Lessons - How To Frame Sales Conversations, Control and Close (Without Closing) | Oren Klaff, Author, Speaker and Sales Trainer

Welcome to the lessons episodes of Success Story. These lessons episodes will be shorter clips from past guests, accomplished value community members, and myself. In each short episode we'll feature concise and insightful actionable conversations and tactics, providing you with real-world strategies and tips to help you achieve your personal and professional goals. If you're seeking a no-nonsense approach to growth and progress, you've come to the right spot. Settle in, take notes, and enjoy. Look at my problem, understand the basics of it, and give me your insight on where a solution can come from. I don't want to spend half an hour telling you, I have a very common problem. My firewall doesn't work. You tell me what you know about firewalls, but I don't want to spend 15-20 minutes sharing with you all of my problems. You should be able to recognize my problems and be familiar with it. By doing a discovery call, by being nice, by looking for a rapport, by doing all the things that you see other sales people do, you are not only losing control, but you are not controlling the sale in a way that's frustrating for the buyer. The buyer wants to see you controlling it. He wants you to ask very specific questions. He looks like your firewall is causing a couple of data security hacks. You're coming over the TCP IP 11, it looks like you've got 17 breaches in the last 60 days, five of those involved the real data loss. We see this pretty often, this happens in 58-80 person organizations as they start to crest through eight petabytes of data. I don't even know in this business, is that about right? They want to see you starting to control the set of ideas and the conversation controlling the frame around which the conversation is happening. Pitch anything was about frame control. How to focus the buyer on certain things that matter and get their focus away from things that don't matter. How to frame time, how to frame power, how to frame scarcity, and these are the things that can be done. It gives them ideas on how to do it. The script gives the scripts to control the presentation and the conversation and the sales process with the buyer. The real outcome of the script is let you create a sandbox and that's where the control is. It lets you create a sandbox that the buyer can then play and do anything he wants, have autonomy. That's a problem with control. When you're really trying to control somebody, so Scott, what do you think? Is this something to be interested in? If I can get you the price that you were looking for, is this something we can sign up for today? I have a special discount. It expires in a week. I'll talk to my manager and if he'll approve you, I can get this for just $900 a month. Is that something we can go forward with? That is aggressive and it's controlling. The reason you don't like that is because it takes away your autonomy. In autonomy, you can have Maslow's hierarchy and needs, what he forgot to put on it is autonomy. Food, water, shelter, love, safety, above all of that stuff is autonomy. I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees. Every human has that built into their DNA, autonomy and self-governance is the highest emotional, highest survival need. When you as a salesperson search to take away autonomy, self-governance, self-decision making ability, then you're losing the sale. You work so hard as a salesperson to do all of it, be nice and prepare a presentation of the features and benefits, then towards the end of the sale, search to take the buyers autonomy away when they're tired, they want to leave, they really don't want to see your face anymore, and now you're going for control, take their autonomy away, that creates a failure state. Flip the script lets you create a sandbox where you set all the parameters and then you back away and you give total autonomy to the buyer at the time that he wants it. That's why when we close, like you say, hey, ornclaps, so the million copies of Pitch Anything, number one, most interviewed sales, trainer, sales guy, Pitch Guy, finance guy, on the internet, and what's your best clothes? My best clothes is this, so that's anything else we should do here, I think we're wrapping up, you know, if you don't have anything else, we're probably going to pack up our stuff and leave. That's my clothes, because you can't close at the end, there's nothing you can do at the end of the sale to push somebody into making a purchase. Now, if you do most of the time, it just falls apart, like it'll fall apart of contract and fall apart of finance, so yeah, maybe you can get a signature, you can get it yes, but in a deal, and remind us sell TVs, you know, I raised $10 million or sell $1 million contracts, or $5,000 or $1,000 things, you know, maybe you could sell a TV that way, I don't know, an iPhone, maybe a car, you know, but when you're really getting to enterprise sales or services, the end of the sale is not when you consider to control someone to put them into the deal, even if you get it, it will fall apart. So what you can do is set the whole thing up, big idea, problem, the solution, why do it now, the value proposition, what you get, how it works, the social proof, for the reputation, you know, who else we work with, what we think the solution is, and then you could say, but I need to get more, you know, I need to know more about you, as I said before, before we sort of agree to work with you, right? And so when you set it up in that way, you set up the sandbox where they are pitching you to become the, of, of, you know, how to work with you as opposed to you pitching the idea that they should, you know, sign an agreement will give you a yes. So there's, there's three things that, that makes a lot of sense to me. There's three things that you mentioned outside of everything, the positioning, the value prop, like all these things, all these classical sales things that people will recognize that a lot of people won't recognize. So when I pull the book, it says, status alignment, certainty gap, and presenting your ideas is plain vanilla. Well, the presenting idea is plain vanilla sort of