Unreceptive: A Better Way to Sell, Lead, and Influence - Outside Sales Talk with Tom Stanfill

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Unreceptive: A Better Way to Sell, Lead, and Influence"

Outside Sales Talk with Tom Stanfill
Host: Steve Benson
Date: July 13, 2022

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Overview

This episode explores Tom Stanfill’s approach to transforming how salespeople sell, lead, and influence, as described in his book Unreceptive. Tom—CEO and co-founder of Aslan Training—dives into why buyers are increasingly resistant, how to shift from “selling” to “helping,” and actionable strategies for creating buyer receptivity. The conversation is rich with stories, practical tips, and advanced techniques for outside sales practitioners.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Are Buyers So Resistant Now?

• Responsibility on Sellers:
  Tom emphasizes that traditional selling approaches have led to buyer resistance because salespeople often focus on themselves, not the buyer.

  “If buyers thought the only reason you were reaching out was to genuinely help them solve their problem, why wouldn’t they welcome a meeting?” — Tom [02:03]

• Information Overload:
  The sheer volume of accessible information means buyers feel they don’t need sellers.

  “Customers are overwhelmed by information... It’s just a lot of options out there. There’s just a lot of noise.” — Tom [06:38]

• Selling Virtually Adds Barriers:
  Remote communication creates distractions and lacks the intimacy of face-to-face meetings.
• Market Trends:
  Cites a McKinsey study showing a major decline in customer interest in talking to salespeople when evaluating solutions.

2. The Drop the Rope Strategy

Key Concept:

Letting go of the need to control the buyer increases receptivity.

• What Is It?
  Instead of pulling customers toward your solution (‘tug-of-war’), invite them into a conversation where they feel in control.
• Practical Example:
  A Best Buy salesperson says, “I’m not on commission. If you need help, I’ll be over there,” which removes pressure and makes the customer more likely to engage.

  “That’s drop the rope. That’s eliminating pressure. And we can actually do that almost instantly...” — Tom [12:46]

• The Reactance Principle:
  Pushing harder increases resistance (“reactance”); offering freedom increases openness.
• Business Benefit:
  Dropping the rope increases your chances of meaningful conversation by 22x. [15:41]
• Control is an Illusion:
  By giving up the illusion of control, reps gain real influence.

3. Make the Customer the Hero of the Story

• Avoid Defaulting to Self:
  Without conscious effort, reps default to focusing on themselves.
• Meeting Prep:
  Before any meeting, clarify: Is the goal my sale, or serving the customer?
• Benefits:

  “If I make the decision to put them first, I am just so much more successful.” — Tom [23:02]

4. Building and Demonstrating Genuine Expertise

• Expertise Beyond Product Knowledge:
  The true value is knowing the buyer’s world—their goals, problems, and industry trends.
• Data Intelligence:
  Top practitioners continually gather intelligence about their buyers' “whiteboards” (main priorities/challenges).
• Two Methods to Learn Buyer Priorities:
  • Ask contacts inside the organization directly.
  • Regularly ask every customer meeting, “Regardless of what I sell, what are the top things you’re working on?”
• Becoming a Resource:
  The rep who knows what’s on the buyer’s whiteboard will capture attention and trust.

5. Eliciting the Buyer’s Truth: The “Take the Trip” Technique

• Principle:
  Influence starts with deeply understanding the buyer’s perspective—leave your own position and immerse in theirs.
• Tactic:
  Feed back their position until they say “Exactly.”
• Result:
  Builds trust, opens the buyer up to share informal insights and real objections.
• Quote:

  “We’re trying to create a fertile soil so we can plant the seed... if the soil’s not fertile, the seed—our message—doesn’t matter.” — Tom [51:26]

6. Using Word Pictures to Change Perspectives

• Action = Belief + Care:
  For buyers to act, they need to both believe and care (connect intellectually and emotionally).
• Analogies as Tools:
  Word pictures—well-crafted analogies—help translate complex or unfamiliar benefits into something instantly relatable.
• Examples:
  • Comparing evaluating training programs to tasting menu items at a restaurant—"You need to taste the food.”
  • Houston Astros baseball story to illustrate the value of outside perspective.
• Organizational Strategy:
  Companies should intentionally develop a bank of effective word pictures.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Eliminating Pressure:
  “I'm not sure if our service can be a fit for you...” — Tom [09:22]
• On Truth-Telling:
  “The best way to overcome an objection is to tell the truth.” — Tom [32:06]
• On Serving vs. Selling:
  “You’re most successful when you serve.” — Tom [63:50]
• On Listening and Curiosity:
  “Curiosity. Use the word curiosity. I think that's key here.” — Steve [51:19]
• On the Competitive Edge of Sincerity:
  “It’s a competitive advantage. When you walk in the room and you say... this is who I help, and this is who I don’t help...” — Tom [31:33]
• On Seeking Feedback:
  “Seek feedback... we all have blind spots.” — Tom [65:58]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Topic | Timestamps | | ------- | ----- | ---------- | | Barriers to Receptivity | Why Are Buyers So Resistant? | 02:03–07:18 | | Drop the Rope Strategy | Technique, Examples, Reactance | 09:22–16:49 | | Customer as Hero | Mindset Shift & Storytelling | 21:20–24:31 | | The Power of Truth | Real-Life Stories in Selling | 27:27–33:15 | | Learning the Buyer’s World | The “Whiteboard” & Research | 36:15–44:21 | | Take the Trip | Eliciting Buyer Truth & Biases | 45:01–51:19 | | Word Pictures | Driving Emotional Buy-In | 52:23–56:18 | | Sales in 60 Seconds | Rapid Fire Advice | 60:33–67:07 |

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Practical Takeaways

• Start every interaction by discussing what matters to the buyer (“Because you…”).
• Make the customer the protagonist of the story.
• Drop the rope. Give up control to gain influence.
• Become a student of your buyer’s world.
• Validate buyer perspectives instead of immediately “selling.”
• Craft and use word pictures to make complex ideas compelling and relatable.
• Seek feedback consistently—most blind spots are only visible to others.

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Connect with Tom Stanfill

• Company: Aslan Training
• Book: unreceptivebook.com
• LinkedIn: Tom Stanfill

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This episode offers a fresh, actionable perspective on modern selling—one rooted in humility, curiosity, and genuine service. If you’re in outside sales, it’s a must-listen (or must-read!) for breaking through buyer resistance and building authentic influence.

Transcript

[A]

If you start a sentence with because you, you will always get their attention. If you can lead with okay, because you are. Another way I say that is if I show you a picture of you or I show a picture and you're in it, you will look at it 100% of the time. And so sales reps typically lead with their solution. That's what they know here. Let me tell you, let me tell you. We have a solution that does this and we've tested this. You lead with something about them, they will read it 100% of the time. So it's really, that's part of why reps that are successful, these two x reps, I call them, because they're other centered. They know how to lead conversations and how to draw people in by talking about what's on their whiteboard.

[B]

This is Outside Sales Talk, the best podcast for outside salespeople. I'm your host, Steve Benson, and we're here to chat with the world's top sales experts so that you can get their best sales tactics to level up your game. Welcome back to Outside Sales Talk. I've got Tom Stanfill with me today and we're going to talk about Unreceptive A Better Way to Sell Lead and Influence, a topic he's super familiar with. Tom is CEO and co founder of Aslan Training, a global sales enablement company appearing nine consecutive years years in the selling Powertop 20. Tom is dedicated to help sellers eliminate buyer resistance and cultivate receptivity. He's a Featured columnist for CEOWorld and the author of Unreceptive A Better Way to Sell Lead and Influence. Welcome to the show, Tom.

[A]

Thank you, Steve. Thanks for having me. I was really excited about joining you.

