’s a delay. By the way, that’s a great way if everybody’s coming in there and it’s really competitive and you’re like, I wouldn’t do training right now. Everybody would be going, what?
24:55
Tab Norris
Bring some kind of value add and kind of help them think through some things and be a trusted partner.
25:01
Tom Stanfill
I’ve also seen that happen where they’re not recommending a different solution, but are delaying the solution. What they’re saying is they’re delaying the process because the process is wrong. Like, you guys are down the road at implementing the solution and you need to back up because you haven’t done some of the things you need to do to choose the right firm. They’ll say delay or else, or we’re out. I think that can sometimes be another brilliant move. Not because it’s manipulative, because it’s the best thing to do, right?
25:32
Tab Norris
And so I’m going to ask it.
25:35
Tom Stanfill
Kind of goes back.
25:36
Tab Norris
So you got these three different strategies. So give us kind of four tab. Four. I’m sorry for I kind of put the fragment delay together, but I shouldn’t.
25:46
Tom Stanfill
It’s four different words and none of them are PS, which, by the way.
25:50
Tab Norris
I think our listeners probably appreciate after the episode.
25:56
Tom Stanfill
If you haven’t listened to our last episode.
26:03
Tab Norris
Just kind of net it out. You’re thinking through which one of these strategies give us some tips or some ideas around the things you’ve learned to help you pick the right strategy just to kind of net it out for each one.
26:17
Tom Stanfill
Well, one of the things I would say, the way that I think about it is I’m nervous about picking frontal. Right? I’m nervous I’ve really got to double click on that and really confirm that this is what they want. Because if I pick the frontal strategy, somebody else flanks and I miss something, I’m screwed. So I’m paranoid about Flank. I will say ultimately, what drives me is I just think about what they should do. I try to. I think that’s the best advice I can give people. Don’t try to get creative. Don’t try to get fancy, don’t try to be manipulative. Just figure out is if I were president of that company or I owned that company, maybe that’s a better way to think about it. If I own that company, what would I do and what should I do? Let that be your guide and speak the truth because that’s where your confidence comes from.
27:12
Tom Stanfill
Like what I’m saying in the room and going, this is what you should be doing because this doesn’t make sense. Like when I talked to thought about the opportunity we’re talking about where it needed to be customized. They had to have it customized. I could immediately go, you’re going to talk to all these firms and no one really does what you do. You’re kind of in this hybrid role and so this content doesn’t fit you. This kind of you need a blend. That’s just the truth. Now the question is, do I want to provide that?
27:39
Tab Norris
Yes. Does it fit what my so I’m.
27:41
Tom Stanfill
Looking at it from my customers perspective and not how do I win perspective. Because if I look at it from my customers perspective and figure out what they need and what’s the truth and now I come back and look at what I offer now I say, well, can I do it? The first thing is what should happen? The second thing is, can I do it? If I can’t do it better than everybody else, then I’m out.
28:06
Tab Norris
That’s a really important step in the.
28:08
Tom Stanfill
Process.
28:11
Tab Norris
Based on all the discovery I’ve done. What should they do? Step one, then. Now we put our strategy, assuming it’s qualified, and then I’m the right.
28:22
Tom Stanfill
That’s part of what should they do qualify. Because if you’re like, they shouldn’t do it at all.
28:27
Tab Norris
Yeah.
28:29
Tom Stanfill
We’Re going to respond to spend all this time they’ll figure out eventually that they shouldn’t do it.
28:34
Tab Norris
Yeah. You kind of look at you and what you offer and if what they need is six things and you only do one, well, I think you got your strategy. You’re going to fragment. If you have six and you do all six, you can go frontal with a flank, a touch a flank.
28:54
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
28:54
Tab Norris
I like that. I like how you said that. I think that’s really important. I’ve never thought about that. Tom is divorce yourself.
29:03
Tom Stanfill
Divorce yourself from what you sell. The people that are really good at this. At first, I have no dog in the fight. It’s not about what I’m going to earn. It’s like I’m here looking at what they need to do and then I change roles and then I look at what I can offer and I see if that’s a match. And then I get excited. When I start to get excited, I just set all my hopes and. Dreams aside, and I just look at their world, and then if I get excited, I can help these people versus I can’t do this.
