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The Journey Through Evolving Buyer-Seller Dynamics w/Alice Heiman
2 Plays8 minutes ago
In this episode, Brian Dietmeyer talks to Alice Heiman, founder and chief sales energizer at Alice Hyman LLC, about the critical topic of "Diagnosing Before Prescribing" in sales. They explore the common pitfalls in sales interactions where solutions are offered before a thorough understanding of the customer's unique problems is achieved. This insightful discussion delves into the evolution of buyer-seller dynamics, emphasizing the importance of understanding the buyer's self-diagnosed issues and the consequences of misdiagnosis. Alice shares her extensive experience and strategies to enhance sales approaches, making this a must-listen for sales professionals looking to refine their diagnostic skills and improve customer interactions.
Timestamps:
00:01 Introduction to the episode and guests.
00:54 Discussion on the importance of diagnosing before prescribing in sales.
01:29 Alice Heiman's perspective on customer self-diagnosis and its impact.
03:45 The evolution of buyer research and its implications for sales strategies.
10:07 The role of deep questioning and understanding in effective sales.
19:03 The necessity of guiding buyers through their decision-making process.
25:47 How sales professionals can effectively engage with well-informed buyers.
31:19 Closing thoughts and the importance of sales training in decision-making processes.
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction of Podcast and Guests
00:00:05
brian
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Close Mode, the enterprise sales podcast. I'm Brian Dietmeyer CEO of Close Strong, the home of precision-guided selling. And today I'm legit excited to be here with Alice Heiman Welcome to the show. Alice
00:00:21
Alice Heiman
Hello, I'm so excited to be here, especially it's always fun to be with old Miller Heiman friends and not to say that you're old, but I mean like previous, you know, like in old, yes.
00:00:28
brian
Drew.
00:00:31
brian
Yes, previous, way, way previous. So Alice, for for those who don't know, Alice is founder and chief sales energizer for Alice Heiman LLC and also the host of Sales Talk for CEOs.
00:00:43
brian
So it's so fun to, I'm slightly intimidated to have someone here who speaks for a living to be speaking with you. So thanks for doing this
00:00:52
Alice Heiman
Oh, it's going to be so much fun. I'm excited about the topics we're going cover.
Diagnosing Client Problems: Why It Matters
00:00:56
brian
Yeah, we were chatting last week and we we landed on this thing pretty easily because it's something we're both, I think, kind of passionate about. And and I just generally call the topic diagnosing before we prescribe.
00:01:09
brian
But last week we were having this chat about the problem with prescribing a solution
00:01:09
Alice Heiman
Yeah.
00:01:15
brian
to a problem that the customer has diagnosed themselves. So it's a little bit different than sort of we haven't diagnosed it, but, and I know you see this as a problem, but what are the results? What happens when we let them diagnose their own thing and then we go, okay, here's what you need.
00:01:30
Alice Heiman
Yeah. So I think we need to just start with a little level setting about where the customer is today when they're ready to talk to a salesperson, right?
Evolution of Sales Communication
00:01:40
brian
Yep.
00:01:40
Alice Heiman
So back in the day when you and I were younger and we were selling and we picked up the phone to call people, they actually answered the phone.
00:01:50
Alice Heiman
Now I know this sounds very you know crazy and mysterious to a lot of you, but we would make phone calls and people actually answered. Why? Because there was no internet.
00:02:00
brian
Yeah.
00:02:00
Alice Heiman
And there was no way for them to find out about our products and services unless we called them. Couldn't even them first. You'd have to send them, you know, a letter or something. So people did answer the phones and we got to talk to people and, and learn about them and learn about what they need and see if they needed what we had.
00:02:16
Alice Heiman
But we were starting from scratch together, right?
00:02:19
brian
yeah yeah
00:02:19
Alice Heiman
We, the buyer was not knowing much about us or maybe had heard a thing or two, especially if we got introduced, And they really didn't know. And they also probably hadn't really thought through their own problem very thoroughly before they talked to us because they really weren't expecting our call.
00:02:38
Alice Heiman
I mean we were still cold calling, right?
00:02:38
brian
Yeah. Yep.