does speak for itself, but even that is something that probably a lot of people, it doesn't really, it's something they think of when they're pitching a product through a solution. So the sandbox is setting all the points so that you know that by the time you're, you're closing your laptop, you're walking out of the room, you've already set that sandbox, but it's a controlled sandbox and they're going to be buying from you. They're going to be almost soliciting the buy from you because they want that. They want that. So that's like the sandbox that you let them play in, but what are the other points that you mentioned? We want an example of that. We had a guy come in, you know, I met him here at the office of the weekend. It's a big deal. You know, multi-couple million dollars and made a little presentation to him. We started leaving because I had to get back to my family, you know, and again, it was a weekend. And I said, hey, John, so, you know, what are we doing here with the plan for getting the agreement signed up, you know, it's we're leaving. And he said, oh, the agreement, yeah, I signed that when I walked in. I just wanted to meet with you a little bit. It's on the conference room table. So that is the idea of inception, you know, that flip the script covers is you put all the ideas in the buyer's mind and then with no control, no force, no pressure, no aggression, those ideas assemble themselves into the notion, I have to work with Scott. I have to work with Warren. I have to work with Joe Bagadona, whoever you are. So, so, you know, going back to your thing, I think, yeah, we'll touch on those couple of points quickly, status alignment. If somebody does not believe that you are a peer to them in their industry, it will always be very difficult to close a deal. The low status position, the occupying the lower point in the dominance hierarchy of business and society means someone will be looking down at you and not working across from you. When people look down at you, they feel like they have a power, right? When somebody has power over you, whether it's perceived or real, a couple of things really happen. They see you physically at a very surface level, right? They don't see your depth and your capability and your character and your insight and that's where the value and the sale comes from, your transparency, your honesty, your value, your integrity, your experiences, who you are as a person, they discount all of that, right? I mean, think about it. When you, not to be mean, but when you go valet, your car, you know, hey, motherfucker, you're just a kid. You don't think it, right? I've got a picture of you and then you're not interested, you're going to college, you know, why are you working here? What's your, you know, what are your goals in life? You know, none of you just see that person as a valet and then you just lose everything else. But they're a million, they're a million levels deep as a person, but in that particular interaction, that's not going through your mind. It's a power because you have your power, right? You feel powerful with that person. You see them at a very surface level, you don't see any of their value. Number two, as you take risks around that person, you would not take around up here. Check your phone, you know, ignore messages or you leave the room, you order something eat, start a side conversation while they're talking, if you were talking to the, you know, the president of your local bank branch, who's approving a $20 million loan for you, right? You guys are talking about that loan and it's the final loan decision, right? The call came in from your girlfriend, your wife, you know, you're, you're, whoever, you're, you're a partner of the, um, you're not answering that call. You're not taking that call. Yeah. So when, when you're trying to sell somebody and they take that call that has meaning, they feel power over you, right? Hey, can you hold on a second? Yeah, mom. Oh, just, um, so, so, um, no, 100%, no, 100%, I get it, I totally, I get it. So how do you, how do you fix that? How do you fix that? Uh, I mean, the, I think, you know, flip the script goes through that pretty mechanically, but, um, you, you have to create that status alignment, right? And there's, there's lots of ways to do that. I'll give you a really easy way. Uh, so most people started meeting like this, hey, Scott, thanks for having us in. We're really appreciate coming in here. You know, it's a great company, um, we want to meet with you for a while. I think our product would really make an improvement to your accounting system and you'll find like, if you go with us, and I know, you know, you can, you can buy any accounting system. Great planes is great. Oracle is a great system. But I think you're really going to like us. And if you, if you end up choosing us, you're going to find customers always right. You can call me on the weekend. You know, I'll give you my, you know, my phone number and, and we, we are a very service-oriented and I'm just excited to be here today to show you how our system can help you make money. Typical, I've seen that a thousand times, typical opening, right? That is the low status, um, you know, position yourself without alignment. You're not here when you say those things. You're a sales guy, right, and you're giving power to the buyer. So how do you fix it? Hey, Scott, I know you're busy this time of year. I'm super busy as well. I don't know if we're lucky or dumb or we have a great product, but whatever the case is, we just don't have enough time in the day. I'm glad we're able to get this meeting on the calendar. I, I know I reserved about an hour for it. We might have to cut it to 40 minutes just so I can keep my day moving along. Yeah. I see your team is here. Does anybody need fluids in or out? If not, let's get started. Okay. That is just a very simple thing that anybody can do to create status alignment. Your time is as valuable as my time. Okay, salespeople have all the time in the world to sit around until they get kicked out of an office are low status. So, so that is a, you know, time scarcity is a very easy way to get status alignment, right? You know, again, just so when you think you know the answer, I change the