Confessions of a Seller Podcast

How to Navigate Complex Negotiations (Or Get Ghosted)

• Confessions of a Seller • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Most sellers run the same playbook for SMB and Enterprise. That’s why deals stall.

Different buyers. Different pressure. Different decisions.

SMB buys speed.
Enterprise buys certainty.

If you don’t adjust, you lose control.

This episode breaks down how CEOs actually think, how to move deals forward, and how top sellers control conversations, not just react to them.

From pipeline coverage to negotiation tactics, from Mutual Action Plans to the GIVE & GET matrix — this is how elite sellers win without discounting.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• The real differences between SMB and Enterprise sales
• How CEOs think, evaluate, and make decisions
• The KPIs and pipeline coverage that actually matter
• How to move deals forward without losing control
• Negotiation strategies used by top performers
• The Mutual Action Plan to structure your deals
• The GIVE & GET matrix to avoid discounting
• How to control the agenda and read the room

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Connect

SPEAKER_01

SMB, enterprise, mid-market, every deal, every cycle has a new strategy and a different way of selling. And that's exactly what we will teach you and talk about, and you will learn in this episode. So a lot of strategies and techniques in order to apply and shorten your sales cycle and close more deals faster. Um, Kevin, uh, welcome to another Confessions of a Seller episode. Welcome, Ellen. For sure. Before we start, as we always say, thank you very much to reply.io. Reply is our main partner. Uh they are part of this journey and they help us uh creating and making this uh a real live uh podcast. If you want to know and test them, they are testing town all in one uh sales engagement tool. All the details, all the information, everything in the comments and description of this episode. But without further ado, let's jump in into what matters. So yeah, I was saying SMB, mid-market, enterprise strategies, how to deal move, yeah, uh move deal forward, better said. What's your high-level topic about that before we jump into strategic things?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think every every size of company needs a different kind of approach, right? For that reason, I think it's important that there are different kinds of sellers for each kind of different uh sizing and different skill sets needed for every kind of different pitch or negotiations that's interesting you have out there, right? If someone sells to SMBs and suddenly wants to negotiate with an enterprise company, if a different game, if it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01

That's interesting. What are those skill sets that you mentioned? Because for sure, I've been in both. I started in SMB. Right now I'm my own CEO, and for sure I've been in enterprise. You are an enterprise. What are those big shifts or changes in skill sets that you are seeing so far?

SPEAKER_00

Look, what I realize now, I I'm in enterprise now since three years, not that long, but I think it's a mental game. So walk me through. Walk me through. Yeah, what I mean with that. It's like SB is it's like the quick wins. You know, your adrenaline, if you close a deal, it goes up and then goes up again and goes up again.

SPEAKER_01

Because they they have big numbers as well, right? Most likely.

SPEAKER_00

So no, no, it's not a good thing. It's like getting up the adrenaline, like uh at another. Every single day. So and in an enterprise, um, if you are, for example, in in a sales organization and you see the people are closing deals and and you're sitting there and you negotiate with your enterprise deals for over six months period and more, or even more, like uh 12-month sales cycles, two-year sales cycles, where you need to put a lot of effort, time into until then you close a 200, 250, 300, 500k deal. It's just hard. Yeah, you need to be patient, um, which I I'm not a patient person. I learned actually in sales, we are not patient, I guess. That's not a trade for us. I tell you, I I learned it more now uh when I became a father like four years ago, to be more patient, which helped me then to transition that's a good analogy in into an uh enterprise role. So it's like um because your adrenaline is is is there with like you have to build it with the different achievements you have doing the different sales uh processes in the in an enterprise deal. And that's the tough part.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's the tough part.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it is, it is indeed. So if we need to put it into a simple wording, I need I understand that patient is it's key. Yeah. Uh and that's what I what I learned when I transitioned from one to the other when I was selling them. What would be the three skills, but maybe skills, not personality traits that are way different from selling into SMB or selling into enterprise?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think you need to understand the different framework behind an enterprise deal. Okay. Like more stakeholders involved, more complex, automatically more negotiations happening. Okay. Right? Makes sense. That's one point. Then I think another one is um as well, handling different emotions. Um, because every different stakeholders have different emotions, and every different stakeholders have their own interest in every single part of this process.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um ego, some powers. Um, you need to understand you need to understand that. And um as well, the structure. It's not a straight line. Correct. I love to say uh it's a spaghetti plate. So you need to go to this guy, then you need to go to procurement, then you need to go to spaghetti. Yeah, so it's like a spaghetti plate.