[B]

Well, I'm excited to have you here and hear about the book. Tell me, why do you think buyers are so resistant to sellers?

[A]

Oh, man, that's a great question. I think sellers are a little bit responsible for that. I always say that if the buyers thought that the only reason you were reaching out was to genuinely help them solve their problem, why wouldn't they welcome a meeting with the seller? Right? And I think that's part of it. I think part of it is we need to own because maybe we have been, you know, our, our, we're, we're not the hero, you know, we're the hero of the story, not the customer. We, we know all about our solution, but we really don't have the expertise to understand their world or solve their problem or lead them to a better solution. So, so that is the things that we need to own. But there's also. There's another reason for resistance is the amount of information in the market. I mean, customers are overwhelmed by information. I mean, we're getting 5x the amount of information we got a couple of decades ago. So people are overwhelmed. There's the availability of information. So why do I need to talk to somebody when I can Google anything that I want to on my own time without any pressure? So I've got that resource. It's also just hard to get people's attention because they're just barraged by information. So I think, I think that's really the driver. I think it's the way that we've sold, and I think what. The changes in the market, and I also think it hurts. It's been difficult selling virtually. Right. You know, a lot of the outside sellers and field sellers have had to communicate almost completely virtual. I know that's changing a little bit, but I think that creates a receptivity problem because it's harder to get their attention. It's harder. I mean, they're always distracted in meetings. You know, when you walk into a building, people give you more time. You. You see things, you read, body language. There's more intimacy created when we're face to face. So there's a lot of factors working against us in sales right now. And that's. By the way, that's not just my opinion. This study, McKinsey did a study recently that showed that there was like a decline in customers wanting to talk to a seller when evaluating a solution has declined 120% in the last three years. That's astounding. Just in the last three years. And that's when they're wanting to evaluate, not just talk to a seller about, hey, educate me. Like we're evaluating a solution. The question is, do you want to talk to a seller, a sales professional, about doing that? 120% of customers say no, say no. I mean, there's been a decline, not 120%, but there's been a decline in the willingness of customers that are. That are wanting to do that.

[B]

So, yeah, I mean, that makes a ton of sense to me from what I've seen. And I have a unique perch in the world that I view the world from, because I, you know, I see 5,000 companies and how they are acting, and they all have field sales teams. And like, the good news that the, the. What do they call that? The silver. The silver lining on that.

[A]

The silver lining.

[B]

They. We. We really saw a severe decline in, in because we can see their people's activity in the field.

[A]

Right? We, yeah.

[B]

And we can look at this data in aggregate across, you know, the whole economy, basically.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

Obviously massive dip in outside sales activity and during 2020, but it's really back up to almost near, I think 90% of where it was before.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So there, there are a few places that, that are still impacted and, but on, on, you know, across, across the world, things have really popped back open and I guess there's maybe a few countries that's not the case that we do business in and, but you know, in general it's gotten a lot better.

[A]

It's got. Yeah, they're so certain they're not facing, they're not selling as much virtually as they were. Sounds like it's almost back to normal. Let's go to that. Yeah, I wondered about that. I've been. We were trying to predict what the percentage of face to face versus virtual would end up being. And a lot of the VPs of sales that we talked to thought it would be like 35% of the time they would sell virtually. And right now, you know, before pre pandemic it was about 5% virtually. So they, they predicted post pandemic it would be about 35% virtually. You know, again, these are predictions I'd be interested to see. But either way, the customer's receptivity to engaging a seller, I think all would agree, has, has declined rapidly over the last decade.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And to your other point, I mean, I've. The 5x the information, it's hard to like, you know, it's just a silly number. But when you actually sit back and think about that, like, what does that mean when you're consuming 5x the information? It's just such a nois for our customers.

[A]

Yeah. Well, you think about you're getting tech. I mean, just. Am I. I think about this all the time. I'm getting text from, from business people. I'm getting it from, you know, professionals in the business world. I'm getting texts for family, friends. You get email, you got, you got social like LinkedIn. You've got, I mean it's just the amount of information out in the market and the number of choices. I mean, I remember, I think I quoted this on a podcast that I did recently, like 322 shoes. And I got a coupon for, for that, you know, for shoes. And I go to Nike to try to figure out shoes. And you know, I was a thousand options when I looked at Nike and Adidas and Whoever else I looked at, it's like, it's just, I mean it's just a lot of options out there. There's just a lot of, lot of noise.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's all about taking shortcuts for the, for consumers now. Right. Like things like wirecutter are so invaluable as a, as a consumer just. Cause they're great sources of information and you don't have to go to sick, you don't have to go to six stores. You can just kind of learn about all the options. And I think that's a shift that we've seen is people are, when they engage. By the time they engage as a salesperson, they have, you know, they didn't just dip their toe in a lot of the time. They've really done some meaningful research and they come in relatively educated and they're looking for the salesperson to add some real value.

[A]

Yes, yes. They need to know, you know, something. They don't know about how to solve their problem. And a lot of sellers don't.

[B]

So important.

[A]

Yeah, I mean they need to, they need to believe, you know something. You have the expertise. You're not just somebody that's going to educate me and provide a Billboard or a PowerPoint presentation on your product. You know something about my world. And I think that's, that's ultimately what we want to do is the purpose of the book is to solve this receptivity problem. I mean, and here's the issue. When the customer is emotionally unreceptive, which a lot are. I mean, I think it's, it's at least 80 plus percentage of customers are close to talking to sellers when they're emotionally closed. The more you try to sell them, the more closed they become. So sales doesn't work at all. And not only does it work, it backfires. And so we still have this traditional mindset when we think about influences. It's. We're going to go to court, right. So I'm going to present, I'm going to be persistent. I'm going to keep pinging you with emails, I'm going to be pinging you with messages. I'm going to keep sending these messages and then I'm going to make my best case. The problem is there's nobody in court. And the more we try to make our logical argument and make our case, the more unreceptive they become. And so we just. What sellers have done is they just ramp up the volume and they have to work harder to find smaller opportunities. And actually you Can. There's a whole large percentage of customers that are. That you could potentially win if we knew how to change our approach to selling.

[B]

And are you alluding to what you call the drop the rope technique that you talk about in your book?

[A]

That's one of them, yeah. There's. There's five barriers to receptivity that we address in the book. And the first barrier is their perception of you. Right. So they think, you know, really when the customer's like, are they going to buy you before they're ever going to buy your recommendation? And so there's sort of three questions that they ask to determine if they're going to buy you. And one of them is, are you going to pressure me? People don't like pressure. They like to feel in control. And they always feel like there's a tug of war happening because of our role in sales and because they think we're going to make money off our recommendation. That you're going to push your products, you're going to try to another way so that pull them to your position, try to get them to do something. You're going to try to make them meet with you, spend more time than you want to. You're going to try to really try to control them, and they're going to resist that. So they will respond very positively to what we call drop the rope, which means you end the tug of warrior. So instead of trying to pull, pull the customer to your position, force them to do something they don't want to do, like spend time with them or hear your pitch, or try to control what they do or overcome their objection, you do what we call drop the rope. And you say things like, hey, I'm not sure if our service can be a fit for you. We're actually thinking about getting really close to selling our house. You know, now's the time. Downsize. Real estate markets booming in Atlanta. I'm sure it is everywhere else. And so we're thinking, hey, let's, let's, let's kind of start looking about selling now and. But where would we go? So we looked up this apartment complex, which we haven't done since 1982. So my wife and I are in the car and I call what I think is the apartment complex, but actually it's a leasing service, and they're trying to hide the fact that they're a leasing service. And I didn't call the apartment complex that I was calling. And they keep trying to engineer this. Me working with them versus the apartment complex. And I'm And I'm starting to resist. And so this becomes this weird sort of conversation where they're not really answering my questions and they're not really. They're hiding what I. The information I want so that I can try to. They can try to sell me. And so there's just tug of war going on. And what the lady should have said is, hey, we provide a service that takes hundreds of apartments that you can look at, and we simplify that and we represent you. It doesn't cost any money, but I don't know if you need an apartment because if you want to rent a home versus an apartment, we're not a good service for you. We're not the apartment place you called. We represent them along with hundreds of other properties. And our goal is to simplify that process. But you may not need that. If you want a home, that you want to rent a home or private residential type of thing. I don't even know the name of it. We're not. We're not for you. I would have just jumped. I would have gone, hey, no, no, no, no. That's what I want. And that would have completely changed the dynamic. But she kept pulling the rope and trying to pull me to her service, and I kept pulling back. And it was just this back and forth where I don't trust her, I don't want to use her service. And funny, at the finally, at the end of it, where she realized her techniques weren't working, she goes, well, I can just give you the plate, the complex. You can call them yourself. I'm like, thank you. So the relationship ends. Or as simple, simple as like, I walked into Best Buys, look at the television the other day, and the person comes up to me, says, can I help you? And what do I say?