29:45
Tab Norris
This just happened to me. I’m still trying to get this deal. I’ll let everybody know if I win or not, but this happened. Stay tuned. But no, this happened to me. Tom. I was digging and I was trying to figure out and I started getting kind of scared because they started bubbling all these things up and there were these multiple divisions, and these people are going to be a problem. I’m going, oh, no, this is going to create a big and I’m going to have to do this presentation. I felt like I hadn’t done enough discovery, and so I set up a meeting with my coach and I said, hey, can I just grab 30 minutes? I want this presentation to be a home run. And I feel like I’m cloudy. And she goes, of course. We jump on and we do a 30, and I start clearing some things up, and she basically says, Well, I’m glad you called because something has changed because it was cloudy, and I probably should have let you know this before your presentation.
30:39
Tab Norris
I said, Well, I’m kind of glad I checked back in with you. She said, that whole division, that portion, it’s not even that important. It’s not even that big. They’re not even going to be in this presentation. We’re moving past, we’re moving forward without them. Please, just shoot a rifle shot right down the middle to your point. As soon as she told me that, I got excited about my presentation because I knew were the right fit, I knew I could come in passionately, I could be frontal and we could win.
31:11
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, there you go. It goes back to discovery, and if you have that angst, I don’t really know if you start to think, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to present, and I’m having difficulty making decisions about what to include in my presentation. Remember, the way I think about it is if I’ve got five to seven minutes per slide, if you’re going to think about our concept, like, however you present your solution, whatever concept, really important thing you want to communicate, you only have five to seven minutes, depending on what I’ve seen. We’ll just cut it in the middle and say, six minutes. I really do have it that tight. Like on this slide, it’s five most, it’ll be seven, and I really count. You only have a couple of things you can show them that you only have time for a couple of things.
32:02
Tom Stanfill
Making that decision and knowing what you’re going to cut, what you’re going to leave in, and if you’re not sure you feel that I don’t know, then you don’t know you need to.
32:14
Tab Norris
Talk to somebody and don’t be afraid to do should I have learned more, probably. There’s nothing I can do about that. If you feel that, just at least do everything in your power to try to get clarification if you can.
32:26
Tom Stanfill
This is a really good point, Tab, because sometimes you’re going to be in situations where you can’t. They create a process where they’re going to keep you in the dark because they want you to go first and just talk and they want to see what you say. They don’t want you to do any discovery and kind of make up stuff and act like you’re a fit when you’re not. They just want you to come in and go without reading the profile on the dating app. What are you looking for? No question, right? No question. Tell us who you are, what you’re looking for. They want you to come in and say, this is who I do and this is what I do. That’s their ability to kind of figure out who you are. And sometimes you’re stuck. I like to come up with that bridge slide that you mentioned, but I like to start with kind of repeating back to them, here’s what you want.
33:24
Tom Stanfill
I want them to go, yes, this is exactly what I want. I want to say it in a way that they get excited about it. It’s usually more than just a number. It’s like it’s something about being best in class or doing something for their customers. Something that kind of creates some emotion. That’s me communicating, I think. I get you. Here are the things that I believe that need to happen for you to achieve that result. Usually that’s where I’m going to put in the bullets below. I’m going to put in those flank the criteria where I’m flanking or I’m communicating to them. This is what needs to happen. That if I’m wrong, because I’ve tried to guess with limited knowledge and that’s where I can adjust if I’m a little off, right? And then they can speak to that.
34:20
Tab Norris
Don’t you think that builds a ton of credibility too? This is where you show you’ve really been listening. I just did this and it was the same thing. This is what you have to do. You can flavor in things that I knew some words that they use, like things like we operate in silos and we miss opportunities. You have to have content developed specifically to fix this problem versus just the canned. You need X, Y and Z. And that is flanking, isn’t it?
34:53
Tom Stanfill
And that’s a good point. Even if it’s a frontal approach, I’m always going to put something in those bullets below. That about kind of disruptive. I call them disruptive test, things they haven’t thought about that are really critical to achieving what they want to achieve. Even though it might be a frontal approach, I’m still going to get them to think differently about how to solve it. Like, yeah, it’s customized, but you need to think about who not what.
35:18
Tab Norris
That’s a perfect example of what you’re talking about, the who not what. Because everybody customize. Everybody says, well, we customize.