SPEAKER_01

We can create the spaghetti framework for enterprise. Yeah. Should we should we good?

SPEAKER_00

I I think it's a tough one to to figure out, but I think you you need to have a good structure in your head. Awesome. How you want to approach those fields. It's crazy. But Ellen, you tell me um about SMBs, yeah, right? What is the best framework to tackle SMB companies?

SPEAKER_01

I think that if we need to put it into a strategy, the speed to closing uh ratio should be um like it's crucial here. And that's the methodology that we always apply. That it's when we understand that we are selling deals that should be closed or the average closing rate is within 21 to 28 days, yeah, dynamics are everything. You need to understand how a CEO uh delivers, thinks and makes decisions. You need to understand what are the things that are going to be impacted when they are making that decision, and what are the things that are going to be impacted if they don't make that decision? And with all those factors, you need to influence the speed in the lead.

SPEAKER_00

Please repeat that. Make it simple in 30 seconds for our audience to understand.

SPEAKER_01

So basically, when you're selling two SMBs, you need to understand how a CEO thinks the dynamics of a founder. And two more things. What are the implications of making that decision that could be buying your solution? Uh, and what are the implications, and most important, of not making a decision of buying your solution? Because all those three factors will determine if they buy from you or not. They want speed. Got it. They want to decide. So is it a straight line in SMB? At some point it is. There's nothing like from A to B super smooth, nothing in sales, I would say, but it's more straightforward than for sure enterprise or mid-market high-end. Because they know what they want. You need to deliver. It is a yes, it is a no, it's a maybe. Why? We qualify or disqualify, right? And we move into the other one. Most likely, and you can you can basically address this. Uh, when you and when I look into my clients' pipelines and say, okay, help me understand my pipeline. Okay, are you selling to enterprise? Yes. Show me your pipeline. And your pipeline has, I don't know, 129 open deals. I'm telling you, you're screwed. There's no way you can handle 129 open deals in enterprise. That means that you're not qualifying, your pipeline is a mess, you're not closing them, you're not asking the right questions, or you're doing everything at the same time wrong. Yeah. But if you have 12 deals open or seven deals open, that makes more sense. On the other way around, if you are an SMB and you have seven deals open, you're screwed. You need more volume, you need more speed.

SPEAKER_00

Definitely. I think it's really about um quality than quantity in enterprise, and uh the other way around in SMBs, right? Um you need to reach your annual target. And uh I think one important factor is your pipeline coverage, right?

SPEAKER_01

Um That's can you elaborate a little bit on that? Because I always listen about pipeline coverage, something the CEOs and BPs of sales love. What exactly does that mean?

SPEAKER_00

So usually you should have uh three or four times pipeline coverage, um, like amount, uh let's say uh a dollar amount of deals in your pipeline, which is three times or four times your example. Your actual uh your annual target or your quarter, how you how how you want to see it, right? So um to make it more simple, let's say you have uh one million yearly quota. Yeah, you need a four million pipeline. Okay. Right? So open pipeline, so open pipeline, correct. Of course, it's a good indicator. Um there are more factors which as well are important, right? For example, deal size. How big is the deal size, average deal size um to bring you to your target? Absolutely. How much is your close rate? Um, if you have a close rate of 30%, you maybe need less in your pipeline than someone who has a close rate. 15%. 15% close rate, right? So there are many indicators which um you have that that's really interesting, man.

SPEAKER_01

So there are KPIs. Sorry to interrupt. I think that this is really important what you're saying. It's there are KPIs that as a seller, you must know them. Yeah. You must know your numbers. What are those that you're mentioning?