[B]

No, I'm just looking.

[A]

I'm just looking. Why do I say that? Because I don't want some. I don't want some guy pushing the television that they get the spiff of the month on and they get the incentive. And Samsung said, sell this television. So, like, buy this television. And then it's just this awkward. Then they follow me around the store and, you know, then they're going to call me or whatever's going to happen after that. So I just rather say, no, I'm fine. And the guy said, hey, listen, I'm not on commission. If you need help, I'll be over there. I'm happy to help you try to figure out a lot of television, a lot of options, a lot to understand. And I'd Love to help you with. So let me know. And he starts to walk away, and I grabbed him. Yeah. So that's drop the rope. That's eliminating pressure. And we can actually do that almost instantly by recognizing the customer has about five options, and we really like two of them and we don't like the other three. But if we put all five of the options on the table, which is maybe don't buy from us, maybe only buy partial from us, maybe buy the total solution, maybe delay whatever it is, if we're willing to put that on the table, they're going to say, this feels very different. I can ask you questions. You're not going to try to trap me. You're not going to try to control me. And the benefit for the rep is control is just an illusion. You have no control. You can get people to fake it, but we have no control. So by relinquishing the control we don't even have, we trade that for an opportunity of influence, and we separate ourselves from all these other sellers who are trying to hold on to this one customer that we've been able to talk to maybe in the whole day. Because I'm sure Jane, who I talked to Friday, she's like, I got one, maybe I got another client. And there's pressure on them to sell. And so they put that pressure on me to buy.

[B]

Yeah, well, I mean, that's what came to my mind as you were telling that story. You know, it's tough to use this drop the rope strategy when you're worried about closing the deal and your boss is breathing down your neck for the end of the quarter. How can you as a salesperson, keep your focus on dropping the rope and actually do it?

[A]

Yeah. Well, the key is to understand that when you put pressure on the customer again, you're making someone who's unreceptive, which a high percentage of your people that you're talking to are unreceptive. They become more unreceptive. It just doesn't work. And what you want to do is the more that you communicate, hey, what we offer, I'm not sure what we offer at the beginning of the relationship, if you're right early, early in the stages, you say, hey, I'm not sure, you know, what we offer is a good fit. My goal today is to understand what you need, and then we'll step back and look at what's best. And it may not be my solution. You increased your percentage chance of engaging them in a conversation by 22x22x.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah, right. Versus we're going to try to force you. I got you. Let me tell you why you need to talk to me. The more you. I mean, there's a sign, and psychologists have a term for this called reactance principle. In other words, if you try to force somebody, they're going to do the opposite. Like, there was a sign. I remember reading this sign. It's said, do not throw rocks at this sign. The sign had holes all in it. That's like, you know, it's just people.

[B]

Well, that, I mean, that sign was just asking for it.

[A]

I mean, it was just asking for it. It's like. But when you, when you tell people, hey, this is what. And I've done this for years. When you say, hey, it may not. This may not be. Let's talk, but may. Maybe this is something you need to do. Maybe it's not. They move towards you, not away from you. Because people are rejecting a sales call, not a solution. That's really important for people to understand. People are rejecting a sales call, not a solution. And so when they're, they're. They're emotionally closed, they don't really know what you offer. They're just avoiding you. And the more you act like a seller, the more they want to avoid you. And so you're getting in the way of your message.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What I don't mean is drop the rope and leave. Drop the rope is about how to move into a difficult conversation, how to open the door. And it's not about avoiding conflict.

[B]

Yeah. What's interesting that, you know, maybe there's a lesson here for people, maybe there's not. But the. On our team, we actually, I like to split things up into different roles. And so the, the sales team, they take care of a customer until they be. Until they become a customer. Once someone, you know, stops being a prospect and starts being a customer, I actually switch them to another team who, you know, doesn't, you know, the, the. It was. It who. It can kind of reset the relationship and make sure, like, you know, going forward, this person's really just here to help you. Right. Like just your. It's called a customer success advocate and.

[A]

Right.

[B]

They're just here to be your friend and make this easy and, like, you.

[A]

Know, respond to your needs.

[B]

Yeah. And like. And what's interesting is a lot, you know, that team does as much business as the sales team in terms of new business, but it's all like upgrades. It's moving from, you know, someone brought one team of salespeople on with 10 people on it. But they actually have four more teams at their company. Right. They just, Right. They brought the west region on first and you know, because there was some guy on the team that was using it, using our stuff and find it, found it valuable and so that it spreads. Right. But point being, I guess that the non sales team sells as much as the sales team because it's all, it's all upsells. And their whole job is just to be helpful. Right. They're, they're, you know, and if, and if, if they kind of get into a salesy type situation, they always can bring in the salesperson again. But like, you know, it's, it's, we do try to split that out and it's, it's been really interesting the way that's worked.

[A]

Yeah, probably the receptivity is there because they've already bought the solution, your solution, your service, and now they're working with someone who they feel is not going to try to sell them anything. And so that opens the door. The challenge with that is that we've got to balance those two roles. And I think the most effective people do both. They know how to lead the customer. They know how to proactively dig for unstated needs or problems because the customer doesn't always know what they need. And so that's the problem with being reactive. If the customers, if the customer's an expert in your solution and an expert and everything that they need to know about solving their problem, then that you, you can just respond to their, to their questions or react to their needs or just give them what they want. Yeah, but a lot of most customers aren't. So they need us to lead, but they need to be comfortable with us leading. And so there's this combination of strength and confidence and passion about solving their problem, but creating an environment where they feel comfortable, to tell you the truth, to, you know, share their, their information about, you know, what, what are their concerns. Because if you, you know, we talk about drop the rope further down the process. You know, we first talked about dropping the rope beginning like getting a meeting, but even when you're later in the stages of the relationship when they may say, well, I don't know if it's worth that, you know, maybe, yeah, you're talking to me about upgrades. You know, I don't know if I should upgrade the answer to that question. We're not, I'm not sure you should either. Let's explore together what you're trying to do. Oh, we're trying to sell the company. Well, maybe you don't need to upgrade. If you're in the process of, you know, selling the company or you're merging with somebody else or you don't know, then I think what we ought to do is identify what's happening, you know, what's going to happen in the merger or whatever you're doing, and then we'll figure out what's best for you. That puts you in a position of greater influence. People that drop the rope and are what I call other centered and make the customer the hero of the story, but know how to lead and are experts in solving the customer's problem. They sell more than people that are aggressive, traditional sales reps who push things.