question. Right? Hey, send me, so that's at the beginning at the end. Why don't you guys send a proposal? No. That's what, look, I'd love to give you guys a proposal. What do I put in a proposal? Do we have it? You know, do we have a deal? Why am I wasting my time if we're not going to, listen, I, you know, I take me two, three hours to put together a proposal. What do I put in it? Look, I'm not going to work harder in your company than you will. Okay. You guys, you need a proposal? Let's run through it. What do we put in there? You know, when's delivery? What are the terms? How much financing do you need? You know, once it's start day, what's the suite of services? You know, if we're really doing a proposal, let's go through it. We'll write it up and get this thing rolling. Okay. But no, I'm not going to send over a proposal. Now, I had a woman call up and I mean, we're busy and she said, you know, why don't you, I heard a little bit about you guys. We referred to you. Why don't you tell me, you know, start at the beginning. Tell me a little bit about yourself, right? And I go, no, I'm not going to do that. She goes, what? You don't see a foe of a $5 million company? Like, I'm not going to do that. Like, what do you think we do here? I'm the information booth over here. Like, you didn't go to our website, you didn't read my book. Right? That's it. Listen. Most people show up and they go, orange, how do we work with you? Right? Not orange, who are you? Like, and I understand you don't have to research everybody on LinkedIn. But how hard is it to research orange life? Just typing, oh, in Google and everything else will fill itself out. I'm half the internet. Come on. Give me a break, lady. Right? I have never been talked to like that ever. I'm like, you have now. Okay, now, the reality is maybe that becomes a deal, maybe it doesn't, but she is not confused about what level in the status hierarchy of us doing business, a man. And in fact, what happened is the CEO of that company jumped in and said, oh, Susan, Susan, like, do you got to understand who orange is? Like, this guy is amazing and she calmed down and we ended up doing that deal. But that is, and we never had that problem for her again. She ordered the book, fell in love with the book, and everything like that. So status alignment is super important and those are some things you could do is not allow somebody to put you in the low status position. Now, now, certainty, you know, is it good? I mean, this is why deals don't happen is not that people believe you're lying or your product doesn't work. They just don't have certainty that the things you say that will happen in the future really will happen when you say they'll happen in the way that you say they'll happen. That's why people seek out certainty and they make that decision. Do not can you do it? Are you a good person? Are you hard working? Are you honest? Are you ethical? Do you guys have good clients? Am I certain that the value I want will happen when I need it to happen? Certainty. And I feel like certainty comes back to expertise of all the things. I mean, because you could offer guarantees and money bank guarantees and logos and, you know, prior performance and track record and everything like that. That's good at papering over history, but I think people make a judgment and create certainty around your ability to deliver value on how big of an expert you are. If you really understand their problem at the NATS eyebrow, the deepest level, and they feel like you know and have solved their problem before and it's easy for you to solve. That creates a lot of certainty that the promises you're going to make that the promises you make really will happen. So certainty can be developed by showing someone that you're an expert in their usually technical problem or showing them in a technical way that you solve these problems all the time. And then your last question was around plain vanilla. I think, you know, a lot of people today are focused around getting attention because our product is new and novel and does things in a way that's never been done before. So you know, that's excitement of apps. You know, the apps tend to be totally new, do things in a totally different way and are, you know, and that's why there's this expression, you know, the app roll fail fast. And so, you know, there's a new app that does this, there's a new website that does this, right? So new, the awesome thing about new is that it tracks people to look at whatever it is and try it. Well, there's no risk in trying out your new website or app and it's free and it doesn't cost anything, right? The problem is when you're doing real business and you're attracting people with the newness of your idea because it attracts them when they realize and think about buying it and using it, the novelty also creates avoidance and scares them away. An example I use in the book is, hey, we're all sort of be super interested in a robot doctor, right, who will perform surgery on you. It's cheap, it's accurate, you know, it's AI, you know, you can get a surgery that otherwise would have cost $150,000 for $5,000, right? It's new, it's exciting, it's novel and so that I would track everybody to look at this robot doctor. There's a person who wouldn't look at it, but who would really use it when they start to think about it. So newness attracts people and gets them a look at it, but the novelty of things also creates avoidance makes people run away. So that's why we try to make things look plain vanilla. This is just like every other surgery that's been done, it's like every other appendix removal that's been done in the last 15 years. It's the same surgical procedure, it's the same protocol, it's the same medicine, it's the same, you know, nurses and physician assistants, same hospital, same bed, same drug delivery system, the only, it's just a plain vanilla surgery. The only thing that's different is we have the doctor assisted by an AI system. So just one new thing, but everything else is the same. So now I don't have to get my head around this entire thing being new and risky and the stakes be nice, but we try and frame things as the same as every other one that's ever been done successfully except for this one new thing.