SPEAKER_00

Definitely average deal size. We want to try to improve that as much as possible. Means adding more products to your offering to increase the deal size. Okay. So it's number one. Number two is your um pipeline coverage. Perfect. And number three is your close rate. Okay. So close rate, um, how many, if you have 10 deals, how many of these 10 deals um you actually are able to close? Let's say you have a close rate of 30% out of 10 deals, you know that 30% usually uh three deals you close. You will close.

SPEAKER_01

That's awesome. So if we make a number here, correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah. So if you are talking about enterprise deals, going back to the pipeline strategy or pipeline analysis. For example, if you are average, if your target is 1 million a year and you need a pipeline coverage of 4x, that means that you need a pipeline of at least $4 million in revenue, open deals, right? Opportunities. That means that if you close uh average deal cycles of half a million, just to put a round number here, uh, you need at least eight open deals in your pipeline, as we were saying before. If you have 129, you are screwed.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

If you have eight open deals at an average of half million, you have your pipeline coverage. Correct. And if you close 30% of them, right, you are going to close X uh amount of money. That's how you start doing the reverse engineer and calculating your execution.

SPEAKER_00

So the idea here is as well, like, of course, have some smaller deals in the pipeline because having this bigger deal is always will not happen. Um, as well, I'm a person who does still need sometimes the adrenaline. So I'm happy as well with a 90k deal. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

You're closing those those faster ones and so on.

SPEAKER_00

So um and um have the good mix out of it, yeah. Right. So um just to have the the traction and the possibility to close them.

SPEAKER_01

That makes sense. Yeah. Let's jump into a new topic uh that is related to this. So we have SMB, we have enterprise, we're talking about how high-level they behave.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Let's jump into more tactical negotiation strategies here. Yeah, right. When we go, we talk always about discovery and demo, but let's go a little bit further down the line, like negotiation.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh I want your your insights, I want your questions, I want everything about your expertise.

SPEAKER_00

Put a topic, yeah. I question I will ask you. No, no.

SPEAKER_01

Um, it's what are those negotiation strategies that you've seen in enterprise or in SBs or comparing one to the other that were more successful in your case, yeah. And I can then share mine as well, and so on.

SPEAKER_00

In enterprise, for example, building this sense of urgency. Oh, I love that. Um doesn't work that good. Okay, tell me why. You shouldn't put your buyer too much under pressure because then they get pretty fast. It defenses cold or defensive. Okay. So it's really about relationship building.

SPEAKER_01

So you cannot force political internal decisions in a 5,000 employee company by just creating urgency.

SPEAKER_00

I was trying it with one uh big automotive client. Okay. And I said, hey, you know, like we have their new year begins, we have a price increase. Um, how do you create that sense of urgency? You know, it's it should be done right now. It's tough because you know, most of the time it's also out of their hands because they have to follow an internal process which they cannot jump over. The bureaucracy of Yeah. So, like, uh yes, I know. Sorry, Kevin, but um, don't put police dispression on me because I, as I told you, the topic is currently with our procurement department, and I have no chance to impact that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So I said, okay, could you share with me the names of the procurement department? Maybe uh I could speak directly to address any uh potential concerns which came up, right? Trying to still talk with the people and see if there's anything happening. So, like I said, be like the helping person to be able to um navigate the process to make it as smooth as possible. You become like a trusted advisor, right? Yeah, that's the goal, right? You be uh be the consultant, not the sales guy. Exactly. Everyone says that, but it's true. Um if they feel that you are like sign now or we increase the price by 50%. No, what the fuck? It's not possible. And you lose your trust, you use your relationships, you build over a period of time.

SPEAKER_01

So would would it be fair to say in a nutshell that what you're sharing here is hey, I want I want me as a seller to become a trusted advisor, a consulting guy, yeah, not just the pushy seller, because no matter how much urgency I can create, there are some things that they will go with the flow internally. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

It's not that you can champ over the internal processes, it's almost impossible, right? Different, of course, in an SMB business. But tell me more about your favorite negotiation uh tactics you have.

