Fix Your Broken Sales Calls with Jonny Holsten

We share a humane, six-step framework that turns stressful sales calls into clear, ethical conversations that help clients say yes with confidence. Jonny Holsten shows how to confirm pain, qualify with heart, anchor price early, and end every call with a solid next step.

Get the book free at www.bridgeselling.com/book or order Fix Your Broken Sales Calls on Amazon

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*Intro/outro song credit:
King Around Here by Alex Grohl

Transcript

Sales Anxiety And The Goal Of Helping

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Do you hate sales? Do you ever worry that you are pushy or that just the idea of sales makes you kind of feel icky and like you're just doing something wrong or manipulating people? That is usually the connection we have with sales, and in turn, it leads to us not closing as many clients, which means we're not helping as many people as we can. Well, today I have Johnny Holston on, and he wrote the book Fix Your Broken Sales Calls. And he's going to guide us through his six-step framework called the Bridge Selling Framework that is going to completely revolutionize how you conduct your sales calls. My name is Craig, and I'm the owner of DAC Financial Coaching. Our team is on a mission to make your therapy practice permanently profitable. If you own a solo or group practice, we're here to help you build a business that creates more time, makes more money, and serves more people. This is the Therapy Business Podcast. Alright, Johnny is here with me. Johnny, thanks for joining the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Craig, thanks for having me. I'm I'm uh excited for this conversation and looking forward to what we get into.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, same because uh sales is is a conversation I think a lot of people who probably click to listen to this were still terrified to even listen at all because there's just I mean, you know, this is your world. There's just something about it that when you hear that that phrase, either you're like, yes, I love it, or it's I want to turn and run. Has that been your experience?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Yeah, people either love it or they hate it, or um somewhere in between, but it's usually one of one of those two sides.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yes, absolutely. Well, let's start with just tell us a little bit about yourself. Uh, what do you do? What's your what's your company? Um, yeah, just give us a little peek into the background of Johnny.

From StoryBrand To Closing Gaps In Sales

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Sure. Well, my name's Johnny Holston. I run bridge selling, and we have the bridge selling framework, which I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about today. But my background actually began in marketing. So I I originally started helping marketing teams with the story brand framework. Um, I'm not I'm not sure if you've ever talked about that on the show or familiar with it, but the story brand framework, I'm licensed in it, was licensed in it for a while. That was my or was practicing that primarily for several years. That was where I started. So I'd help marketing teams figure out what we should be saying to attract the best fit lead that wants to do business with us. And after doing that for a long time, I realized all right, even when we're attracting the best possible lead with a clear message, closing sales, it's not a guarantee. It's not automatic. And so that's where I started doing both. We'd work on marketing messaging and then help sales teams take those leads and build a sales process that would close a little bit easier organically. And uh started to see some huge wins in the sales space and really just started having fun with that and decided to focus on that. And that's been my last several years now is is helping helping business owners and sales teams get get great at selling. And then today um I think we'll talk more about uh maybe some some more solo sellers, but um, that's been my background the last few years.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah, absolutely. That's that's great. I'm a big fan of Donald Miller and um his story brand stuff. I've DIY'd my website to a point, but uh that's usually anytime I was writing proposals or emails, it was going through that whole marketing process of just simplifying and focusing on the clients' needs, which is interesting how it's that's not always innate, right? It's we're not right, that's not always our tendency.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

We don't think that way. Yeah, by default, we don't always think that way. So yeah, you're Donald was I I've gotten to know him a little bit and the team over at Storybrand since just being certified with them, and he was nice enough to endorse my book and everything. So I have uh mad respect for him and um always am excited to talk story brand with folks.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah, well, I love that. Well, and so that was really kind of the what draws the right people in. And then it sounds like what you found was even though the right leads were coming in and getting our calls, they weren't always closing, and that leads to another breakdown of some kind.

Why A Repeatable Sales Assembly Line

SPEAKER_01 3:55

That's it. So either we'll see one of two things. We know that well over 50% of companies have no standard sales playbook. So if you ask them how you sell, what are the steps, most people can't even tell you why um they succeed despite you know not having a great sales process. And so that leads to either low close rates, close rates way lower than they should be, or long sales price sales cycles that require way more work and way more follow-up. And once I started seeing that, I just started asking, like, what can we do to stack the deck in the favor of whoever's selling and put them in a situation where sales processes become as short as reasonable and close rates go way up. Not with any crazy, flashy um Wolf of Wall Street type tactics, but more so just by creating a process where it doesn't feel like a sale. It's just sort of a repeatable. I like to talk about the assembly line. It's an assembly line instead of a slot machine where you're not just having a conversation, hoping it closes, and then moving on to the next, right? There should be an assembly line for selling.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Man, that makes a lot of sense. And I feel like I was stuck in that, just like, all right, I got a sales call. If I get it, I get it. If I don't, I don't. Let's move on to the next one. Um, and there was a long time where I was spinning my wheels in frustration just around that. There was leads coming in, but it wasn't closing them. And um, sounds like you've really worked on that. And that is that what led to this whole bridge selling framework that you created?