[B]

You mentioned just there, making the customer the hero of the story. Could you talk a little bit about that? I've read some stuff by you talking about how the hero of the story, if you make your prospect the hero of the story, it can open doors that were otherwise closed to you. Can you talk about what you mean there and do that?

[A]

Yeah, it really is actually pretty simple. You know, one of the questions we said we asked from the customer, you know, we're back to kind of talking about the first barrier to receptivity, which is their perception of you. You know, who are you and what are you going to do? What's your motive? One of the questions they ask, are you going to pressure me? So you know, the way to answer that question is no, and you drop the rope. The other question they ask is, who's the hero of the story? And so if you don't stop before the meeting with the customer and determine who is the hero of the story, who is the priority, you will always default to self. In other words, you will be the hero of the story, not the customer, because that's just our default. You know, it is. It is just we always are thinking about ourselves. We're in the. We're the center of every dream we have. There's just. We're constantly. We default to what we sell, what we do, what we want, what we think, you know, and then we get on the phone with the customer, and then what we try is behavior modification. How do I act like I care about the customer, but get, but get, get the things done that I want to. And, you know, we follow our own agenda and what we really need to do when we're sitting down to prepare for the meeting, you know, we talk about the questions that we ask and we think about what we're going to say in the meeting. We think about how we're going to introduce ourselves, how we're going to present our solution. We may think about objections and how we're going to respond. Those are all things that are about us. What we need to do is stop and say who's this about? What's my motive here? Is it, is it for me to sell or is it I'm here to serve my customer who is the center, the hero of the story? Because motive is ultimately transparent and the debt, you know, the decision you make before the meeting will ultimately determine what happens in the meeting. And so that's the really simplest way is, is to really decide what is this meeting about. And I make that decision very easily because I've been selling for gosh now 30 something years is I know I'll be more successful. They're going to tell me the truth. They're going to reveal things that they normally wouldn't reveal. They're going to listen to what I have to say. I'm going to make recommendations that are relevant to them. They're going to agree with whatever I recommend. If I make the decision to put them first, I am just so much more successful versus I don't really know what you need but I was prepared to say this and here's my billboard and here's what I want to say to you. And this is what they told me to say and they're like yeah, whatever and then they go away and then they, then I have to follow up and I keep trying to sell the same thing and I waste time. But if I say look, what are you trying to do? And you understand their problem and then you honestly tell them the best way to solve that problem or you say I can't solve that problem for you and you fire them as your customer or prospect because you realize you don't, you can't help them. You get rid of people you can't serve which they're going to, you're not going to help them anyway or you figure out the best way to serve them and you separate yourself from all the other reps that are just trying to sell stuff so long answer your question. But I get passionate about that because people that outsell the, I call it 2x selling reps that are really other centered and know what they're doing and they lead the customer outsell the next tier rep2x.

[B]

You know I've got a funny story about this from recently. So in our space there's like we sell to companies that sell to companies and there's a, there's a very Adjacent space where okay, the, the they sell to companies that sell to consumers. And how's how this ends up working out in the software is one thing is making it so you could like walk around a neighborhood and be optimal as you like. You choose which doors to knock on based on their credit scores, stuff like that. You know which direction their roof is tilted. Is it a good roof for solar panels and stuff like they've got all that. They're able to identify that from the, from the sky and like, you know, say like, you know, is this a good, is this a good prospect given their credit score and the angle of their roof? Should you even bother knocking, knocking on the store and, and they're able to do all that with technology. It's really cool. That's not us, that's someone else. Right, right.

[A]

But it's still cool.

[B]

Very cool. And great that they do that for that kind of sales rep. That's not the kind of sales rep that we help. We help like a field sales rep that's going to sell to a business like right. Doctor or a dentist or a selling tires to tire stores or construction equipment, whatever.

[A]

Data, Voice and data to small businesses. We have several clients that they'd either use your service or need your service.

[B]

Yeah, Voice and data is one for us too.

[A]

Yeah, we do that.

[B]

And so it's stuff like that like business to business and their business to consumer. And, and there's. There's a couple of these companies. So I'm not giving anything away here that's too embarrassing. But it's like. So I'm talking to the CEO of this company, right. And, and where, where I was like, yeah, I mean my, I've got my reps trained to just pass, pass deals to you if they're like in your space. If they're like, you know, if they're the kind of people that, you know that door to door salesman that needs your stuff. My, my reps are trained not to sell it, not to sell to them. They're just pet refer them to you and not your competitor because I've heard yours is better. And he's like really? Why do you do that? I'm like, well it's a bad customer for me. You're a better fit for them. Right? Like you're the one that solves their problems really well. And I mean I kind of can, but in a bad way. He's like, he's like oh, we. I'm like do you do that? He's like no, we try to sell him. Sell them on our stuff. And I'm like, well, yeah, so in.

[A]

Other words, we're not going to. You're not going to say anything my way, But. But you're going to send things his way. Well, it's still.

[B]

I think it's still better for me to send stuff his way because it is better. They're going to. They're not a good customer for us. They're going to use our stuff for a year, be pissed, leave a bad review, and be like, this didn't solve my problems. And like, and they're not going to be a customer for a long time anyway, and they're going to waste a problem. Bunch of my team's time trying to jam this square peg in a round hole. So, yeah, I guess I don't. I wasn't like, mad at him or anything. I was just like, well, here's why you don't want to do what you're doing. You should. You should do it the other way because it's better for you and better for the customer.

[A]

So, yeah, that, that reminds me of. It's a great story, but it reminds me of a. Of a situation I was in early ASLAN days. So I had two things happen kind of back to back now, early ASLAN days. That's the name of my company that, that, you know, our sales training company. And we launched it. We were in the basement and we were hungry. I mean, this was a lot of risk. We. I have four kids, my partner had two. And so we're, you know, we've got a lot of. Lot of bills, a lot of overhead, and we're starting this company. We're young. And early on I had this meeting, great meeting with Turner, like, you know, the television, the television network. And Perfect, perfect lined up exactly what we offer, which was at the time, inside sales training. That's kind of how we got started in sales training. We had some experience in inside sales training. And first thing out of her mouth, after a couple of pleasantries, she says, do you provide customer service training? The simple answer was no, because I needed the business. I started trying to make up a customer service program on the spot. And it was just.

[B]

And she could.

[A]

And this is the thing about it, motive is transparent. She could tell, you know, there's 43 muscles in our face. She could tell by the way I probably just facially reacted to what she said, that I was probably trying to make stuff up based on how I hesitated and what I said. And she was just clear and never talked to her again. And what I came to find out later is she didn't want customer service training from us. She was asking for another reason. But I completely blew the relationship because I was trying to make something up. So fast forward, I got another situation where I didn't do that again. This was maybe five years after I started Aslan and I met with a company called apc. Big company, big power conversion company, very successful in their space. And we were doing work for them and they said, can you provide training for this type of seller that we have and this specific kind of training? I won't bore your listeners with the specifics. And I said, I'm not sure, I don't know. And the guy invited me in the meeting when they met with the vendor that provided this kind of training that they were, they were going to vet, and they said, why don't you join us for this meeting, listen to what the guy says, see if you can do that and give us feedback. And I listened to the guy and I said, that guy's better. That's a better solution for what you're trying to do. He has a better solution. You should do that. That sounds amazing. And here's why. That was 2003. They are still a client today. I cannot tell you the amount of money, I won't tell you the amount of money they've spent, but it's a lot because of the trust that we have. I mean, it's, that's what you, you know. Yeah, maybe, maybe this month, this week I might sell more if I try to manipulate the customer. Yeah, but most likely not. I mean, most likely they're going to go to the Internet. They're going to go back to the web and they're going, this is why I don't want to talk to sellers.