00:02:40
Alice Heiman
So I think, you know, things were quite different then. But you hear a lot of talk about meeting the customer where they are. So where is our customer when they come to us?
00:02:48
brian
yep
00:02:51
Alice Heiman
Well, you know, and and how is it that they arrive with this preconceived notion of what their problem is and what the solution is, right? How did they get there?
00:03:03
Alice Heiman
And so if they're approaching us, you know, that's probably going to be a little bit different than we're when we're outbounding to them. But even when we outbound, once they see see that there's something they're interested in and they've agreed to have another appointment with us or have an appointment with us, right?
00:03:10
brian
Yes.
00:03:21
Alice Heiman
Maybe we've cold called them or cold messaged them. They've agreed to have an appointment. They're still going to do some research and look around before they talk to us. So the buyer is coming.
00:03:31
Alice Heiman
to the selling team with a lot of information. They've probably asked around to their peers, which that would have happened you know when we were able to reach people on the phone as well.
00:03:44
brian
Yeah.
00:03:45
Alice Heiman
But I think more importantly, whether it was midnight or 6 a.m. or in the middle of the day, they you know went to Google and asked you know about this company and got some answers. And now they probably also went to one of the AI perplexity cloud or chat GPT and asked some questions as well.
00:04:08
Alice Heiman
And so they might have asked questions about their own problem and known solutions to that problem. They may have researched your company and several other companies that are competitors.
00:04:21
Alice Heiman
They may have looked at things like G2 Crowd or other consolidator types of sites that are doing comparisons. And so they're coming to you with a lot of information.
00:04:34
Alice Heiman
So that's a very different place. But most of our training teaches sellers to start from scratch, right? As if the buyer has no information.
00:04:45
brian
Right, right.
00:04:46
Alice Heiman
And and this is where we get ourselves in trouble, right? So I think that understanding that your buyer is coming to you or your buying team, you may only get to talk to one of them in the beginning, and then you get to talk to more and more of them, but these people have their own ideas. Now, not that they didn't in the past either. It's just so much more
Buyer Misdiagnosis Issues
00:05:08
Alice Heiman
now.
00:05:09
Alice Heiman
And the the possibility of them coming with misinformation is pretty high too, because we know that Google doesn't always provide the exact right information and neither does AI.
00:05:21
Alice Heiman
It can hallucinate or give us links to sources that aren't real or right.
00:05:28
brian
Yeah, well that I, yeah, I'm sorry.
00:05:29
Alice Heiman
And so, yeah.
00:05:30
brian
I want to stop you there for a moment because that's one of the things like I think that's great. Like, I agree. Like there's so much more. And, and quite a while ago, I saw the buyer seller insights blog. They said there's bad buying, just like there's bad selling.
00:05:42
brian
which is funny because we all know there's bad selling, right? and and But you just hit on it. So even with all that work, they're still, don't want to put words in your mouth, but they're still possibly misdiagnosing.
00:05:56
brian
And I think there's this this heuristics bias, right? About, oh, well, this is the way I did in the past. So even though I might be looking at this stuff, i'm going to sling this. I think this is a problem. I think this is a solution. Do you think that still exists even with all that new data?
00:06:09
Alice Heiman
I do, and I think that it's hard to know what you don't know. So let's say that this buying team has found you on the internet and they're actually in the market for what you buy.
00:06:12
brian
Right.
00:06:19
Alice Heiman
Hallelujah. Right? And they want to talk to you, which you know we all wish for more of that, even if they're in that place, right?
00:06:20
brian
Yeah.
00:06:27
Alice Heiman
they have these preconceived notions as buyers about their own problem and about the
Real Problems vs. Perceived Solutions
00:06:33
Alice Heiman
solutions. So that is kind of a tough place to start if you're a seller, because you're already behind, right?
00:06:40
Alice Heiman
who You don't know what those notions or ideas are.
00:06:40
brian
Yeah.
00:06:44
Alice Heiman
And They could have gotten misinformation also, which is not helpful. Now, let's start with the the piece of understanding their own problem.