The Six Core Steps That Close Deals

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah, well, we realized it didn't matter, it really did not matter the industry, the context, the product. There were six things that lead to a closed sale, no matter what. And that was the salesperson's ability to pinpoint the pain of the buyer. You need to understand the real problem you're solving, true qualifications. So the ability to either rule in or rule out somebody from your buying process and having a clear definition of that. After that, it's the seller's ability to connect your services with the pain point of the buyer, the one that you discover, QA, so clear two-way discussion about the product, the process, the price, all that. And then clear next steps, followed by a call to action. So either closing the deal or scheduling the next conversation. Once we figured out, all right, across all industries and all sales conversations, whether it's a discovery call, a software demo, an introductory consult, whatever you call it in your industry or your space, those six things need to happen. So we just brought it back to how can we create a model and a framework that makes it really easy for somebody to follow and achieve those six things without getting in their head, without getting nervous, without feeling weird about it. And that's the basis of the bridge selling framework.

Going Deeper On Pain Points

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Yeah, I love that. And I think that, you know, in my experience too, which is just myself and even with clients, is that they're afraid of being pushy. And so sometimes that having just this model, this framework is almost like here's the six phases that we're just kind of guiding them through, and even just how you're discussing them, it's about their pain points, it's about how we can help solve those. That's not a I'm trying to shove this product or service on somebody who probably doesn't need it or doesn't want it. It's yeah, we're by the time you get to that that sell, it sounds like you've you've built a relationship, at least in that one little call, to where you it's no longer it's like, okay, great, actually, what I do is exactly what you're looking for. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

That's right. It should be objective. Our job is to get as much subjectivity out of the sales process as possible. And so all those six things that I just described, we turn that into a scoring rubric. And when you look back on all your deals, you can be thinking across those six categories. Was it pain point discovery? Was it qualification? Was it clear neck steps? You know, all those things. You can either grade yourself, you know, red, yellow, or green. It's super, super simple. Red was you skipped a step, yellow was you got into it, but you didn't succeed, and green was that you knocked it out of the park. And we always encourage green should be a high standard. You should know exactly what a green is, exactly what a yellow is, and exactly what a red is. We help sellers and companies figure that out for themselves and make it custom to their situation. But once you have those things in place, it's objective. You don't have to doubt your skills, or you don't have to live in the I'm not sure why that didn't close. You can assess a deal, know exactly why it didn't close, and then go back if you if it makes sense, or go into your next one with the right state of mind. So the whole process is of those six things, you can retitle it to match your industry, or you can rename those things to fit your product and your buyer and do things to make it very unique to what you sell. But it is very simple and it's it's not too hard to become very good at it.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yes. And even, you know, as we talk about your first your first step in that framework, which is pinpointing the pain point, uh, in the therapy industry, whether it's physical therapists, whether it's mental health therapists, I feel like that's a pretty on point. That's genuinely why people are coming to you. Whether it's I literally, my pain point is this uh this hip issue, or my pain point is uh this trauma that I'm dealing with. It's a pretty that's gonna be a vital key. However, I do think that a lot of people tend to skip over that. So talk me through that first the pinpointing to pain point. What are any recommendations there? Any mistakes you commonly see? Um, what's the key to that for you?

Handling Many Problems Without Confusion

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yes, there are two mistakes. And I would I would caution your listeners. One, you're probably you're spot on in that people are coming with that information a little bit easier in your industry than others, right? Like, hey, my hip is hurting, or I'm struggling with with you know this specific uh hurdle in my life. And where when we think of the whole idea, the whole paradigm shift of what's a yellow meaning you did okay, and what's a green mean meaning you were exceptional, I want everyone to ask, what would a high standard of exceptional service and execution be in your sales process? And two ways to enhance that and level it up would be taking a moment to pause and confirm the pain point. So even if you're sitting with someone that is gushing pain points on you, that might be a yellow. You've got an idea of it. A green might be you're actually going to slow the conversation down and you're gonna say, All right, um, sir or ma'am, thank you for sharing. From what I'm hearing, you're telling me A, B, C, and D. Am I hearing you correctly? And what else did I miss? An example of asking that question, what else did I miss? Could be a huge differentiator in learning even more about them rather than moving forward too fast. So that's an example of something you can institute and say, every single person, after I learn their background, I'm gonna ask, what else did I miss? That's an that's a way to take it to the next level. And then also, especially on like the physical therapy side, knowing the difference between, we'll use your example, my hip is hurting me versus my hip is hurting me, and that's preventing me from walking up the stairs because my grandson lives on the second floor of an apartment, right? Like learning those extra uh contextual pain points and stakes take it to the next level. So every industry has their own example of that. And um, if you get that right, you build massive connection with your buyer and everything else gets easier.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