[B]

So it's. Especially in the modern world. You can't be full of shit in the modern world because there's just too much information. It's too easy for everybody to figure it out.

[A]

Yeah, I don't need you.

[B]

Yeah, lies are transparent. Like, it's, you know, and that's, that's a, you know, I guess especially for the people list, that most listening to this podcast field, salespeople, it is so hard to lie in person. It's like we're just not good at it. Humans, humans are really bad at it. Like, people can tell when you're full of shit. Just like you can tell if someone's lying to you and you can't even say why. You're just like, ah, there's another language there's something wrong here. I don't, I don't know why, but it's such an important lesson. You got to believe in your product and you've got to know why. You believe in your product, and you've got to be a truth teller or you get in trouble.

[A]

And the thing is, it's a competitive advantage. I mean, when you walk in the room and you say, or you make a call, or you send an email and say, this is who I am. This is what I do. This is who I help. This is who I don't help, and I'm not sure who you are. Here's what I'd like to do. Or when you're later in the stage and they're maybe giving you objections, they say, I'm not sure I need to pay this much money for this. It sounds expensive. And I say, you know what? It may not be. Let's look at this. Let's take a deeper dive. Maybe there's something I missed. Maybe you shouldn't pay. Maybe we can change our solution. Maybe we can't. Let's. The focus of this is, what we teach is like, the best way to overcome an objection is to tell the truth.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And most people don't know the truth. What's the truth? Should they pay more? Should they, you know, maybe you don't offer a global solution. Maybe. Maybe they need a global solution. Maybe they don't. Maybe they need a service contract. Maybe they don't. Maybe they don't. I think most people in sales, I shouldn't say most because I think just my experience has been we probably lean too much on what the company tells us to say versus the top sellers figure it out. They get to know their customer. They know what's on their customer's whiteboard. That's a big part of driving receptivities. You know what's on the customer's whiteboard and you go, I know you're in this role. And because you're in this role, you probably have these four or five things on your whiteboard, and these are the typical problems you have, and this is the typical objectives you have, and this is how you get a bonus. And this is what you read, and this is what you look at, and this is what you care about. And you know that, and you become an expert at that. You're, you're, you're extremely valuable and very different than everybody else who just memorizes their script, says it over and over again, has the Pain PowerPoint pitch, and just does their Thing and they're running her out, throwing messages out there and there's less and less people who are listening.

[B]

You know, I learned this, this lesson literally. You know, I know it's a figurative whiteboard, but I learned it literally early in my sales career. I was training, I was in IBM sales training school and it's like a year long program teaching people how to sell technology. And you do it your first year. You're in there, you're working for them in sales and for one of the, like, they have these exams. So you're actually pitching and having fake sales meetings with like retired, you know, old guys from IBM that are like, you know, in their 60s and have retired recently. But they, they kind of, they, yeah, they, old salesmen never die. They just keep, they keep going.

[A]

And so they can't die. They won't die.

[B]

It won't, they don't. I mean, some of these guys seem like they were in their mid-80s, but they, you know, just kind of, they, they were still trainers. They would come and hang out one day a week.

[A]

Sure. You weren't talking to a computer?

[B]

Yeah, pretty sure.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But, but the, for, for one of these meetings, I, you know, I, we go in there and we're doing our sales pitch and, and then after the, after the thing is over, after like the whole situation's over, the, the guy points at the whiteboard next to him and like all this important, like, you know, walking into this like little room, I just assumed it was like old scribbles from like, you know, another meeting that had happened in there. But it was like key pieces of information about the sales call that I just didn't, didn't, didn't look at it, didn't read it, didn't bring it up. And so it's, it was a literal learning of your lesson.

[A]

Yeah, there is a whiteboard. Yeah. Well, that, you know, that's one of the things we talk about in getting meetings. You know, most people, when they think about, okay, how do I get a meeting? Right, because when we talk about people that are emotionally closed, right, they're either the doors closed or the subject close, you know, so, and if you're, you know, you feel it very, you know, you feel it very, you know, it's very in your face when you're trying to get a meeting because people clearly have a closed door. And it's most, the success rate is like less than 2%. But if you want to get an open door, the best way to do that is to lead with what's on their whiteboard. If you start a sentence with because you, you will always get their attention. If you can lead with okay, because you are. Another way I say that is if I show you a picture of you or I show a picture and you're in it, you will look at it 100% of the time. And so sales reps typically lead with their solution. That's what they know. Let me tell you, let me tell you. We have a solution that does this and we've tested this. You lead with something about them, they will read it 100% of the time. So it's really, that's part of why reps that are successful, these two X reps, I call them because they're other centered. They know how to lead conversations and how to draw people in by talking about what's on their whiteboard.

[B]

And how would you recommend people a sales rep learn what's on their prospect's whiteboard? I mean, not all of them will have the great experience of walking into the room and they. And it literally what I needed was written on the.

[A]

Yeah, you had it on there. Well, there's two ways. One is you can talk to people in the organization that know, right. Especially if it's more of a strategic opportunity and you feel like it's worth that investment. You can, you can just ask people, hey, listen, I'm trying to get a meeting with Susan and you know, can you be my coach and help me prepare for that meeting or try to find somebody to do that, especially your, your outside sales. You're wandering around. You can try to get, get that information from the people that you meet with prior to getting to the decision maker. But the other way is when you do have meetings with decision makers or other people who've had meetings with decision makers, you ask, you become a student of the people you serve. And every time you have a meeting you say, what are the top five things you're working on? Regardless of what I sell, what is it at the end of the year you'll be successful. If, if what happens? What's your biggest pain point again? Because what people will talk about is what you're there to talk about. Like if you have a certain solution, a certain software, certain service, the conversation's about that. But if you say, well, let's set that aside, like what are you doing? What's your whole year about? What are you trying to accomplish? And if you just spend a little bit of time doing that with customers for the next three months, you're going to have so Much intelligence that will serve you so well in the future. And so that's, so that's two ways either what you know, talk to them about, talk to the people you meet with and find that out your own research so that you can predict or you can talk to some an insider.

[B]

Fantastic advice. I bet there are a few sales meetings that wouldn't go better if at some point in the first five minutes you, you work some version of that question into the conversation. What are the, what's most important to you right now? What are you working on right now? What are the top five things? Whatever, however you want to say it like that. It almost belongs in every sales conversation because if, if you are, because they took the meeting with you. Right. You know that something about you is going to come up and it's great to hear in their words what, what it is.

[A]

Yeah. What is. And I, I think my mental image for whiteboard is just a bridge. There have a current state and they have a desired future state. There's something that everybody wants and that's the desired future state. Whatever level you are in the organization, there's a desired future. So that's where they want to go. That's where the bridge is going. And then they've got a plan to get there. And then there's part of that plan that's, that's unknown to them, that scares them. That's it. And if I know what that is and where I fit in that overall scheme of things, that bridge and what I'm helping them get to, then I'm going to be smarter and smarter and smarter. And the cool thing is if I'm talking to one decision maker, one VP, and I'm talking to 30 or 40 other VPs in the next, you know, three or four or five months now I have information about the market that, that, that every VP doesn't have. They don't get to talk to all those VPs, right. So I talk to VPs of sales, I talk to VPs of learners, VPs of sales enablement. So I might talk to 50 in a year. They may talk to one or two or three. And so if I become a student of that, I can share best practices of what I'm learning. And of course nothing that would be considered competitive or confidential information. But. And there's the top percentage, the top 1% do that.

[B]

Yeah, I love to use the example if you sell the dentist, if you sell, you know, tooth whitening lasers to dentists don't just know all about their tooth whitening Laser problems. And that part of their business you should know about how dentist offices deal with parking problems because, you know, like everything going on in their business, you want to know, you want to understand.