00:06:56
Alice Heiman
So this is not new. And most salespeople are not trained to deeply understand the problem. Most sellers know what they sell and what typical problems it solves for companies.
00:07:10
brian
right
00:07:10
Alice Heiman
Right. And they have solved those problems. Their company has solved those problems over and over again or they would be out of business. So there's some merit to that for sure. But people don't always completely understand their problem before they seek a solution.
00:07:27
Alice Heiman
And even if one of the buyers does, now remember, we're talking about a complex sale here, so there's always going to be more than one buyer.
00:07:32
brian
Right. Yeah.
00:07:35
Alice Heiman
Even if one of the buyers understands the problem thoroughly, do all of them understand it thoroughly? Or do they only understand it from their perspective in their department?
00:07:47
brian
yeah
00:07:49
Alice Heiman
Because this is where we can really go wrong, right? Because we can sell them something that they don't end up using or completely adopting. And then when it's renewal time, it gets real hard.
00:08:00
Alice Heiman
Or when it comes time to ask them, you know, how is it going? And, you know, will they continue? Will they buy more? Or would they refer? The answer is going to be no, right?
00:08:10
brian
Yeah.
00:08:10
Alice Heiman
So, and they're not satisfied. And it's not really necessarily the... purchase they made, the you know the actual software or hardware or service, whatever they purchased, it's that maybe the fit wasn't there or they didn't see the fit because the time wasn't taken in advance to make sure. think that...
00:08:33
Alice Heiman
so i see that Sellers, you know, i don't think, I know that sellers need to understand the problem they're trying to solve. Now, they understand the problems in general that their product service, you know, solves, right? But they may not understand that problem as it exists inside that particular company and how each of those buying influences sees it.
00:09:00
Alice Heiman
So, They've got to be trained to really get past the surface questions about, you know, the problem, you know, the challenge, what they're trying to accomplish.
00:09:12
Alice Heiman
And they are going to have to dig deeper to understand how it impacts each department. and how it impacts each individual buyer, because we all know that buying is emotional and that person feels something about that and how it's impacting them or how it might impact them in the future.
00:09:34
Alice Heiman
So this is a lot of unraveling that has to be done. And of course, we have leaders who want us to move through the sales process and not stop and take a lot of time to do this deep,
00:09:42
brian
Right.
00:09:47
Alice Heiman
kind of discovery and understanding. Also, if you don't how to ask the right questions, you're not going to be able to do it. And sometimes if it's not done well, for sure, the buyers won't tolerate it.
00:10:03
brian
Yeah, you know, what what you make me think of, and and these are words that I use a lot, it's like it's that shift from, hey, what's keeping you awake at night to this is what should be keeping you awake at night, which requires a whole different, like what the word that comes to mind for me is diagnostics, which is different than discovery.
00:10:19
brian
And I wonder how you feel about that.
00:10:20
Alice Heiman
Yes.
00:10:21
brian
Like, are we are we putting people in role that maybe have the capacity to do diagnostics? Are we giving them the chops they need to do diagnostics?
00:10:29
Alice Heiman
Oh, no. I mean, I rarely meet a salesperson except for somebody very senior who's been doing it a really long time, who's learned on their own to dig in at that deep level, right?
00:10:37
brian
Right. Yeah.
00:10:39
Alice Heiman
So, you know, the book Conceptual Selling, which my dad, Steve Heiman and his partner, Bob Miller, wrote, God rest his soul, not my dad, but Bob. My dad's going to be 90. So, yeah.
00:10:50
Alice Heiman
so
00:10:51
brian
Wow.
00:10:52
Alice Heiman
you know They recognized way back because you know Bob was an academic as well as a salesperson. and the way He studied a lot of psychology and the way that humans make decisions.
00:11:04
Alice Heiman
That hasn't changed. right
00:11:06
brian
Yeah.
00:11:07
Alice Heiman
Humans need to go through the same process to make a decision, right but maybe they make it too quickly. And without considering all of the options and possibilities.
00:11:19
Alice Heiman
And then especially when you're in a team without considering all of the other people and how it appears to them, right? So it takes a pretty, you know, i would say knowledgeable and expert person who knows how to have these conversations to really get to the bottom of it.