SPEAKER_01

I love, we were talking about speed, right? When we were talking about SMBs, and speed is driven by tension, is driven by urgency, or it's driven by scarcity. Yeah. So if you can apply one of those or all of the same, all of those at the same time, most likely either you will lose a lot of prospects, that you will burn them out. You need to, there's a gray area there and a thin line that you need don't need to cross. But strategically speaking, tension means that you are saying or working into something that will move their needle in terms of revenue, time, investment, speed to market, et cetera, whatever the KPI that you're mentioning. Um, urgency and scarcity, it's making them feel that you won't be there forever. Got it. Basically.

SPEAKER_00

Can you repeat that again for the audience and give me one example, a clear example? Let's say I'm a potential buyer, a CEO of a company, and you apply tension. Okay, perfect.

SPEAKER_01

So I would do the following. If I know all the factors that you consider in order to make a decision, the first thing that I would say is, hey Kevin, from what you're telling me, and I apply the first rule of negotiation or the first technique that it's mirroring or matching. That means repeating exactly what you were saying in your own words. Right? Yeah. So you will feel, as psychologically speaking, that I'm paying attention to you. Yeah. And that will lower the barrier and the friction. So it's like, hey, Kevin, you told me that it's top priority for you that you increase by 10% a month, month over month, over the next 12 months, over the next year. In order to do so, you need XYZ process. That is what I solved.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Right. The thing is, if you want to do that, by next month, we need to start applying that right now. Tension. Tension. Okay. That's important. The tension is applied right now. It's not like, oh, you tell me when we want to do it and we do it. No. We need to start right now if you want to achieve these X results. In your words, you told me that. Yeah. So I'm using your words to create some tension. Now I move into urgency. It's like, look, there is one way that we can do that. But let me tell you and let me be straightforward. Here is the second strategy. That is anchor. The anchor strategy, the high anchor. As an anchor, you say something super high and then you lower it down to make them feel that they are getting a bear game from it.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah? So basically, you say, hey Kevin, you know what? You are willing to get a 10% uh growth month over month over the next year, and you want to start next month. In order to get that, you need to start right now.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

In order to start tension. In order to start and to make that happen, we need to implement the process and make this up and running right now. You know what's happening right now is that this usually, with the speed that you want, this usually costs with the amount of users that you want and the process that we are going through between 25 to 30k per month. But forget about it. We can start with the current plant, and I will fight internally, right? And we will make it at 15k.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's the anchor. I mention a higher number, but then I go back to the regular number, and you think that you are winning a battle here. Yeah. Right? That's urgency. And the third one, scarcity. That is, but if we do that, and if you're okay with that, the only way that this could happen is if we make it happen by the end of the week.

SPEAKER_00

Very good.

SPEAKER_01

Because if not, this is going away. Yeah. And you make that sense of I oh, this is going away. It's scarce. Yeah. I need to do that. In 30 seconds. Let's recap. So for SB negotiation, apply tension, urgency, and scarcity. The first way to do that is tension. When you have all the features, all the criteria, all the information from your prospect, repeat that in the same way that they mention it in a potential way. If you want to achieve exactly the same words that they use, you need to do X thing. If not, that won't happen. That's how you create tension. Then you use urgency. That is within the anchor strategy, you go into pricing, you label something into a higher number, but then you go down making them feel that it's a concession for them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. But that needs to happen right now. Yeah. And that's how you make that scarce and urgent. Got it. And that's how you move the needle, either for qualification or disqualification. But you are positioning yourself as an authority figure.

SPEAKER_00

When we prepared this podcast, I know I saw you applying this strategy, actually getting in uh some sponsors here.

SPEAKER_01

No, don't say that to our sponsors, man. It's about sales. It's human. It's human.

SPEAKER_00

It's a confession. Hey guys, it's a confession.

SPEAKER_01

Confessions of a seller. We are to confess. We need to confess. I think that it would be amazing before we jump into another chapter. Man, you're making me get blurred right here. But I think that we need to create like a section that would be, besides the confessions of a seller name, just confessions. Yeah, like tell me one confession that won't take you to jail about whatever that we did to cheat something or do something about the code. But yeah, again, to recap, it's it's really important that understanding the difference between enterprise and SMB and how you navigate those negotiations, those processes. And we talk something behind the scenes. That is something that I try to apply in in SMB, but it's not 100% a must. Yeah. That it's the map. Yeah. Can you elaborate what a map is or means and when you should apply it in enterprise deals?