[A]

What'S HIPAA done to their business? What, how are they going to sell the business? Where are they in the transition? What's happening with the partners? What are they, what do they want to grow, they want to shrink, they.

[B]

Want to, I mean, all that stuff. Because you can, you talk to, you know, 50 dentists every month, right? Like they, they get, they have their three buddies that they keep in touch with from, from dental school. That's about it, right? So you can become a, you can, you can know way more about certain elements of your customer's business than they can know because they only get to do it once. You get to talk to lots of people that do it. And so if you get that expertise in their business, and this is especially if you sell like a vertical solution, like I always sell to this type of person in this industry that you can, it gets a re. It can be a real, real powerful weapon for a salesperson to have that expertise.

[A]

Yeah, it's what the other. So I talk about captivate. You know, we're really going to be great at or delivering a message. The first step is captivate. You know, we've got to captivate their attention by talking about them beginning the sentence with because you. The next thing we need to do is elevate. We need to elevate ourselves from a seller to somebody they need to follow. Because if the reason that real decision makers don't meet with sales reps is because they have nothing to say. Right. You know, you talk to the reps, they delegate it down to an evaluator that says, go out and see what the vendors offer and see what the pricing is and bring me your. They don't want to meet with the sales reps because the sales reps don't have anything to say. So we need to elevate our position by telling them something unknown about a better way to solve their problem. And we get that information by studying all the people we meet with. You know, I mean, think about the, you know, you can do small businesses. And I've worked with, you know, I remember working with Sharp. And so all the reps were working with small business owners who were reselling their, you know, their service, their, I guess, their equipment and service. And so they're meeting all these small. There's all over the country they're working with these small business imaging you know, VARs, and they had so much information they could share to Bob in New York, who's saying, yeah, I'm going to try to sell my business in probably about five years. That's my exit strategy. And if you start to have those conversations, you start to see things and they'll talk to you about stuff like that. If they believe that you, that you care and you're interested and it's going to benefit them, they'll start to share. Yeah.

[B]

And you can learn from. You don't have to be an expert in, you know, parking lot strategies, but a lot of dentist offices are, you know, in these buildings that don't have enough parking. And like, you know, you talk to enough of them, you know, you talk to five of them about their problem, how they approached it, how they solved it, whether it's a problem anymore. You know, now you're, now, you know, a little bit. You talk to 10 of them, you know, a fair amount. You talk to 20 now, you know, a ton. You're arguably an expert in the space of dental office parking. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And now you got something to talk to all these guys about. Even though you sell a tooth whitening laser. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's a powerful strategy.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's. It works. It works. And you know, the whole, the old days of here's the features and benefits of what do I'll offer. People are like, hey, I can figure that out. I can figure that out online. And they're also so overwhelmed, they're not willing to talk to you about other things that you might offer beyond. I don't know what you call the dental whitening. What did you call that?

[B]

I'm not exactly sure the exact dental whitening laser.

[A]

I'm just using laser. Dental lighting laser. I don't to want, want to talk. I've already made the decision about that and I don't want to talk to you about that. So I'm, I'm closed. And so the subject closed. And they're not willing to have deeper conversations because it just, they don't trust you.

[B]

Yeah, well, it can be, you know, you can, you can make. If you, once you become the parking lot expert for dentists, you can publish a paper about it. You know, just, you can have, you can have it on a blog. You can go on podcasts that dentists listen to and talk about it. Right. Like, there's, it's, it's a powerful strategy. One other thing is, you know, to Influence a buyer, you really. You have to know where they stand, where they're coming from. Right. How do you get them to share truth with you? We've talked about how you need to be truthful to them, but how do you, how do you kind of elicit what. Where their head's at? How do you get them to tell you that?

[A]

That's a great, That's a great question. I think this has more to do with driving receptivity than anything else we do. A lot of people think it's about how well we share our point of view and our position and our, you know, value prop. It's actually how well we validate their point of view. So the, the, the. The mental image I give people when we talk about our answer, when I answer this question is that think about your. Your. You have two polarized points of view. So you're on the North Pole, and the person that you're meeting with is on the South Pole. So you have. You see, one way is up, and they have a completely polarized point of view. That's a picture of influence. Right. You have one point of view. Oh, they should invest in this product solution. They're like, I don't know. I'm fine. I got. I'm fine. We need to meet. And they're like, I don't. I don't want to meet. But you have two polarized points of view. And so what we want to do is what we call take the trip, leave our position, come down there and learn what their point of view is until we can feed it back to them and communicate that we understand it as well or better than they do. Until they say, exactly. And so that becomes that first. That needs to be the goal. The goal is we got to leave our position, not try to disagree with them, like their position. They see the world one way, we see the world differently. I've got to leave my position, take the trip regardless of what it is until I can feed it back to them. And they say, exactly. And the key to that is you got to learn how to really. First you got to let go of your position. You got to be willing to see that there's a reason that they believe what they believe. And so if you take the trip, leave your position, you're going to have what you. What I call an O moment. Like, there's a reason people wear their mask in the car. Right. I don't know what that is. I've never talked to him, but I want to ask.

[B]

I've actually got it I've done it before, but that's because I forgot that it was on.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, like, I saw. I saw somebody the other day, and they got out of their house. They walked to their house, was walking. They walked out of the house, got in their car, put their mask on, and got in trouble. I said, so when you see people that have a different point of view, because I'm like, I don't think you need to wear a mask by yourself in your car. That's my position.

[B]

I've heard you can catch COVID from the radio. I've heard that.

[A]

Yeah, maybe that is it. I don't know. My instinct is to say, you're wrong. You don't need to do that. That's my instinct. But the reality is there's a reason that they're doing what they're doing, and if I don't. What I call take the trip and respect their point of view, and they tell me I'm gonna have what I call the o moment. Oh, that's why you do that. And whatever reason they have, there's a reason. And then I need to feed that back to them. I'm kind of sticking with the COVID theme. My wife has not been vaccinated, and so she went to her doctor, a different doctor. And my wife has chronic immune. Like an immune disease. It's like a. It's a what am I trying to. Autoimmune disease. That's what. I couldn't quite remember it. She has an autoimmune disease, and so she's worried about take. Getting the vaccine because of some of those complications and some other medicine that she's on. Well, the doctor just basically at the end of the said, are you vaccinated? She said, no. And then so she. The doctor took her to court, gave her the, you know, 15 minutes of, here's why you need to be vaccinated. Felt good about it. And my wife left. Well, what happened? Nothing.

[B]

Right.

[A]

All right. She needed to say, look, I need to validate why there's a reason. Let me understand that. Let me feed it back to you and the doctor. If the doctor said, oh, so that's what's going on, then she could have communicated back to my wife. Given that that's the situation, here's why you still may want to consider it, or I don't know what they would say. But that mental picture of leaving your position and taking the trip is really critical. And then you have to have yet to. There's a what and a how to do that, there's what you need to focus on to be able to take the trip. You need a roadmap, and you need to know how to drive. You need some new skills to do that. But that's the critical issue, is to first understand that you got to take.

[B]

The trip well next time you. When everyone goes home for Thanksgiving this year, now they can use this new skill on their crazy uncle, too. Truly understand his position before. Before you stomp out of the room and just grab it, grab your seventh eggnog.