That's awesome. And yeah, even that even to you, you're almost making me realize it's not as simple as it may seem. And even those listening, it's it's not as simple as just the hip. Maybe that's yes, that's the surface pain point. Maybe that's why they booked the call. But it sounds like our role is to get to that deeper rooted problem of why is that a problem, and helping them even come to terms or realize there's deeper solutions. Like, I really do need to solve this because I'm missing time with my grandson, or I'm missing X, Y, and Z fill in the blank. Um that's great.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

You nailed it. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Um, with the pain points. So what do you if somebody's vomiting a bunch of different pain points? Because I've had those calls where it's like, oh, this and this, and this, and they just start dumping everything. Do you try to address all of them? Do you then try to get to narrow down to figure out what's the top pain point? Uh what's what's that look like?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah, this is another one where a seller is tempted to you can get confusing. And if you throw too much at somebody, like just like we've talked about with messaging, if you confuse someone, they're gonna get overwhelmed and you're probably gonna lose them and walk away. What we recommend is pick your top three. And if you can pick up on maybe someone's got 10 pain points, that's great. You don't need to offer 10 solutions, you could offer one, or you could give one main solution and offer a little bit of context on it that's gonna solve all three. You don't necessarily need to match every pain point with a solution. Instead, be thinking, how can I combine everything I have to offer into one succinct solution that's gonna solve everything? That is that that's the gold standard you're really looking for there. Um, yellow might be, okay, here's, you know, all these different things we're gonna do during our session. Green would be we're gonna bundle that, give it a name, and talk about how it's gonna solve all the problems, right? So you don't uh if that answers your question, you don't necessarily have to match every problem with one solution on its own.

Intake Forms, “Why Now,” And Depth

SPEAKER_00 12:47

That's great. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, somebody's coming and saying, My hips hurting, also my ankle, also my knees are bothering me. But truthfully, what we're gonna do is we're gonna help you. They all go back to that core problem you kind of alluded to, like, I want to be able to go upstairs to play with my grandkid. So that's all of that, what we're offering is gonna solve that one core problem that all the other things kind of contribute to. Uh, we're gonna make sure you're feeling good enough to be able to do those types of things. So um yeah, that's that's awesome. And then last question on this, because I want to move on to some of your other uh steps. But uh with the pain points, do you recommend getting an idea of those before the call on the intake form? Is that some besides I know we always lead those, or I always lead the consultation calls with that too, but is that something that it's helpful to know going into a call what those might be, or what do you usually recommend there?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

It is, it is. We look at you, it's a blend of marketing and sales. You don't want to know, you don't want someone coming in the door without knowing anything about them, but at the same time, you need to build that personal connection. And I have seen both say both cases where when marketing is so good, I had someone on LinkedIn one time uh sort of chirping at me saying, you don't need to confirm pain points with a buyer if your marketing pre-qualifies them. And I can't, I I I think you know, he brings up a point, but I couldn't disagree more because it's the same drop-off in sales you're gonna get. Let's say someone is shopping around different um PT offices and they're gonna have multiple conversations. Are you gonna go with the one that slowed down to confirm pain points and understand contextually how it fits in your life? Or the one who thought, oh yeah, this person's, I know all about them because of the intake form. I'm just gonna talk about our packages and our services, right? So I would say it doesn't always get it done. And marketing, even if you have a great idea about pain points, still institute some background discovery work on what is it, you know, what chaos are these challenges causing in their life? And then another thing to fit in, even if you get great info from your marketing pre-qualification, is why now? Why are you reaching out now as opposed to three months ago or as opposed to waiting a couple of weeks? That why now question, even if you have that on an intake form, it's still powerful to talk about that in person a little bit. The one or face to face, at least the one thing I would caution everybody on is if you do have great pain point discovery in your pre-conversation forms or in your intake, and you plan to rehash and confirm some of them, be careful not to sound like you're just repeating the same intake form because that can be frustrating. You want to find a new flavor, at least a new level of depth and connection that you can add into that part of your uh sales process.

