As you know, I went to the World Trade Day at Bryant University a couple of weeks ago. I’m still doing my follow up, but yesterday, I called AbeeSee. Now, AbeeSee and I had met in the past, and his face was vaguely familiar, but he wasn’t in my address book, let alone on my list of resources. So, yesterday afternoon I called him. He answered the phone, “Hello, AbeeSee, may I help you?” Hi, AbeeSee, Rick Roberge. Oh, hi. Hey, I’m in the middle of something, can we talk later and we scheduled a call for this morning at 8:30.

I called at 8:30 and left my number on voice mail. I blocked my number and called an hour and a half later. He answered the same way. I started with, “Hi, AbeeSee. Rick Roberge”. Oh. (Obviously not happy.) Sounds like a bad time. Not exactly. Oh, then it must be that you don’t want to talk to me. (You ready?) I’m not really in the market for sales training.

This is a guy who didn’t pay attention to Philip Styrlund’s talk. I told him that the mistake he made was assuming that that was why I was calling. In reality, his business card reads “Custom Business Research & Information”. So, you be the judge. Do you think that any of our development clients might have liked to know about him?

Here’s a few other questions.

Why did he go to World Trade Day if not to make connections with potential clients?

Why did he have me call back?

Why didn’t he just make his stupid comment on the first call?

Incidentally, his name isn’t really AbeeSee, but everything else is true. I just don’t want to raise his Google Rank by mentioning him or his company on my blog, but Pete, if you got this guy there, you should take him off all of your lists.

What does it mean when you get this at the end of a sales call?

Does it mean that your prospect is engaged?

Does it mean that you’ve uncovered any compelling need?

Why would a prospect say something like this after you’ve just spent an hour or two having an in depth conversation about their business?

That is the question.

When a prospect tells you that they’ll keep you in mind, that’s the last thing that they’re gonna do. In my opinion, one of two things has happened during your time together.

Either, you aren’t even close. You never uncovered the real problem. You haven’t set yourself up as the expert. There has been no real conversation and the prospect is trying to let you down gently. You’ll never get them on the phone again. You’re not the answer. You haven’t even shown that you know what the problem is.

Or, you did your job too well. You helped the prospect realize how bad things are and that it’s probably their fault. The prospect’s pride is probably shattered and you did it. They may or may not be upset with you, but they are most certainly embarrassed at being exposed and are just looking for a way to exit the meeting and the relationship as quickly as possible. This prospect may be more willing to lose their business (and blame the economy, competition, or timing) than to admit to the world what you uncovered…..That they did it!

Either way, somebody (you or the prospect) can’t handle the truth.

It’s been busy at David Kurlan & Associates. For some reason mediocrity is no longer acceptable. We’ve got dozens of new clients with hundreds of salespeople, managers, and executives striving to be over-achievers. Consequently, the stories are becoming plentiful. These are three “real-life” stories from today.

1.)
Client comes in and says, “Hey, Rick! I got a call today from the VP of an international company that’s in charge of North America.” So, I ask how the call went. He says, “He calls and says, ‘Hi, this is Dave and I’m returning calls and I’ve got you on my list’.” My client replies, “Really? How’d I get on that list?” Is that beautiful or what? He didn’t thank him for returning the call or say that he was hoping he’d call. He said, “Really? How’d I get on that list?” Perfect! Dave replied that he had received a strong recommendation from a very respected person that my client had lunch with a week-ish ago. They are meeting next week. I love it!

2.)
Client calls and says, “Hey, Rick! I just closed a big sale and I KNOW it’s because of what I learned at Kurlan.” So, I dutifully ask, “Really? How so?” Here’s the story. He had a closing meeting this afternoon. His price was $125,000. The prospect tells him that he really likes the proposal, but he’s got another proposal for $115,000. Our client stays cool and asks, “If the prices were identical, whose would you pick?” The prospect replies, “Yours.” Client asks, “Why?” and coaxes a few reasons out of the prospect. The most important reason was that our client asked so many good questions that the prospect really felt that our client understood what the prospect wanted. You ready? Here’s the lesson. The prospect did the deal for $125,000 and when he was signing the contract, he told our client, “You asked so many great questions when we met that when I met with the other guys I kept thinking about those questions and wondering why these other guys weren’t asking them. This client is not only a good fellow, he’s getting to be a great salesman!