00:11:25
brian
Yeah.
Uncovering Buyer Needs: The Art of Questions
00:11:39
Alice Heiman
So I'll give you a really simple example.
00:11:39
brian
yeah
00:11:42
Alice Heiman
Someone calls, And request sales training, something you and I both know very well. And we're asking questions, oh, about why, you know, why they need sales training and how many people and when they need it and, you know, what their budget is and just kind of a typical thing, right? Right.
00:12:00
Alice Heiman
and And coming to the conclusion that they have the budget and and that our sales training seems to fit their need and, you know, the location and the timing, everything works, right?
00:12:11
Alice Heiman
And then somehow we find out they have a morale problem.
00:12:17
brian
Right, right.
00:12:17
Alice Heiman
Right now, if we went ahead and sold them that sales training and showed up and ran that sales training, everybody would be very disappointed and they would have paid a lot of money and not fix their problem.
00:12:18
brian
Hmm.
00:12:31
Alice Heiman
Right. But if we ask the right questions about. why What's prompting them to need sales training? Why now? What kinds of things are they hearing from their sales team that are telling them they need or want sales training from the sales leaders, from the leadership, kind of from all angles, what is giving you these signals?
00:12:52
Alice Heiman
And therere they're going to say some things that are going to make you wonder. and And you're going to ask, you know, questions like, hmm, sounds like there's something more there. Can you can you tell me more about that?
00:13:05
Alice Heiman
Well, we you know we've had three sales leaders in a row leave now and you know the team is pretty discouraged. Okay, now I'm having a different conversation, right?
00:13:15
brian
Right. Yeah.
00:13:16
Alice Heiman
you know So then I can talk to them more about on what I've seen in the past is that, you know, training doesn't necessarily impact morale and that there are some other or better different ways, which means I'm probably not going to sell sales training today because I don't want a misfit and then buyer's remorse.
00:13:27
brian
yeah
00:13:34
brian
not
00:13:37
Alice Heiman
Right.
00:13:38
brian
Yeah.
00:13:39
Alice Heiman
So
Guiding Buyers with Experience
00:13:39
Alice Heiman
I'm probably going to have to walk away.
00:13:39
brian
i Yeah, and i I love that idea. And my argument is like, we we should be helping people solve for like this category before we start talking about our thing.
00:13:51
brian
Like you're looking in this general category of enablement and let's let's figure out maybe it isn't our thing.
00:13:54
Alice Heiman
Right.
00:13:57
brian
And you know this was, someone else said this to me and I love love the metaphor that, well, they didn't say this part, but there's there's all this dispersed knowledge in an organization.
00:14:07
brian
And what there's dispersed knowledge about is is selling this category, right? The buyer may only buy that category once every year or a year and a half or two years. And I think we're missing out. I'm curious to see how you feel about this, that that this is the part that somebody said to me that buyers are like veterinarians.
00:14:26
brian
You know, there's a horse, a chicken, a snake. That's what's coming in their office all day long. And they're fixing those things. They're diagnosing and fixing. Where we're like not only surgeons, we're neuro spinal surgeons. We have watched this thing get sourced hundreds, thousands of times.
00:14:41
brian
and And there's this institutional knowledge that I feel like if we could get that together, like that would help those skills we're talking about, about the people who have to go do it.
00:14:51
brian
We know more about how to buy this thing than they do. That's my, I'm wondering what your take is.
00:14:55
Alice Heiman
Well, so that's right. And honestly, think about it, Brian. In a lot of times, the this group of buyers have never, ever purchased what you're selling.
00:15:08
brian
Yeah. Yep.
00:15:09
Alice Heiman
Never. And they don't even know how a purchase happens in their company. They've been tasked to do something and someone probably didn't give them all the guidelines or information that they needed to do it with.
00:15:21
Alice Heiman
Like, here's our budget. Here's you know what we want to do. Here's how we want to I bet they just said, hey, we need some new CRM. yeah go Go look for that and come back and tell us what you need.