Qualification And The Bridge Fit

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Awesome. That that's really, really good advice. I I love it. Um, I think the whole why now piece, I want to incorporate that as well because I think there is a uh that idea of what actually because I mean getting on a sales call, getting for from the buyer's perspective or the prospect side, that's a lot. I don't I don't jump on calls with people unless I'm I am genuinely at the point where I'm like, all right, this something needs to change. Um I'll be secretly dealing with a problem way too long before I'll actually get on a call and talk to talk to a stranger about it. So um that's great. Yes. Uh so qualifications is the next step, whether they're ruling them in or out. Uh talk to me about that. Is that something you're trying to do beforehand during the call? Uh, all the above.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Your marketing messaging should more or less be speaking to qualified, qualified people. We we use our what we call a bridge fit. And a bridge fit is four things. Somebody with a pain point you can solve. We talked about that already. Next is someone with the authority and budget to make a full price buying decision. The third is a timeline that aligns with your capacity, and then the fourth thing is sort of a wild card. You can pick a fourth thing if you want to make it a little bit more unique and specific to your brand. And more or less, you will you should be able to attract mostly that bridge fit in your marketing if you put your prices online or you put your packages online or you talk about the pain points you solve, and you might talk about your availability. You can more or less bring that person in. But in the off chance that somebody slips through the cracks, it's really important that in your mind you turn that those those three to four criteria in the bridge fit, turn it into a literal written definition of who you will work with and will not work with, because that's where you go from uh accepting uh maybe getting on a second or a third conversation with someone who should never have been on the first one, or even worse, you close a deal with somebody that was destined to have a poor customer experience because they weren't your true customer in the right place in the first place, and we've all been there. So having a clearer image of that bridge fit and getting really good at confronting it head on, it might be as simple as saying, hey, we're not the right fit for everybody. Let me tell you a little bit about who our best fit customer or client is. You fit that into your conversations, you're gonna feel so much better on the tail end when people do say yes, you're not gonna have that seller's remorse of, you know, maybe this person wasn't actually the right fit. That's something to think through with qualification right there.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yeah, that's that's great. So even just coming in and knowing, having that prepped. And, you know, I did an exercise similar to that years and years ago where I just went through and just kind of going, here's the key, the things we're looking for in client, the people I enjoy working with, the people who get the best results. Um, a huge one for us, and this is still on my sales call, something I'm kind of looking for is I always say I call opportunities over excuses, but it's the people who uh are shutting down ideas constantly, you know, that's just like this doesn't work, and this happened to me, or whatever it is. Um, I'm like, they're not gonna be coachable, which is then they're not gonna be a good client because then they're gonna be frustrated, they're not getting results, but um, this won't work for me because is it tends to be what they lead with. Uh so we're in tune with that. And I took on a lot of clients who maybe were doing that on a call, and it turned out to not be the best, the best experience for us. So that's something I'm 100%.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

For you, I would say that's your fourth thing there. Like your fourth thing would be they're coachable and they have an opportunistic mindset. And now you you will get really good at asking questions that confirm that, or even being like point blank and saying, hey, it's really important to me that I only work with people who are coachable, and that's for both of our success. Even can putting it head on, um, you will you will save so much time and energy doing that. And for everyone listening, whatever your own version of that is, don't be afraid to hit it head on.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

I love that. Yeah, I've never even thought about just coming out and saying it and um making it known. And so uh that's great. And then you talked about the budget, which uh I know there's a lot of uh, especially on the mental health side, people are therapists can sometimes feel guilty turning people away because of budget. Uh but I know that's it's still it's important, right? They they need to be able to afford your service.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yeah, you need to be able to, it needs to make all the sense with the numbers. And I know the mental health stuff is is um definitely tricky, but getting really, really clear around the financials of it can sometimes open up new opportunities to say, hey, for people who can't afford our services, how can we pass them along to the best possible help at a different price range or even free or low cost or how whatever resources you can have? Even confronting that and saying we can't work with someone below a certain threshold, it will force you to do the thought work of how can we still serve that person? How can we still help them? And I have a whole list of people who might not be able to afford to work with me or our team, but I still know exactly where I can send them at the end of the conversation to actually get help. And I think that's a great way to tee up the qual, the uncomfortableness of qualification. It really should be from the heart of, hey, we have a 30-minute conversation here. I want to hit this right at the beginning because I'm here to help you for the whole chat. But what's most important to me is that you get the help you need. And so our best fit customer is ABCDEFG. If that is or isn't you, my number one priority is that if it's not, I can still pass you on to somebody that is able to help you. And that's a great way to sort of umbrella the potential awkwardness of qualification, just with the heart of I care about you getting the help you need.

