Lesson 30 - Dig Deeper and Use Proof Points

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The more specific and compelling your proof points, the more effective your pitch will be. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to dig deeper into a prospect’s challenges and provide proof points that resonate. Your assignment will involve creating proof points using real-world data or case studies that address a specific pain point for a target account.

Transcript

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Nicholas, welcome back to the daily quota. I'm your host, Nicholas Hill, and in today's lesson, you'll learn some final tips for your value based conversations, including some tips for active listening, how to ask open ended and effective discovery questions using a framework called TED or Ted, and how you can effectively deliver value through proof points or customer stories. Let's start with active listening. Active listening is one of the most valuable gifts you can give your prospect. It's so easy to tell when you're talking to someone and they're distracted or they're doing something else, or they're busy or their mind is elsewhere. Presence is very, very important when you're having a discovery conversation. Some of the ways that you can become a better active listener. First, you can ask open ended questions. So when you're talking to someone, instead of saying, I actually wrote down some examples. So let me find that for you. Instead of saying, Are you currently evaluating other tools for this workflow, which is easily answered with a yes or no, which closes off the conversation, I could instead say, what other tools have you considered to solve this challenge which requires a more open response? Another example. Instead of saying, is this an urgent priority? Which again, yes or no, instead I might say, what is your ideal timeline for getting the solution in place, which is far more open ended. When you ask open ended questions, you expand the conversation, and that will help you learn the most that you can in the shortest amount of time, and remember, as I mentioned on our previous lesson, every minute you get in front of that prospect is rare and valuable. So you want to make sure that you're getting the most out of every question that you ask, and open ended questions are a great way to do that. One effective framework for structuring open questions is called Ted, or Ted, and Ted stands for tell, explain, describe. So essentially, what I'm doing is I'm saying, you know, a tell question would be, can you tell me about your current process? Can you explain the steps that you've tried so far to address this problem? Can you describe a time this process broke down and wasn't working up to your standards. So any question that begins with tell, explain or describe by nature is going to be an open ended question that is more likely to lead to a fruitful response. A second way to improve your active listening is to ask follow up questions. So you don't just want to sound like a checklist interview, right where you're just asking question after question after question. You want the questions to lead to deep, fruitful conversations. So when you are asking questions, a good way to show that you're paying attention is to show that you're interested in learning more. If a client says something like, yeah, you know, our network has been experiencing some downtime. I don't just want to move on from that. I want to say, oh, you know, that's interesting. You mentioned that your network infrastructure has been experiencing some significant downtime. Can you tell me a little more about that? When was the last outage? What was the root cause? How long did it take to get the network back online? What were the consequences of that outage? How many people were involved? Was this global or regional, right? You get the point. I can ask so many questions that help to continue the trail of thought for that that response, it allows me to dig deeper. It allows me to uncover more pain or challenge more negative consequences and really understand what's going on. The third thing that you need to do to show that you're an active listener is to use empathy. Using empathy is really hard to teach. It's it's something that's hard for me to say. Here's how you use empathy, x, y, z, right? If you think that B to B sales is emotionless, that it's only based on logic, that it's only based on business sense, you're wrong. It's just not that's how that's how people would like it to be. We would like to think that we only buy based on logic, that we never buy based on emotion, but emotion will play into your conversations, and showing empathy will naturally build trust and expand your relationships. Now does that mean you're going to write love letters and talk about your emotions with your prospects? No. What it does mean is that you're going to show basic human empathy for challenges that they're going through, right? So if someone tells you about a challenge that they're facing, stop for a second, acknowledge it. Hey, Jin, you know, honestly, it sounds like this has been really, really frustrating for you. Team, and I'm sorry that this has cost you so much and time wasted and in stress. I definitely think that that we can help you here, right? If someone is mentioning that, you know, they're seeing redundant meetings, or they're, you know, having to go around in circles to solve a problem, you can actually say something on a more positive note, right? You might say like, Hey, how does it feel knowing that pretty soon you're not going to have to worry about over complicated spreadsheets and unnecessary meetings, right? You're getting so close to the light at the end of the tunnel here, and you can celebrate that fact with them, but getting them to think and resonate with the emotions that they've had around these challenges can be very powerful in getting you closer to a sale. The last thing that you can do to be a good active listener is to summarize what they're saying back to them. This is a really great way to show understanding. It's also a really great way to correct yourself if you're wrong. So if someone says something to you, you want to just say it right back to them. I might say, you know, Jen, what I'm hearing from you is that you're struggling to keep teams aligned. Ever since you moved to remote work. Because of that, you're starting to see frustration, finger pointing amongst the teams and discontent. Am I right and understanding that, and then allow them to correct you if you're wrong or confirm if you're right. Using those four tips, I promise that will make you a better active listener. You'll instantly begin having better sales conversations right away. But the other side to this is it can be really difficult to even start these conversations if you're not showing people that you are there to deliver value. We'll talk about that in a lot of different ways in future lessons. But one way that you can deliver value in throughout the course of your discovery is to bring in customer stories or proof points. So if I'm talking to someone, this is, let's actually talk about an example. Instead of me asking a question like, Hey, are you currently struggling to manage multiple social media accounts at once? Instead, I would say something like, Mark, you know, whenever we worked with Bethesda, we found that their marketing team was struggling to manage multiple social media accounts at once. I'm curious, is that a challenge that your teams are seeing as well? And now what I've done is I've shown them that I understand their challenges, not just because I did some research, but because I have worked with other organizations that have had those challenges, it shows great thought leadership. And then even better, later, whenever I bring up my solutions, I can call back to that story. So I can say, you know, Mark, I definitely think that we can help you here. In fact, after working with the Bethesda team on this, they were able to save 12 hours a week duplicating social media posts, which allowed them to focus on higher quality engagements. So now I've brought up these proof points, not only in my discovery, but later when I'm solutioning and showing what we can do for them. So by bringing up customer stories, showing the prospect best practices that you've learned from others, you give value, you earn trust, and that will allow you to move the conversation forward using the other tips, the active listening tips that we've discussed. And by the way, if you're struggling with how to open a conversation, that's one that I've heard a couple of times. The best two questions to start with are, why were you interested in taking this meeting with me today? And what are the goals that you're looking to accomplish with a new solution? If you can ask those questions right off the bat, that will at least kick off a conversation that will be valuable for you down the line. All right, now it's your turn for today's assignment, you're going to identify three proof points customer stories from your organization. So basically, any story or engagement that resulted in positive outcomes for other customers, you're going to write down three discovery questions that incorporate those proof points and bonus points if those discovery questions are in the TED or Ted framework. So tell me about, explain about, describe for me. And then for your next discovery call, ask if it's okay to record the conversation, assuming your organization allows this. And after the call, listen back to it and start to take some notes. Are you active listening? Are you asking open ended questions? Are you following up? Are you summarizing back to them? Are you showing empathy? Did you provide value through proof points? Those things can help you to ultimately become a better listener and a better sales person. And your study guide will walk you through all of this, and that is it for today's lesson on the daily quota. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time bye, bye.