00:15:31
brian
yep
00:15:31
Alice Heiman
Right. And part of the reason is maybe they don't even have a budget because they don't know what it costs, especially if they've never, ever bought it before. Right. So now they have to talk to you. just to find out what it costs because it's not on your website if it's anything complex, right?
00:15:44
brian
Right, yeah.
00:15:45
Alice Heiman
So, on yeah, so there that's, you know, an issue just just in and of itself, right? They may have never, ever done this before. So they don't know how to buy. And then the value that a a salesperson or a sales team, a selling team, the subject matter experts and the other people involved in the team can bring is we've seen this,
00:16:08
Alice Heiman
you know tens or hundreds of times because we have sold this and made it work successfully in other companies.
00:16:15
brian
Yes.
00:16:16
Alice Heiman
So we can tell you how they did it without you know divulging any secrets or IP or any names even, but we can tell you what they saw their problem as, how each department saw it, and how it fixed for each department.
00:16:25
brian
Hmm.
00:16:30
Alice Heiman
yeah We can give you that information. We can help you with that, right? So we're bringing something to the table. And we know that they may not have thought about some things like you said.
00:16:41
brian
Hmm.
00:16:42
Alice Heiman
And we can say, yes, and have you thought about these things, right? So if we can get that good information from them, then we can start to really add value because we can tell them some things they can do that have been successful and we can ask them questions to get them to consider some things they might not have that will make a huge difference, right?
00:17:03
brian
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You two things to come to mind when you're saying that one is in my past company where we sold a lot of sales negotiation training, we would get RFPs and the RFPs were all about the event.
00:17:16
brian
all about the event. How long is it? What is the agenda? Is Alice going to be the facilitator? What's her background? You know, and almost nothing about pull through. And we know where all that stuff falls down is pull through, you know, and, and that drove me, but that's all the bias in here is to go the way they've always bought it.
00:17:27
Alice Heiman
Right.
00:17:31
brian
And there's an opportunity for a rep there. And, and I would say this, the skill is decision-making like our reps really trained in,
00:17:42
brian
like I used to teach decision making. So it's like I have this notion of, you know, who are the people? What are the criteria? How are they weighted? All that sort of stuff. I feel like that stuff reps should have. I'm not going to tell you right now how to buy my stuff, my thing.
00:17:55
brian
I'm going to tell you how to think about sourcing this category and how you could make that decision.
00:17:58
Alice Heiman
Right.
00:17:59
brian
I feel like there's just a ton of value that could be added there because decisions are all being delayed. So, yeah, when what what's your perspective on that?
00:18:08
Alice Heiman
Yes. Salespeople need to be highly skilled in leading a decision, right? Because they're guiding the buyers through their journey to make the best decision possible.
00:18:13
brian
Yeah.
00:18:17
Alice Heiman
Right. Very important. Now, sometimes that decision doesn't include us, but the tremendous pressure that we exert on salespeople would never allow them to walk away.
00:18:22
brian
Yeah.
00:18:28
Alice Heiman
They have to sell, right? And this is why we have a lot of deals stuck in the pipeline, not moving anywhere, because it's really not a deal, because it's really not a fit, or we haven't determined the fit and the value well enough to have it moving forward.
00:18:38
brian
Right.
00:18:42
Alice Heiman
So we really have to consider as leaders, what are we asking salespeople to do?
Leveraging Insider Insights
00:18:47
Alice Heiman
I want to fast no as much as I want a yes, so I can move on to the companies that are buying now, right?
00:18:54
brian
Yes. Yeah.
00:18:54
Alice Heiman
And even if it's no it's not the right time, great, I'll get back to you. Let me you know schedule that and do all the things I'm supposed to do there and nurture you. But Let me focus on the people who want to buy now.
00:19:06
Alice Heiman
And I know that they do because I'm not doing all the work as a salesperson. They're doing equal work with me. They're committing to do the things that they need to do along the way to keep this deal moving forward.
00:19:20
brian
yeah
00:19:21
Alice Heiman
Doesn't mean they're closed, but they're committing to do all the things to find out whether it's going to work out, whether it's going to be a good fit. So yes Sellers need more training in how to guide a decision process, right?