Connecting Solutions To Stakes

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yes, I think that's awesome. Yeah, it's you can help people without taking them on as a client. And I think that is a great mentality for people to think through and just like I can still serve this person, I can still get them the help they need without feeling like I have to take them on as someone that we work with just because um the finances are there, and that's okay. Uh so I think that's a great, great advice, a great tip. Uh, we went through, I did a webinar about 18 months ago, and learning my intake process and kind of going to this budget piece, we got in it, we just got hit with a ton of consultations, which was awesome. And then I was frustrated because our close rate was just, I mean, abysmal. Probably 5% of those were closing, and it was really bad. And I was frustrated and my coach kind of went through, we were looking at the data and what they had in common, and it was a lot of them were just really, really small or no revenue yet businesses. And the point was they just weren't the right fit. And yes, we do work with some clients who are really, really small and they're great, but I would say nine times out of ten, it's just they can't afford us. And so we had to start putting some levers in place to on our intake process, just kind of making it clear here's the ideal fit. If you still think you want to try it, give it a shot. That's okay. But Yep. And then our close rate skyrocketed after that. I mean, so it was just such a huge eye-opener. But again, I felt like I still like the little guys. I don't want to turn them away. But at the end of the day, it's it was killing my confidence. It was carrying into the other ones who I probably would be closing. I was going into them just feeling super defeated. And so it was overall just the right fit to go ahead and start vetting them out, ruling them out, guiding them into a different direction.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

The energy suck of a non-qualified deal from a financial standpoint is really rough. It's rough on the person on the other side. It's rough on the person selling. And it's just no fun. And I think it makes all the sense in the world to prevent, prevent those conversations if you can, um, or put some thought into hey, we got a 20 leads that weren't a great fit. Could we create a smaller, lower cost offer? Sometimes those those thoughts can take you there. But you're right, it's just always better to save save the time and energy.

QA: Give The Buyer The Floor

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yeah, it it is. And you know, we we sent out emails because we figured this out about halfway through. So we sent out emails to all the smaller ones because we don't uh post our pricing largely for a few reasons, but uh we sent it out to them just kind of saying, here's where our pricing starts. If that's in your realm, we would love to still meet with you. If not, we don't want because I think to your point, too, to on their side, they feel defeated at the end, they're like excited, okay, this person can help me, and then you get to the the investment side, and then all of a sudden it's just like like that's nowhere near what I feel like I can do. And so um, yeah. All right, let's get to the next one, which is connecting your services to the pain point. So we're going through this process now. It's how can we help solve those problems? Um, any suggestions there? What do you normally see?

Price Timing And Anchoring Early

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Yeah, typically it's gonna be one of three things uh education on your process, a demo of your product, or some sort of presentation. So thinking of it in that category, and this is where you can get uh things can definitely go wrong if you don't do it right, but be thinking from your point of view, does it make sense to educate on your process and product what you do? Does it make sense to demo something or does it make sense to present something? And think of where's your energy best? Like, are you the heart of a teacher? Do you want to educate? Do you love presenting and you want to do a couple different slides? Or if you have a like, let's say you, for example, you keep going to the PT thing, you've got like insoles, or you've got a physical thing, like that would be a demo. So think of where does your sales process go in one of those three categories? The real key is uncovering those pain points at the beginning so that you're not talking about the hip pain, you're talking about climbing the second, the flight of two, the two flights of stairs, right? Now, as a seller, your job is to be agile. That part of every sale should sound different. Even if you're selling the same thing to everybody, you should be tying it to different pain points. And that's the thing to really be thinking about. So if I'm if I'm showing you this knee brace or this uh insole, I'm still not talking about the features and benefits and the sp you know specific nitty-gritties of the product as much as I am talking about the result it's gonna have and the pain points. So those two steps one and three should be very closely connected. Same thing if you're doing slides. You might have the same three or four slides, but your talking points need to be about the person on the other side and the success and the outcomes they'll they'll achieve. So um, those are some things to be thinking of. Did you go way too in the nitty-gritty of your product, your process, and the details of it instead of tying those things to pain points? That that's really the essence of step three on the bridge.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

That's that's great. Yeah, it's uh I think most people probably don't care about the nitty-gritties. Every once in a while we'll get somebody who who has wants to see the detail like, well, what does the dashboard look like? What is the spreadsheet? Most people don't care about the that part. They're just like, here's what I'm dealing with. And for our clients, it's yep, we're not profitable, we don't have a cash, like we feel like we're always in the red, or I'm not paying myself consistently. And then so that's it's like that's we're gonna help you solve that. Like we're gonna help you put in a system to solve that. That's trying to keep it as simple as possible because that's what they care about, is the end result.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