3.)
A couple of weeks ago a client asks me how to handle a particular situation. He’d scheduled a meeting with a prospect and the prospect asked to reschedule. They did. The morning of the rescheduled appointment, the prospect’s secretary called to say that the prospect was hung up and would have to reschedule. Two months later (week before last), client gets an email saying, “It’s time!” That’s when he asked me what to do. See the guy? Blow him off? I asked him why he even wanted to give the guy another chance and he told me that several of his clients had been trying to put them together. The prospect had a good business, but he wanted it to be better. I told him to tell the prospect that the cost of the meeting would be $1,000. If they decided to do business, the $1,000 would be applied to the first invoice for services. If they didn’t do business, or the meeting didn’t happen for some reason, the $1,000 would be our client’s to keep. Client must not have liked that answer because he sought other opinions. The meeting was yesterday. He didn’t charge anything. Today he called saying that he met with the prospect yesterday. The prospect opened with”….I’m always looking to improve.” He went to, “Things are actually pretty good.” The prospect never shared anything meaningful. Was never emotionally involved in the conversation. Essentially, wasted our client’s time because he had no compelling need to do anything. He would not have paid $1,000 to meet and our client would not have wasted his time.

The lesson: Listen to Rick!

Have a good weekend!

Dave Kurlan commented to this post https://therainmakermaker.com/2007/05/13/nicholson-cruise–selling.aspx and in the process reminded me that I intended to answer my own questions after you all gave your answers. Frankly, I was pretty surprised that you all had so little to say. Nonetheless, my thoughts:

Do you believe that prospects are telling them the truth? Are you sure? I think that prospects tell the truth when it suits them. They may not care that you think that you’re entitled to the truth. They care only about what they’re after. If you’re a crappy salesperson, they’ll compare you to the competition. They’ll get your price to see if it’s the lowest or if they can get you to lower it. They’ll want you to give them samples. They’ll give you 20 minutes even though they agreed to a 90 minute appointment. They’ll tell you that they’re the decisionmaker even though there are two partners, a committee, or a board that’s actually gonna make the decision. They are not inclined to believe that you actually know what you’re talking about. They’re not inclined to give you information that they believe that you’ll use against them. They are not inclined to cooperate until you give them a reason and once you do, it will look a lot more like they are cooperating with you.

Compelling Reason….Compelling Reason….Compelling Reason. Read Baseline Selling. Until you have uncovered your prospect’s Compelling Reason, there will be no cooperation, no meeting of the minds, nothing! Here’s the rest of the story. You’re not entitled to know what the prospect’s Compelling Reason is. You must earn it. You have to understand your prospect, sometimes better than they understand themselves and they’re typically NOT going to say, “Here’s my compelling reason….” You need to be a double expert. You have to understand your stuff, industry, competition, etc. You also have to be an expert at asking the right questions and that is the hard part. Until you get that right, they’ll have neither the time nor the inclination to explain themselves to your and they won’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to.

Next question:

If the truth doesn’t involve you.

If you are not the right solution.

Will you be able to handle the truth?

I asked Philip Styrlund, President of the Summit Group if I could share this story. He said, “Yes.” I’m still amazed when really successful people share really good stuff with regular everyday guys like me.

Anyway, here’s the story. Philip was leaving the house to make his fortune and his father, a plain spoken, hard working Swede from Minnesota said, “Philip, be interested, not interesting.”

How can I add to that.

Thank you, Philip’s dad.

Mike Eagan and I attended the World Trade Day 2007 at Bryant University last Wednesday. We were there because On April 30th, I received the following email from Pete Caputa.

Rick,
This one is kindofa big deal.
http://whizspark.com/es/ViewEvent.aspx?eid=2117
Do you want to help me bring down a posse, so we can all network effectively there?
Pete

The plan was to bring a group of “self pronounced super networkers” from the Beechwood Forum, Seven Hills Group, BNI, and the chamber networking groups and leap frog through the 40+ exhibitors’ booths and the 600+ manufacturing company executives in attendance.

These super networkers are the same people that are shoving their business cards in the faces of disinterested attendees at the free or near free business after hours, breakfasts and expos. As a result of being at World Trade Day 2007, Mike Eagan has two appointments with $50+ million companies that want to talk about upgrading their salesforces. I have a conversation set up with a potential partner that is developing business in India and believes that both sides need to learn the other’s sales process. Pete has conversations set up with real companies with real budgets and a real desire to increase attendance at their events.

So, why don’t these “self pronounced super networkers” have similar results? They weren’t there!