35:25
Tom Stanfill
Everybody customize. What are they missing? That’s when if it’s not a customization thing, for example, or global thing, or it’s the most features or it’s the most experience, whatever it is that you thought that they were excited about, they’ll tell you, well, actually, I’ve been in situations where they’re like, well, who told you that person? You were talking to the wrong person.
35:50
Tab Norris
Yeah.
35:51
Tom Stanfill
Now, if it’s late in the process, you’re screwed.
35:55
Tab Norris
Well, we’ve all been there, but you.
35:57
Tom Stanfill
Might be able to if it’s designed to keep you in the dark in some situations, they really do. I don’t think it’s wise for your potential partner to do that, but they do. They keep you in the dark. That’s where you’ve got to set yourself up to go in multiple different directions. You’ve got to say, these are all the options based on what I understand. These are the different things that you need to be considered, and you got to be able to go in every all potential options. I’ve actually been in a situation where kind of my flank was they were expecting a presentation, and I had very little information, and that was by design.
36:37
Tab Norris
They were keeping that from you.
36:41
Tom Stanfill
I knew enough about what they did and what they wanted based on the profile, but it was just by design. It was like, we want you to come in, and we want you to tell us who you are. We want you to do your thing. We want you to talk. We don’t want to talk. I walked in, and I was like, okay, based on what I know about this opportunity, I go, I don’t think there’s a chance in h*** that I’m going to win this or it’s even going to be a real deal based on what I’m hearing. In other words, I wasn’t going to take the frontal approach. So I walked in. I go, I have zero presentation. I’m not going to present a thing. I said, we’re going to talk. I said, you’re going to ask me questions, and I’m going to answer them.
37:22
Tom Stanfill
You’re going to get what you want from me because that’s what you want. I don’t know what you want, so I’m just going to sit here, and you don’t have any questions for me. I’ll leap. If you want to know what we do, you ask me what you want to know, and I’ll tell you because I’m not going to guess because I zero information on your company. They literally called literally the next day and hired us.
37:44
Tab Norris
Wow, I’ve never heard that story. That’s a great story.
37:48
Tom Stanfill
It’s interesting. That. Yeah. I don’t know whether to tell the rest of that story, but that company actually went bankrupt. It’s interesting, the woman who was the decision maker called me before the company was going bankrupt and it was known and made sure we got paid.
38:05
Tab Norris
Wow, that’s awesome.
38:07
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, because it was a good partnership.
38:10
Tab Norris
Wow, that’s good. All right, so we got strategy. I think we wrap it up here.
38:17
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, I think part one, we talked about developing your strategy. We got to answer the question, you will win if and you know that because you’ve effectively discovered what they want and what they’re decision drivers. You also have to uncover who, if you don’t have the right, who? Who is the decision making team? Who’s the decision maker of the influencer? The drivers don’t matter because you got to make sure they’re the right drivers. You got to know what they want, what they need. Right. You got to know who’s driving this and what are the decision drivers that will help you ultimately determine what your position is. And it’s four options. Frank, flank, frontal, fragment, and delay. Tab. So we’ll get back next time.
39:03
Tab Norris
Okay.
39:04
Tom Stanfill
We’ll talk about now that what your position is, we’re going to talk about the three CS of how to deliver your recommendation, which is a framework that I think is the most effective way to get them engaged in what you’re going to say. There’s a way that every time you talk, they listen. Isn’t that exciting? You think about it. What if every time you talk, people lean in? There is a way to do that so that every time you start talking, they will lean in. How do I get them to understand what I offer and what’s unique about me and make sure that they emotionally embrace the recommendation? We’ll talk about that in part due that’s French. Tab.
39:43
Tab Norris
I thought that was Hungarian.
39:45
Tom Stanfill
Thank you. French, too. All right, let’s wrap it up. Well, thanks, everybody, for joining us. We’re always, as grateful for feedback. If you have feedback, we’d love to hear it. We’d love to get better. Tab, I think we should always remind our listeners that you’re more successful when you serve. Wow.
40:01
Tab Norris
I like that.
40:02
Tom Stanfill
You are. I mean, you’re more successful. All we’re talking about is figuring out what the customer really needs, what’s important to them, determining then how you can serve them, and then if you can, that will make your strategy very easy to develop. If you can’t, you’re going to struggle because you’ll be making up stuff.
40:19
Tab Norris
There you go. It’s truth.
40:21
Tom Stanfill
All right, thanks for joining us for another episode of Sales With Aslan. We’ll see you next time.