That's the perfect segue to step four, which is QA. So after you talk about solution and success, that's the time to open up and say, hey, what did we not? What questions did I not answer? Same as like, hey, what pain points did I miss? What questions did I not answer? And that's where you you start connecting all these different things where for that person that really does care about specifics, give them the floor. Step four is all about literally saying, I'm gonna give you the floor now. What questions did we miss? Ask away and not shying away from that.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yes, that's great. And I guess being ready for the specifics. And so having, so for me, it's having maybe those dashboards on hand. So it's like I can show you, like if they're like, what does it look like? What does it well? Let me share my screen real quick. I'll show you what it what it all entails. Um, and so okay, great. So just an open conversation of they can ask you questions. Um, have you shared the price point at this point? Uh, when do you recommend sharing that? Is that in the in the next step?

SPEAKER_01 27:55

It's typically in uh either qualification. You may mention, hey, our prices start at this. Uh, is that is that doable for you? And so you may get that out of the way. I actually recommend if you can do that as early as possible, you you can have probably a more productive conversation because what's gonna happen is the person on the other side, they now have the rest of the conversation to really talk themselves into making the investment rather than using it as an excuse to let the conversation end. So I would say early on, give a starting price point, like in the first, uh, let's say you have 30-minute conversation, in the first 10 minutes, you want to hit that price point. And then by the time you talk with solutions, they're understanding what they're getting for that. And you can really um give them the time and the space to process about why it may be a good investment. If you end up, you know, maybe the price point is higher for that person or lower. Certainly in step three and four, you'd want to talk about pricing. Um, I recommend doing it in three. When you talk about the solution, that's when the pricing should be put in because opening the floor for QA, that's an opportunity for the buyer to ask questions about what am I getting? What are the, what are the uh, you know, the payment schedule? Can I get a discount if I do it all up front? You know, all those different things.

Clear Next Steps And Magic Pivots

SPEAKER_00 29:06

That's awesome. Yeah, I've never thought about doing it earlier in the call. I've always um towards the end, it's after we've done some here's what we offer, here's the solutions, X, Y, and Z, any questions, great. Outside, I it's usually besides investment, what's questions? But I kind of like this idea of leading with it early because I think you're right, giving people space to digest. If you're doing it in the last five minutes, um the last thing I want, I mean, that's what we teach clients not to do is to make an impulse decision on something that is an investment. And so um we need to digest it. And they may come in, especially if they don't know what a therapist charges or they don't know what a coach charges or anything, they don't know even maybe have something to anchor it to yet. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Very smart, and it's a great opportunity to anchor against others. So let's say you are uniquely priced, and not saying that you're the cheapest, but you might even say, hey, most therapists or most PTs are gonna run you in this range. We're and you might even say we're right in the middle of that, or we're we're right at the top of that, or we are conveniently lower than that, right? It's just a good opportunity to educate and um use you don't even have to say, hey, I charge this. You can even just say, hey, most in this industry charge this. We fall right in this range. It gets the it makes it a little bit less personal and a little bit less intimidating if you do it that way. So I'd say hit it head on uh because otherwise, what are you thinking the whole time you're on a sales call? If you're the buyer, all you're thinking is as you're being told about the process and the product, what does this cost? What does this cost? What does it cost? And I think it's really freeing to just hit it right away. And in fact, sorry to Craig, I keep going, I keep going off the rails here, but one of the best success stories that I've ever seen in sales are in the most regulated industries. So financial services, for example, where lots of regulations on who can can and cannot invest in a certain product. When we take on a team like that, we had a company triple their conversions in 30 days because the literally the first thing they did was tell the buyer, hey, out of respect for your time, I just want to let you know these requirements we have. You have to have a million dollar net worth and you have to have$50,000 to invest. Those are SEC regulations for their product. I want everyone listening, think through what might your regulations be. You might not be in a financially regulated industry, but the reason that works so well for those companies is no one is slipping through the cracks that's not a good fit. And it saves everybody's time and energy. And so as long as you can deliver that information in a likable human way, you're gonna win big. So start thinking about that for your process. What might your quote unquote regulation be that forces you to be really clear?