SPEAKER_00

My goal is if I am at a later stage of quarter, and I have like, let's say, three or four deals, which I won't definitely have to close, are for example in negotiations stage. My goal is to have for each of those deals a mutual action plan. Okay, what is a mutual action plan in simple words? So mutual action plan is you go in a meeting with the prospect and you have both tasks um which needs to be finished to your next meeting. So they have that, for example, for responsibilities, obligations. Exactly. So they, for example, need to speak with the legal department and figure out um which contract agreement um they they are able to do. They get an understanding about the internal process, does a security department need to be involved in the evaluation process? What are the whole processes behind um uh the scene which we need to come to a mutual agreement at the end of the quarter that we have the signature in place, right?

SPEAKER_01

So it's basically a way to keep them accountable on your side and on their side. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

So the same on my side. Mutual action plan. Exactly. It's what what the word says, a map, a mutual action plan. So and I do that for um my um deals, which are definitely want to close, to have like a clear time frame. Okay. Um to be able to, okay. We said next week we meet again, until next week we have um topic A, B, and C covered from your side, and I will uh talk about topic B um D, E, and F, right? Okay. So both of us have tasks, and then we meet again next week. So I did one actually um uh last summer um with an Italian company, big beverage company from uh from Italy. Um, a lot of people like like their their product uh in the summer season. So I had a mutual action plan with the person. Okay, she was German working for the Italian company, so she didn't go to ho for holidays in during August. So we met every single week, had a mutual action plan um planning.

SPEAKER_01

Best scenario ever.

SPEAKER_00

And she was like telling me all the information which we need. The Italians came back, this uh person who needs to sign the agreement came back, everything was done. He came back and we signed the agreement.

SPEAKER_01

So it's really a tactical, actionable thing that works.

SPEAKER_00

So it's really something because imagine you say, okay, who's gonna sign the agreement? Yeah, this person, okay. But but you don't ask the topics and And there you can download mutual action platforms. Yeah, there are templates online and so on. So you can uh even uh ask um Gemini, JGDP, whatever to create one soldier criteria, what uh the company you want to close. So it's really a a plan which helps you follow the timeline and uh be able to commit these deals to the end of the quarter.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. So in order to recap and to make it super simple for everyone that is willing to say, hey, maybe I need to apply this with my deals, yeah, in in three lines, what a mutual plan, uh action uh mutual action plan, sorry, is when you usually put it over the table, yeah, and how is this impacting the way you sell?

SPEAKER_00

Mutual action plan is an agreement with the buyer to map out which tasks they have to do and which tasks I have to do. I map it out when a stage is on negotiation or a verbal commit to have a clear structure until when the clear uh deal should be should be closed.

SPEAKER_01

Perfect. So it's it's it's helpful and it's something that you would recommend to everyone. Definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_00

Because it makes your life easier and the life of your manager easier because then they can as well commit it up and they can say, okay, we have a mutual action plan. And you again, my one of the favorite words I use, de-risk that the deal slips and gives you a better um pipeline forecasting for for you and your your team.

SPEAKER_01

That's awesome. So we have another topic that is also interesting, and it's something that most sellers are I'm not sure if the word it's afraid of talking or afraid of not doing it. Yeah. That it's discounts. Yeah. It's a big topic, right? Yeah. So how do we work on discounts? Um, yeah. So what do you think about the topic?

SPEAKER_00

The problem with discounts is salespeople threw in discounts too early. Okay. Right? That means like um they said, yeah, but your competitor is cheaper. Ah, okay, we can discount it as well to their level, right? And and this is a big problem. But what what do you think about discounting? I I I know that you're not a big fan of it, but yeah, what what is your idea?