00:19:36
Alice Heiman
And then you know they have to check in with each of the buyers.
00:19:36
brian
Yeah.
00:19:40
Alice Heiman
They cannot just talk to one main buyer. And I see this all the time, Brian, where they really only have one main contact. And they're depending on that person for everything.
00:19:51
brian
Yeah.
00:19:54
Alice Heiman
And then when the deal stalls, they have no one else to contact and they don't really know why.
00:19:57
brian
Wait, Alice, you know, it's so funny. I can't remember who it was. and i apologize to whoever it was if if he hears this, but it was a gentleman and he said, you know what really pisses me off? My guy said, my guy said, and that's what he It's like, I have my guy. I have this one guy. It's not multi-threading. And that's what I mean. I completely agree. And there is, we've we've been advancing this idea lately in our own thinking about thought leaders, you know, Miller-Heiman's the economic buyer, you know, who owns the money, that kind of thing. But yeah and
00:20:28
brian
To me, thought leader, another area where I'm curious about your take on this, they're the people who are the unofficial lead, you know, and it's funny, I even went to GPT, you know, like, how do you recognize them? And it's all obvious stuff.
00:20:39
brian
It's like, they're talking and people are like, well, wait a minute, Alice is bringing something up with you know, what's she talking about? and And they have this unofficial thing, but it's It's tricky to like economic buyer. It's like who owns the funds, but with the thought leader, I think it's trickier, but it's important who has a more than equal vote unofficially, right? Well, shoot, if Alice said it, then I'm going to actually change my mind if that's what Alice thinks we should do.
00:21:03
brian
Yeah. do you Do you think that's a thing? This notion of the unofficial thought leader or decision maker?
00:21:09
Alice Heiman
I think there's always a decision maker and sometimes it truly is a committee, but decision by committee still today doesn't even work very well, right?
00:21:12
brian
Yeah.
00:21:15
brian
Yeah.
00:21:18
brian
Nope.
00:21:18
Alice Heiman
We're just not set up that way. There's always someone who can revoke the budget or provide more budget and that person has to be considered even if the salesperson never gets to talk to them.
Identifying the Decision-Maker
00:21:32
Alice Heiman
And so how do you find out who this person is? Well, it's not easy on on a Zoom call. I mean, you can try to take a look at who's, you know, got... you know, the most power when they speak, who, you know, people go, oh yeah.
00:21:48
Alice Heiman
And they kind of shake their heads or whatever you can, if you're in person, it's a little bit easier.
00:21:49
brian
Yes, yes.
00:21:52
Alice Heiman
You can watch body language. You can see where people sit. You can see where people turn their heads to. you, But the best, best way is to develop a coach. And that is to have one person on the buying team, regardless of whether they're a user buyer, economic buyer, technical buyer, or whatever you call your buyers, right?
00:22:11
brian
Yeah.
00:22:11
Alice Heiman
the That is really in favor of your solution and wants wants to get that in, right?
00:22:19
brian
Yeah.
00:22:20
Alice Heiman
they So they want you to win, right?
00:22:20
brian
Yep. yep
00:22:22
Alice Heiman
So they're willing to coach you and give you some information that is something they wouldn't give to anybody else. be Caution, right? Be careful.
00:22:33
Alice Heiman
There's lots of information givers out there. But a true coach wants your solution and will really give you inside information and will tell you what others are thinking and how to approach them and who's the best one to approach for certain things.
00:22:47
Alice Heiman
And so that's really the best way in a complex deal. to figure out who really holds the power, right? The purse strings.
00:22:54
brian
Yeah. Nope.
00:22:55
Alice Heiman
So that's not so easy to do. And I feel that a lot of salespeople don't ever figure that out.
00:22:58
brian
no
00:23:01
Alice Heiman
Now, not that a deal can't be closed without knowing that because lots of deals get gets closed because people want to buy something, you know, then they're going to keep moving forward and not necessarily reveal everything to you.
00:23:15
Alice Heiman
But if you do know who it is and you do get a great coach, you have a much better chance of closing that deal.