SPEAKER_00 31:50

I love that. Love that. That's great. Some just this defining line so that it's just saving you time, you're qualifying ahead of time. Um, this is great. And I loved your your point about even giving a range of pricing because that's you know, because I do know sometimes, especially whether it's therapist, physical therapy, maybe it just depends on after you get more info, what the price would be. For us, I know we our pricing changes just depending on size of business, complexity. So it can just be as simple as we charge somewhere in this range, and you know, uh I think that's that's really helpful just to even because I do think you're right. There's people on the call the whole time like this sounds awesome, but am I gonna be able to afford it? Or what's gonna cost me? Yes. So they're already that's almost like a negative loop. It's like this already, they're already saying, Well, there's always that chance maybe they're even shutting it down in their head, like, I'm probably not gonna be able to do this, or it's probably gonna be out of my realm. So uh I think even just easing that tension at the beginning is a great, great idea. And so that takes us to next steps and call to action. Uh, what do you have to recommend there?

Close Or Schedule With BAM FAM

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Well, as everyone as you've been following and listening along, I want you to literally think of the four things we've talked about so far. Close your eyes and picture a bridge, a literal bridge. And on the far left, you have pinpoint the pain, that and there's six boxes across this bridge. So it's box one, pinpoint the pain. Box two is qualification, box three is success, solution success. Box four is QA. That's what we've talked to so far. Now there's two boxes empty on the right side of the bridge. That's clear neck steps and then close or schedule is how we is how we fill in those last two boxes. So be thinking about your sales process and your bridge. How can you tweak the names? How can you tweak the titles of each step to make it hyper unique to what you do and who you sell to? Steps five and six, we'll talk about them two in one here. Clear neck steps is very, very simple. We we keep uh coach on one thing here. It doesn't matter if you're a solopreneur who does all the sales for yourself, or you literally have a 100-person sales team, the same thing applies for everybody. Ending that conversation with a three-step plan, which is step one is my step as the seller, step two is your step as the buyer, step three is our next step together. And if someone's properly qualified, you've had a great conversation throughout, now it's time to give next steps. Your job is to figure out is that three-step plan, is it a plan for closing or is it a plan for a follow-up chat? And if you're used to one call closes, then you should be really good at saying step one, I'm gonna send you this invoice or the agreement. Step two, you're gonna sign and pay. Step three, we'll schedule our onboarding session, right? Getting so good at that language, or step one, I'll do this, step two, you do that. Step three, we're gonna meet again to discuss. If you're used to a longer process, you may need to be good at that. The real key is figuring out how do you actually tee yourself up to give that three-step plan without it feeling like weird. And the best way that I've the the you know, the way that I've seen the best reps go about it is simply by asking the question, hey, sir, ma'am, what I've told you a lot, you've asked some great questions. This has been a great chat. I've really enjoyed our time today. Um, it's been good to get to know you. What feels like the right next step on your end? And so many times, if you've done your job through steps one through four, they are going to tell you, let's get started. What are the next steps? I'm ready to move forward. Now all you're doing is responding to their ask. You don't have to ask for the sale as much as you're just responding to their ask. And uh, they might even suggest something like, well, I'd like to think about it or I'd like to take some time. You can always say, you can always prescribe a three-step plan that might align more with closing. If you feel like there's just some hesitant, you could even say, Hey, I really feel like this is a great fit for you. It sounds like it makes sense. Why don't we go ahead and now give a three-step plan to push them towards advancing? If that makes sense, you could do it in the right way. So, really, it comes down to giving clear next steps. And out of that three-step plan, you're either ending with a closed deal or another contact, contact, or maybe no, no longer in entertaining the process, which is fine too, because that's a no. So uh those are the best practices around the end of the bridge.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Love it, love it. That's great. So, and so I like how the next steps can be fluid, even just depending on, you know, they could say, I have a I'm interviewing another uh therapist after this call today. So it's okay. Next steps are I'm gonna send you this, you interview that person, let's circle back, or like we'll get on a call at the end of this week, just whatever. I don't, I'm making it up. But uh so it can absolutely be on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

You can pivot and what we call the the little, so we got the six boxes on the bridge. We actually call the language, we don't worry about scripts, like no one should feel overly scripted, but we do have what are called magic pivots, and that is what are the phrases and the language needed to get from one step to the next? Um, asking, hey, what feels like the right next steps for you? That's a magic pivot. Um, even asking, would you like to get started today? That's a magic pivot. And and something that in the context that you just provided, rather than letting somebody off the hook, and if that feels like the right thing to do, absolutely. But you might also say, if you don't mind me asking, I know you're interviewing, what are you looking for? What's most important? And if they say, I want the cheapest, or I know this other person offers six sessions for that rate and you only offer four, then you can really get down to and you really you move back into step four of the bridge, which is more QA, and you say, Well, let's talk about that. And you can go a little bit deeper and then go back to step five and six after deeper conversations. So the way we view it is those pivots help you move back and forth, and uh it's fluid.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Yeah, and and you're approaching it with curiosity instead of that's again not coming across as pushy. It's just I'm just curious, uh, and and just kind of bringing that conversation piece back in. And so that's that's fantastic. And so closer schedule. So I know sales call, we always think you got to close it, right? That's that's the key. But it sounds like you're saying that there's that doesn't have to be the the end goal, or is there other what's talk to me about that last step? What are you looking at?