[A]

You know what happens too, is when you take that position, when you say, okay, so you have your. You have a different political position. You have a different view of a solution. You have a different stance on this. And that seems. That doesn't make sense to me. But you say, you know what? I'm going to drop the rope. I'm not going to try to pull you to my position. I want to understand. I'm going to ask some great questions. I want to understand, and I'm going to respect that. You have different. I want to understand that. And you get curious and you continue to take the trip until you have that oh moment. People start telling you some stuff that's really valuable. They start to tell you the informal things. They start to. They start to lean in and they say, well, we haven't told anybody this, but we really don't have the money to do this. But we're not sure we need to talk to Bob because if we don't get to Bob, it's not going to happen. Or we said, this is why we want to buy it. But actually it's really because this guy or this woman says this, this and this, and they're really the drivers. Or they tell you the informal stuff, and they also tell you their biases. Well, the real reason we never bought this is because you guys screwed up 10 years ago, and so we've just decided never to work with you again. Now, even though you sold, you know, you're not the same company and you completely solved that problem, do you want them to tell you all that stuff? And when they do, you have an opportunity to respond. And not only do you have the information, you have something. Some. You have a situation where they're going to actually listen to you. You've built a foundation to be heard. You've earned the right to be heard by listening to them first. And there's a. It completely changes the temperature in the room when you just set aside your agenda and you go, okay, let's go tell me about what you think and you move from being a salesperson to being a journalist.

[B]

Curiosity, Use the word curiosity. I think that's key here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Play a game within your own mind.

[A]

Yeah. When you see what happens when we role play this, when I role play this with sellers, especially senior sellers, it's actually harder for people that have been in the business longer because they have the answer to all the questions, they've heard it all before, and they're smart. And so customer says, well, the reason is blah, blah, blah. They're like, let me tell you why you're wrong. It's like they're in court and they ask a question and that gives them the opportunity to share the answer. But see, there's much, something much more important going on. There's a, you know, we're trying to create a fertile soil so we can plant the seed. Because if the soil is not fertile, the seed, our message doesn't matter. And everybody's so much more interested in the seed, which is the message. But we got to get them to say, ultimately we want them to say to us, what do you think I should do? And we can get them to say, what do you think I should do? Then you can deliver the message. And that's when people change their beliefs. It's when they change their biases.

[B]

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And you advocate using something that you call word pictures. And the goal there is to move a buyer emotionally to a new point of view or take a new perspective. Can you, can you talk about what a word picture is and how reps can use it?

[A]

Yeah, word pictures, I think is, is. It's an advanced skill, but it is one of the most effective and efficient ways to build value. So we talk about, or here's the truth about changing beliefs that we teach a formula, Action equals belief plus care. Abc action equals belief, best pay or for people to take action and change their behavior, dramatically, change their behavior, change their beliefs, they have to not only believe that they need to change, but they have to really care. They have to emotionally experience the benefit. Like, if you think about retirement, like over 90 plus percentage of people would say, yeah, I need to save for retirement. I logically know I need to save for retirement. But the reality is only 50% of the people actually save for retirement. Retirement. So even though they know they will, they don't know what it feels like to be broken 70. And until you know what it feels like to be broke in 75, you're not going to save for retirement. And some People know that at 15 years old, and some people know that at 50, and some people know that at 70. So. But until they emotionally experience it. So the goal is not only logically deliver our recommendation, here are the logical reasons why, but we also need to get them to emotionally experience it. So that's where word pictures come in. If you can use a word picture, which basically is taking something that they know, like they emotionally understand the benefit of something and connecting that with something they don't know. So, and so you use an analogy to be able to connect something that they understand with something they don't understand. And I can give you an example. I was working with Aflac and, you know, they, they, they sell insurance and small businesses and some benefits. And so one of the questions early on was, well, do you understand our business? Right? You know, how much, how much work have you done in our space? You know, the belief being you need to understand our industry if you're going to be able to help us. And we didn't have a ton of experience. Experience. And so here was a word picture that, that we shared with the head of, of learning at the time, who was also a big baseball fan, coach baseball, and loved the Houston Astros. And so I said, do you remember what did, what did Sports Illustrated say about Houston, the Houston Astros in 2014, when they were on the COVID of Sports Illustrated in 2014. What did, what did it say? The guy said, look up because he loved baseball and he loved the Houston Astros. He said, they were going to win the World Series in 2017. And I said, exactly. And I said, and what happened in 2017? He goes, they won the World Series. I said, why? And he goes, because they brought somebody outside of baseball who looked at baseball in a different lens and provided a different way to think about how recruiting a team or putting a team together than anybody had thought about in the industry. I said, exactly. I said, and we're not from the industry, so we have a different lens. So it was a, it was a really easy way to connect what happened with Houston with what we potentially could bring to him from being outside of the industry. And so that's just an example of, you know, how you can develop some kind of analogy to where something difficult for people to grasp, but then some, you can, you can make it very easy for them to understand. Takes work and it needs to be relevant to the people you're talking to, but it's very effective.

[B]

Yeah, that. I kind of felt like every company should try to come up with a few good word Pictures that everyone can use because those are hard to come up with on the spot.

[A]

Yeah, no, you do need to prepare for them. So you have, that's what we talk about. We develop word pictures. So think about some of the handful of, of solutions that you have or things about your solution that are difficult for them to understand or something that's challenging to communicate. But you, you don't have a lot of time to communicate it. You know, sometimes some of these, some of these questions that they have are concerns it might take 30 minutes to really address it. Like why do I need to pay more? Why is it really worth it? And you know, it might take a while to be able to communicate this. That. So if you can come up with a word picture which again you can prepare for that, you may come up with a very effective way to do that. Like one of the things we say in our industry, we talk about at our company is, is, you know, people say, well just send us the information on your training program. You know, you know, just send us information. I say, and I'll say something like, you know, if, if I send you the information on our program, it's going to look like every other program that you're going to see. It's like a menu to a restaurant. If I show you a menu at a restaurant, they're all going to say pretty much the same thing. There's going to be meat, seafood and appetizers and reserves and it's going to be kind of. And I could write a really cool menu. But what's the best way for you to see the difference between the restaurants? And they always say you got to taste the food. I say the best way for you to see what programs we offer and really understand the value of our program is you need to see it. You got to see it to understand what we offer. Because if I just send you out over brochure the car, you're not going to understand the car. You need to see the car. So, so those are just simple examples of word pictures that that's something that everybody can use. The menu example is a word picture that like a lot of our people organization use. And you don't have to be, you don't have to be the creative one like you. You can, somebody develops it, you can use it over and over again.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's. I was thinking every organization should sit down and think of a few of these really great analogies because they. It's one thing I've always in my sales career, I've always loved hanging, hanging out with the, the people who've been selling this stuff for 15 years because they'll just.

[A]

Right.

[B]

They'll say, they'll use word. They'll use patterns in their words or use things like what you're. What you're calling. Calling a word picture here that I'm just. And I'm just like, I will be taking that. That is brilliant.

[A]

Yeah, right. Yeah. Once you come up with it. Once you come up with it. Yeah. I mean, you can. And I, you really. That's where I spend a lot of my time in prepping. If I'm walking into, you know, an important presentation is. Is preparing those word pictures from some of those key moments that could. That could surface where they ask the tough questions, you know, like, you know, a tough question that we get sometimes is, you know, hey, if you know, what's your global. This is early on, what's your global capabilities? You know, like, well, we don't have a lot of, you know, do you have the program translated or do you have some of those questions that we get and say, well, we've customized a lot of our content so we're customizing. We can't have it in all these different languages because it always changes. And so how do I explain that to people? Simply, what does that mean? What's the power of customization? So you have to develop language and word pictures and truth around that. Because it's another thing that we talk about when you're building value is sharing disruptive truths. And so when you say, look, most people think this is true, but actually this is what's true. And the more disruptive truth you can share, the more they lean in and say, oh, you know something that I don't know, There's a reason that I need to listen to you. And so it's a way of, again, you elevating who you are and sharing with them things that they don't know about, a better way to solve their problem. And this goes well beyond kind of the features and benefits that most people share.