SPEAKER_01

I hate it because I think that there is a again a neuroscience uh behind when you do a discount, or when you make a discount or offer a discount. That it's hey, if we are making a discount early in the process and you are testing me as a buyer, yeah, right, we are not what we were saying before. We are not creating tension, we are not creating urgency, we're not creating a sense of scarcity, we are exactly the opposite, doing what we don't need to do, that it's showing them how desperate we are. Right. So I'm not against discounts, I'm against giving them every single time, and I I'm against them giving them too early, as you're saying. Yeah. But I have a framework or a matrix or a you can you you name it. Alan, the guy of the framework. Alan. The framework guy, we will put the confession framework guy, that is basically the give and get matrix, as I call it. Right? And I guess that I put this name, but everyone is doing this, or every top seller is trying to do this. Yeah. So this is my recommendation, and then we can for sure recap on this. But as a story or as a high level, never this applies to discount or to anything else during a negotiation. Never ever, and I guess that in enterprise as well, yeah, give something without asking something in return. Repeat it. Never ever give something without asking something in return in a negotiation. Audience, really important. Never this applies to your mom, to your dad, to your girlfriend, to your boyfriend, to your family, to your school teacher, high school teacher, to your sports manager, to whoever it is. Never give anything without asking anything in return. Like never give something for free at some point or a discount. Yeah. So let's go to a strategy, besides the jokes aside. Let's make a scenario. So we are going through the conversation. At some point, you are telling me that you have this budget or that you're willing to invest, and I tell you my price, and you without using the anchor strategy, the tension, the urgency, scarcity, anything. And at some point you say, you know what, Alan, that's too expensive for me. First thing that as a seller I would tend to do is no worries, we can go 10% lower. Completely wrong. Yeah. Huge mistake. So if you are willing to close this deal because of whatever the reason, could be a strategic reason because of the logo, could be because with that deal, you hit quota at the end of the year or the quarter. Whatever the reason, I don't care.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Use the give and get matrix. That is basically okay. It looks, first of all, disarm the real objection to understand if the pricing is a problem or is there anything else. So then we will recap for sure. But there are two things. Hey, it looks like you are committed to moving forward based on what we spoke. But let me ask you one straightforward question. And this is one strategy that works perfect. That it's the one last question or one forward question. Yeah. Straightforward question. They will say yes for sure. So pricing is not over the table right now. Imagine that pricing is out. Would it be any other reason that you would say that you wouldn't buy why you wouldn't buy this solution or you would move forward straightforward? If they say no, we would move forward, then you are already identifying that the value is there.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But there is a pricing thing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

If they say no, you know what? And they start jumping from one topic to the other, then that's a problem because then the pricing is just the objection. And there are something that you need to address first. Second thing, go into pricing. Okay, you know what? This is what I will do. I will go back to talk to my CFO and my CEO and fight for you as much as possible to understand if we can get down at least a five or 10% that it's crazy what we're doing, scarcity, urgency. Yeah. Like we don't do this. Not for you, not for anyone. It's like just for you. You feel powerful. If that happens, I don't want to fight just because of the sake of doing it. If this happens, do you commit to close by the end of the week? That's the give and get. I will do something positioned in a way that you think that you're important, but you need to do something in return. If you don't commit to that, there's no way that I go back there and I ask that. Really good point. A lot of information here. I don't know how to do you want to recap that, man.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think it's before we recap that, I I would love to give an example. I used actually last week, and then maybe if you could recap it again for the audience, would be would be fantastic. But I spoke last week to uh Spanish First League Football Club. Okay, nice. And um he said, Yeah, but your pricing is pretty, pretty high. We need to go down. I said, got it. Uh and I know with who they worked already, I know it's hard, you know, definitely cheaper than our service. And I applied this getting uh the technique, and I said, like, yeah, because I know there is some leverage I can use for getting other deals. And he said, Um, you mentioned you you would love to use our service, right? Yeah. Could you as well imagine to be an advocate or ambassador inside of La Liga to promote our solution than to the other football clubs? Um, as they give, right? Of course, they have some some additional issue. And he said, Yeah, for sure. I already know that you guys are doing a good job. I heard that from other football clubs, so I'm more than happy to be a kind of brand ambassador for you, which automatically would give me more deals to get. I said, Okay, would we as well be open to you know do a joint webinar together and uh a case study, right? Again, I get something because uh the reason why I'm asking if I could uh get that from you, that would give me more power to negotiate with our CFO to get you this discount, which you would need to actually be able to apply. He said, Yeah, Kevin, let's do that. I'm I'm in for it. If you want to get to a VP game of our team, you have the you have the tickets, you have everything. I said, Let's do that. You know, both are happy.