SPEAKER_01 37:50

The most important thing is that you know when you look back at your last 10 closed deals, how did that go down and how did you ask for it in a way that was successful? And as long as you know what that looks like, that becomes your new standard, your new gold standard. And what we always do is think of that whole bridge as a scoring formula. It's not just a stepped plan, it's a scoring formula. So we we call what we call the bridge score, which is a closed deal is a hundred out of a hundred, and each of those boxes are is worth a certain amount of points. Now, um a half credit for step six would be you scheduled a follow-up, full credit, the green would be you closed the deal. And so what this is really helpful with is thinking through is this a situation where it's reasonable and it makes sense to close? Like are all signs green up until this point, then you should be closing. If there's fogginess on qualification, or they are gonna go interview other people, or they are gonna do different things that should slow it down, you wanna go for that next conversation so you don't get stuck in following up, you know, never consistently. The acronym BAM FAM, book a meeting from a meeting is really where this is important here, which is get it on the calendar so you don't have to deal with the scheduling and the follow-up. And um, just ask yourself when it gets to the end of the conversation, does it make sense to just close it now or does it make sense to schedule another conversation? One other point on this would be you don't have to schedule that next conversation for like a month. You could do it for tomorrow. You could do it later today. You could do it as soon as it makes sense. And don't be afraid to the best way to shorten a sales cycle is just shrink the time between conversations. So um don't be afraid to do that either.

Book, Coaching, And Final CTA

SPEAKER_00 39:31

I love that. Yeah, there's so it's just ending the call with some kind of commitment of some kind on their end, whether that's a the even if the commitment is nope, this is not the right fit. Uh, that's at least there's nothing worse than living in that world of of follow-up limbo where you can't get a hold of a person, they're not responding, they're still in that they seemed interested, but now they're not answering anything. And so maybe they were just too polite to say this isn't the right fit. Uh I honestly feel like even if they want to think about it, trying to get them and put a call in the calendar, I've found that will suss out the actually.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

It's then the then it's a forcing function. Yes, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

If they don't want to get on another call, then they'll go ahead and just say, actually, I think this probably isn't the right fit. And you're like, okay, awesome. That's that just saved me so much time emailing you a thousand times trying to get you to say something.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Yes. And if they really are too polite, they're gonna say yes to the follow-up, they're gonna accept the invitation, and then they're gonna cancel on you five minutes before. And at least you know because you got it on the calendar. At least you can get that level of clarity instead of endless follow-up, right? So you're you're spot on. It's a forcing function. It helps us hold them accountable. It also saves us some admin on the back end.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Man, I love it. This has been so valuable. I mean, I took a whole page of notes here just because um I'm I'm taking away a lot. I'm gonna go in and start looking at our sales process and then tell us your next steps and your call to action because I know you have a book. I know you you work with people, so talk to me about what you do. Where can people go to learn more about what you do?

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Bridgeselling.com. You can get the book on Amazon. It's called Fix Your Broken Sales Calls. You can get a free PDF version on our website if you go to bridgeselling.com slash books. So you can read it there if you'd like to hard copy order on Amazon. We work with companies of all sizes. So if you're a small solopreneur, we'll do some focused one-on-one work with you to help you build out your bridge, build out your scoring formula, understand what your sales process should look like. And if you're a larger team, I think most of those audiences smaller teams, but we also work with larger companies too. It's really the same process. How can we take exceptional sales systems and and put it in one that makes sense for your product, your buyer, your product, your process, and we we do that. So coaching, training, um, all sorts of services to help you there.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

That's awesome. Yes, I recommend it. I'm gonna go uh buy your book as myself because I I love just the simplicity of this framework. I mean, I genuinely, as we go back to even talking about the whole story brand framework, I really feel like you took an overwhelming process of sales and just made it as simple as just follow these steps. Like we're overcomplicating it, we're overwhelming ourselves for no reason. It should be just it's just this simple, it's just a conversation. And um, so I plan on taking it and reading it. Johnny, thank you so much for your time and your wealth of knowledge, and it's been just awesome having you. Thanks for joining us on the Therapy Business Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a practice owner that you may know. If your practice needs help getting organized with its finances or just growing your practice, head to therapybusinesspod.com to learn how we can help you.