00:23:23
brian
Yep. And i I remember being frustrated frustrated by the very thing you're talking about that where I thought I had coaches and then I realized I did have information givers that quite frankly, they were talking to me because no one else in their organization spoke with them. So it's like they weren't they weren't a true coach.
00:23:39
brian
But i I also think that the legacy selling thing has been what is their decision process? And what I would say, and and I think like that's what I was taught back in the day. And that used to be a question that I asked as a sales leader. And now my feeling is the decision process is broken.
00:23:58
brian
so understanding their decision process, it's somewhat helpful, but this is back to this, you know, can we bias toward
Guiding the Decision Process
00:24:04
brian
leading it? Can we know it better than they do? Can we bring them value added?
00:24:07
Alice Heiman
Right.
00:24:08
brian
You know, it's back to Jim Dickey's recent research that said salespeople are ninth of 10 places buyers go for any kind of insight. And I think this is some of the insight. Buyers also said, I'll talk to them if they have something to bring to me.
00:24:21
brian
So I think if we are helping maybe demystify some of these decisions because they're struggling with it. So knowing their decision process, I don't feel is that helpful anymore.
00:24:27
Alice Heiman
Yeah. I don't think they know their own decision process. Even if when you ask them, they'll tell you some things, but again, that's where you can add value.
00:24:31
brian
Correct.
00:24:35
Alice Heiman
Well, in the last three companies who purchased this, they also needed to talk to this department.
00:24:41
brian
Yeah.
00:24:43
Alice Heiman
IT had to do this. It went through purchasing this way. So again, you have knowledge that they don't have. So it's okay to share that with them and say, this is what I've seen before.
00:24:57
Alice Heiman
right and and help them know how to make that decision and how to go through that journey. Because again, they may come with this preconceived notion. know Tim Reister's work from Corporate Visions, they're talking a lot about these preconceived notions that the buyers show up with.
00:25:12
brian
Yeah.
00:25:14
Alice Heiman
And how where do we start with that? We can't start with the basic discovery, right? It's more understanding where they are right now. but you know So it might start like, Okay, I'm sure you've done a lot of research and you understand your problem and and the some of the potential solutions.
00:25:33
Alice Heiman
Tell me how you got here now wanting to talk to us.
00:25:34
brian
yeah
00:25:37
brian
Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:38
Alice Heiman
And let them fill you in and not start with the old Bant method.
00:25:38
brian
There's, there's, yep.
00:25:42
Alice Heiman
Do you have a budget? Do you have authority? Do you have a need? And what is your timing?
00:25:47
brian
Yep.
00:25:48
Alice Heiman
Don't do that. I mean, if they really want to buy from you, they'll spill the beans on everything you need.
00:25:49
brian
Right.
00:25:52
brian
Yeah. Yep.
00:25:54
Alice Heiman
But if if they don't, you know, I mean... it's just useless to ask those questions, especially this notion of qualifying them.
00:26:05
Alice Heiman
If they're talking to you, they're qualified to talk to you. So this very old notion of qualification is the person I'm talking to going to be able to buy from me. The answer is absolutely not.
00:26:14
brian
Hmm.
00:26:15
Alice Heiman
They need a team. So why are you trying to qualify them if they are the person or not?
00:26:16
brian
Right,
00:26:20
Alice Heiman
Of course, they know others will need to be involved. Of course, you know that. And you'll get to that, right? if you If you get started with just this one person, you'll get to that. But you need to treat them with the utmost respect and understand that they have done their homework as far as they think, right?
00:26:38
brian
right.
00:26:38
brian
right
00:26:39
Alice Heiman
But again, it might have brought them to this place with some preconceived notions or
00:26:43
Alice Heiman
some misconceptions because of you know the way that AI is today and or just they heard something right that isn't exactly right. So you've got to kind of win them over first, helping them understand that you're going to meet them where they are.
00:26:59
Alice Heiman
You're not going to make them back up the bus and you know answer a bunch of your questions.
00:27:01
brian
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:04
Alice Heiman
You're going to let them speak. And then you're going to ask some really smart questions to dig in So besides the competitors of ours that you've looked at, were there any internal solutions discussed?