[B]

Absolutely. Well, that makes a ton of sense. The next section is sales in 60 seconds. Quick questions and quick answers. First question, what are the biggest mistakes salespeople make when dealing with unreceptive prospects?

[A]

I think it's talking too early. I think being comfortable with taking the trip and saying, I'm not sure what you need. Let me understand more. And when they hear good information, they want to jump on it. Or when they hear bad information, they want to jump on it. So instead of Responding quickly, saying what do you mean by that? Diving in, making comfortable, sharing the truth, Making the comfortable, sharing bad information. There's no wrong answers. When customers says, well our customers do this and your competitor does this and we like this better and going okay, okay. So maybe it makes sense for you to work with your competitor. Tell me about that. So not overcoming that and making them comfortable, completely sharing the truth.

[B]

And what would you say the best way is for a salesperson to practice building receptivity with their buyers?

[A]

It's the best way to practice that. I would say, kind of going back to the example I said to I shared before is spend a day where you only ask questions and you can't respond to what they say.

[B]

That's a fun exercise.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In other words, you could use that one at home too.

[A]

Yeah. And use that at home. Like just, just put yourself in a situation where you're not the center of attention and you make the, you make whoever's talking the hero of the story. And you just look at how, what you learn, how they respond to you, how the relationships develops. Or it also may expose your inability to keep the conversation going because you have to be talking to have a conversation.

[B]

Listening training. I love it. If you had to name one critical skill or trait that a salesperson needs today, what would it be and why?

[A]

I would say leading. A lot of sellers are missing the expertise to lead. The expertise to lead. So what's, what is the process? What's the best process? Not to sell your solution, but what is the best process for the customer to determine what's the solution? What's the best solution for them? They have a problem, they need to figure out a solution, what solution that would be best for them and then identify that and learn how to articulate that. And then how do they gain a leadership position and walk them through it versus letting the customer come up and define that, develop it and define that and following them.

[B]

And what would you say the greatest sales lesson is that you've learned over the years.

[A]

Is that you're most successful when you serve. It's, it's kind of, it even sounds a little cliche and sounds like okay, whatever. But people that really are focused on helping the customer solve their problems and becoming a student of their customer and are truly other centered but at the same time lead. They're not just relationship managers, they actually are. They're trusted partners who lead the customer. They challenge the customer when they're going to make bad decisions. They challenge the customer when they're not sure you know, when the customer's saying I think we should do this and they have tough conversations, but they really ultimately are just trying to help the customer solve their problem.

[B]

I'm not sure what order we're releasing these in, but we just, I think it was the last podcast I did in real time order was with the author of the book about service oriented sales. So they would agree with you. What do you think salespeople should do every day to become more successful?

[A]

I think it would every day. What does they do every day to become more successful? I would say learn, kind of go back to our conversation, continue to learn what's on the decision makers, whatever you serve a certain type of profile of decision makers and become a student and learn more and more every day about what's on not only their whiteboard, but what's. What is your competitors doing? Become a student of your competition. What are options the decision makers have and study them. And so you know, what are the best practices? How, how have they have other people solve the problem that your decision makers are facing? What is the competitors offering? And the more that you can make sense of this complicated world, the more valuable you would be. And I would say so your, your knowledge bank should continue to go to continue to increase.

[B]

As an actionable takeaway, what should salespeople listen today do as a first step towards building receptivity and their buyers?

[A]

I think dropping the rope is the easiest thing to do is just start dropping the rope again, don't throw the rope and walk away, but start having when you sense there's any receptivity challenges, whether you're in the beginning of the process or you're down the road, is just learning to say things like I'm not sure if this is right for you. Let's have a conversation, determine if so dropping the rope. And the other thing that I would say is this probably should have been something I said in some of your other questions is seek feedback. We all have blind spots. The way that I talk about it, we all have a sign above our head and we can't see it, but everybody else that works with us or we sell to can see it. And so these are our blind spots and goes meet with some trusted people and seek some honest feedback about how you may be inhibiting receptivity and being effective at being a trusted partner and effective at influence and see where, see what they say. And if one person says it and five other people don't say that, ignore it. But if you start to, you know, five or six people Start telling you the same thing. That's where you need to go to work.

[B]

Yeah. I mean Honestly, getting like 360 feedback from people in your life that you work with that are your customers, the more you can elicit feedback and see patterns, it's so powerful that we, that's a, that's one of my big lessons in life is, is other people have a lot of the answers. If you just take the time to ask, ask them for the answers and listen to their answers.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. The answer is out there if you seek it. Yeah, it is. That is a very, very under utilized strategy is to just, just seek feedback like either watch your, watch your videos, zoom, see what you do, see what you see, say, get feedback from other people that you trust and very quickly you'll, you will get better.

[B]

All right, so I'm going to try to summarize what Tom has gone over today for us and taught us. So first of all, sellers are partially responsible for buyers being unreceptive. Customers are overwhelmed by the increase of information in the world. It's very noisy out there. Buyers are looking to salespeople to find out something new. There are many barriers to receptivity. And the first barrier is the customer's perception of the salesperson. One thing, one strategy salespeople can use is the drop the rope strategy. And using that strategy can lift the price pressure that the customer's under. Lifting the pressure can then make the customer more receptive. People are rejecting sales calls that are not solutions. And salespeople need to think of the customer as the hero of the story. Salespeople will be more successful if they make the decision to put, put the customer first. You can, you always have to be upfront with buyers. Stretching the truth will always break trust. Lead your sales conversations with something about your prospect and not about your solution. Learn more about potential buyers from other contacts in the company and also ask prospects directly what their main goals for pain points are. Elevate your position as a seller by telling buyers something they want to know about their business that they didn't already know. Become someone that buyers want to follow by becoming an expert in their space, even if it's only at a few things. Salespeople can work to change a buyer's strongly held beliefs by taking the trip. So that means leave your own position and work to understand the buyer's position as much, as much as you can so you want to know it and be able to say it like they do. You can also drop the rope like we've talked about and you can ask questions so that you understand all the complexities of their viewpoint. You can then say their viewpoint back to them and get them to say exactly. This process helps people change their biases and become more receptive. Well, this has been so educational for people and so helpful. I truly believe that. Where can our listeners read more about your work, reach out to you, get to know you better?

[A]

I would love that. You know, if you're interested in training, that's Aslan Training is the name of our company.

[B]

How do you spell that?

[A]

Aslan is a S L A N training dot com. If you're just interested in the book, that's there's a book website called unreceptivebook.com and that'll provide some videos about the book, more information about the book. I think we're each we're offering now the first two chapters to people who want to sort of check out the book before buying it. If we're not not that will be offered soon. And then of course on LinkedIn, I'd love for you to connect with people on LinkedIn and Tom Stanfill, you can just look at look me up under Tom Stanfill. S T A N F I L L is the name and would love to connect with you there. So that's three options for you if you would like to learn more.

[B]

Very cool. Well, you know, this has been a fantastic episode of the outside sales talk. And if you work in field sales, you'll love Badgemaps number one route planner that helps you sell 20% more and drive 20% less. You can get a free [e-mail] today. And that's my commercial.

[A]

Great commercial.

[B]

If you could think of any other sales reps that would benefit from learning the skills that we talked about today, definitely share the love and forward this on to them. But take care until next time, everybody. And Tom, I really appreciate you coming on on the show and teaching us all these things.

[A]

Thank you, Steve. Thanks for having me. Loved your show. Loved your questions. One of the best podcasts I've been on. Thank you.

[B]

Thank you for coming. I appreciate it. Take.