Why weren’t they there? They might say that they don’t target companies that have sales in the millions. They might say that they don’t target companies that do business internationally (even though they’re based right here). They might say that they knew the weather was gonna be nice that day and they wanted to play golf. They might say that they wanted to make cold calls that day. (Yeah, right!) My guess is that they didn’t have the $125 admission fee, or they didn’t have enough confidence in their sales ability to get a return on their investment. (No call to action here. Just think about it.)

Super networkers?………Yeah, right!

Have you thought about the American Idol phenomenom? Think about it. What an exercise in capitalism.

I’m pretty upset that Melinda got eliminated, but I never voted and who do you think is gonna buy more CD’s, when they make it big, me or the teenie boppers that voted for Blake and Jordin? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Let America vote for who they want to pay to listen to. How many of the contestants have been marketable? Not just the winners and finalists, but how many of the twelves are now generating profits in the music business?

Forget the music. What an idea!

A client called yesterday with a question. We started working together about six months ago. When we started working together, they were barely keeping one crew busy. As of yesterday, they have three crews (That’s right! THREE!) booked solid through the summer. This is huge. Not only did they triple sales, but they tripled sales THREE MONTHS OUT!

His question was, “Now, what do we do? We can’t sell anymore.”

We explored options. They’re already qualifying so that they don’t go on a sales call unless they’re going to sell. They’re already referring opportunities that don’t fit to their competitors. Their margins are up. It looks as though if they want to keep selling, they’re going to have to increase their production capabilities.

I love my job!

Remember the movie, “A Few Good Men”? I was thinking about the exchange between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson and the underlying lesson to salespeople. Here it is.

Jack: You want answers?
Tom: I think I’m entitled.
Jack: You want answers?
Tom: I want the truth.
Jack: You can’t handle the truth!

When I researched for accuracy, I found another quote from Jack in the same movie. I’ve removed some details, but they don’t affect the lesson.

Son……………I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who…………Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

OK, who’s the salesperson? Who’s the prospect? What’s the lesson?

This morning, Dave Kurlan and I were talking in the office. Neither of us was supposed to be there, but it started raining on him after 4 holes of golf and I had stopped in to see if Chris Mott wanted to have lunch. So, we had a few minutes to socialize. When he told me that his golf game got rained out, I suggested that we trade houses. Then he could grab a hole whenever he had a few minutes. He then mused aloud, “How can you live on a golf course and not play golf?” I replied that I had witnessed a lot of frustration from my back yard and I didn’t see myself asking for frustration. Dave told me that he’d stopped feeling the frustration. He now realized that occasionally he’d hit a shot that wound him up off the fairway. When that happens, he looks at the lie and thinks, “How did I get here?” He then looks in the direction of the green. Picks up a club and gets himself out. Almost simultaneously, we both added, “Kind of like sales”. How many times are you on a sales call and you ask yourself, “How did I get here?” As long as you’re in the moment, you look at where you are, where you need to get and ask the next question.

This exchange reminded us that there’s sales lessons everywhere. All you have to do is watch. Yesterday, Dave and I went to Cambridge to have lunch with Brian Halligan, followed by a meeting with him and my son Mark. Then we got to meet Dharmesh Shah and the rest of the Hubspot team. It was cool being in a building with all that brainpower and entrepreneurial spirit. Anyway, the sales lesson actually happened on the way to lunch. We’re in Dave’s Lexus, and he had put our destination into his navigation system (the map mistress) and we’re following the blue line on the map.

Here it comes. You ready?

So, Dave’s on the phone and not giving the map mistress his full attention and he misses his turn into Boston University. This was so cool. The screen flashed. Then the words, “RECALCULATING ROUTE” came on the screen and a few seconds later we had a new blue line on the map. There were two sales lessons here.

First, the map mistress looked at where we were, where we wanted to go and showed us how to take the next step.

Second, the map mistress didn’t berate us, call us stupid, or tell us to pay attention. It just showed us the next step. How many times have we wasted time and energy on a sales call yelling at ourselves (in our heads) when all we needed to do was take the next step in the right direction.

There’s one more thing. If I hadn’t been in the car, Dave wouldn’t have known that he missed the turn, nor that the route had been recalculated. He would have ended the call, looked down at the blue line and gone on like he hadn’t been off the fairway. Cool, huh?

Incidentally, both Dave and I realized that this story needed to be posted. I got elected.

Thank you for reading.