00:27:19
brian
yeah
00:27:20
Alice Heiman
You know, what have you done in the past to solve this? Well, we've never had this problem before. Okay, well, then how did this problem crop up, right? So it's like, keep keep listening,
00:27:34
Alice Heiman
keep digging, be quiet and let them answer, right?
00:27:38
brian
Right. huh
00:27:39
Alice Heiman
And gather that information and be smart with your next question so that you can help guide them to what they need to do. And I mean if the if the world was a perfect place,
00:27:50
Alice Heiman
you know i could show up as a trusted advisor and say, wow, let's make a T-chart. you know Here's your problem over here. Here's all the potential solutions. Let's write down the pros and cons and see where there's overlap so that we can then get to the next stage.
00:27:59
brian
right
00:28:03
Alice Heiman
right But I would spend a little time understanding their problem first. you know You mentioned that you've got this problem and it's affecting these departments. Is there any other department that might be affected?
00:28:15
Alice Heiman
And how do those other department leaders feel about getting a new solution? you know Because if they're not really happy, they'd rather just, you know the pain I know is better than the pain I don't know.
00:28:29
brian
Yeah. Yep.
00:28:30
Alice Heiman
They're leaving alone.
00:28:30
brian
Yeah.
00:28:32
Alice Heiman
you're going to have a really tough road to to move that forward. So getting as much of that kind of information versus worrying about the budget and the authority and the need and the timing, up front, you're really digging into that The problem, challenge, growth, whatever it is, why they're seeking your solution and understanding how they got where they are and, you know, how they determined these were the three, five solutions that, you know, they could choose from.
00:29:02
Alice Heiman
Maybe there's another solution they hadn't even thought of.
00:29:05
brian
yep Yeah, you you you hit it. And this is we're weird. We got excited the other day because we both love this topic. and But you you really hit for me. I focus a lot on the decision side, but you're you're right. Like if you're solving the wrong problem, you're never going to make the right decision. so and And again, i don't i don't feel like people out there selling for a living are that like really skillfully trained at diagnostics and and and problem issues.
Importance of Sales Training in Diagnostics
00:29:33
brian
definition first and then decision-making next. I'll leave you with this. I think it only i think this it works in B2C as well. I have a niece, Mila, who sells real estate.
00:29:44
brian
And the poor kid at a Christmas party this year, I sat with Mila and I was like, you have to be good at helping your clients make really good decisions. And she's like, what the hell are you talking about, uncle? go And I was like, they don't know.
00:29:55
brian
Like what what are the criteria that they should be using? You know, neighborhood criteria, school criteria, fireplaces, yards, pools, like, and do they have those criteria ranked? And are they, they're making emotional decisions they're looking at, and and then they might be frustrated because they got the wrong one.
00:30:11
brian
it's it's so It's so core, the diagnostic and the problem solving. it And yeah, I appreciate you diving into it with me because we got we all got to be talking about it more and delivering more solutions to reps.
00:30:17
Alice Heiman
Yeah, it's a...
Establishing Decision Criteria
00:30:23
Alice Heiman
Absolutely. It's a great question to ask the buying team. On what criteria will you base your decision? Do you have a scoring guide?
00:30:30
brian
Yes.
00:30:32
brian
Yes. Yeah. Wait, wait for classic for for anyone who hasn't done it. You can jump in g GPT and get a very basic weighted attribute decision matrix, right? Who are the people? What are the criteria? How they weighted? Now let me score my alternatives.
00:30:45
brian
And if people think that takes too much time, making the wrong decision takes way too much time. That'll speed it up so much more. And just the the very process of, of deciding who should be involved. What are the criteria? How important are they?
00:30:57
brian
But again, you really made me think to do that after you know what you're solving for and then start making what are the criteria for making the call on on what solves it best.
00:31:05
Alice Heiman
Right.
00:31:08
brian
Yeah, this is really helpful. I think anyone who isn't bringing these chops to their sales teams today needs to. So I appreciate. And you are the chief sales energizer. I love yourize your energy today. Thank you so much for doing this.
00:31:23
Alice Heiman
You're welcome. It's been a pleasure.