SPEAKER_01

Man, you have to invite me. Yeah, I will take you with you to the club. But that's perfect, man. Exactly. The example that you're sharing, it's and sometimes it's natural and it's consciously we're doing this. Yeah. But you show that you are the expert, that you are the consultant, that helping is the new selling and not just selling pushy. Yeah. And it's like, hey, you know what? I might be able to do something, but are you able to do this for me? Yeah. Right? So So please recap if if What's the question that I have to recap?

SPEAKER_00

So in a nutshell, so it's important to have this uh give and get. Yeah. Um, but how how are we able to apply that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So the give and get matrix works in a really simple way. Every time that you are willing or going to give something, no matter if it is a discount, a benefit, yeah, a fastest uh service, whatever it is, ask something in return. Give and get. Simple. Simple, straightforward. Uh, there's no magic to it. We'll position you as an expert, it will position you as an authority, we'll make you feel that you are in control of the conversation, and they will see that they cannot basically um joke with you at some point. Because most likely what happens is that if you ask me a discount and I say, Yes, yeah, absolutely, there's a 10 discount for you. I will send you all the details via email. Yeah, then one week later, it's like, hey, what happened? I gave you the 10 dis. You know what? I need a 20% discount rate. Yeah. Yeah. That happens. So avoid the headaches from the future by using the give and get matrix and framework right now.

SPEAKER_00

And how you gain actually control over your buyer, over your prospects and doing a deal.

SPEAKER_01

That's key. And I think that one of the most powerful things to do, and most one of the most underrating things that sellers don't do it's a clear, strategic, uh imposed and hard agenda. Then the agenda will be different for sure than the theory. In reality, you will navigate with different personas in the same call. One is going to be answering in their phone, one you will see the screen changing from tab to tab. Yeah. And that's how you will be using the body language as well and their names and so on. That's topic for another analysis. But it's super important that when you state the agenda, before you jump into a call, it could be a closing call, a negotiation call, a discovery call, whatever the type of call that you're talking. It's key. And here is the example. Say, hey Kevin, you know what? Based on our last conversation, this is what we're going to do today: A, B, and C. In order for me to show you the most beautiful and potential best of your interest, I might have a couple of questions that I would love to ask you because I need your expertise, your insights about how you operate on some tasks. Is that okay for you if I ask you those those questions? So they lower the guard and you they know that you will be asking questions. It's a discovery call. Yeah. But if you jump into the discovery call, they will be blocked at the beginning. So first thing, permission. Second thing in the agenda. That's how you start the conversation. Second thing in the agenda, saying, hey, that's awesome. We have one hour, 30 minutes, whatever the time you have. Yeah. Do you have a hard stop by any chance? So you need to understand because over the last five minutes, you always rush and it's important. Yes, we have a hard stop. Awesome. So the main goal is for me to understand a couple of things that I will ask, and then I will show you what I have prepared for you. Is that okay with you? For sure, you can interrupt me and we can chit-chat about it. Awesome. Lastly, and here is where the magic happens: why you control the conversation. The main goal of this call, after all, is defining if it makes sense, next step. Yeah. If it's a discovery, really important point.

SPEAKER_00

Or whatever. So many salespeople out there who not stating the next step. Yeah. So if you have a call and you have not a next step or next meeting. There's no call for me. In your calendar schedule with them.

SPEAKER_01

That's your and you're losing the control. It's really important, man. Even more in enterprise, but in any deal. And where we are talking SB, speed, speed is now. So when you set the expectations in that way, most likely they will jump and they will say, Well, show me the demo. Wait. As we agreed on, I told you, like, hey, you know what? I mean, I cannot show you what I'm going supposed to show you. We have 25 features. I don't want to waste your time. I don't want to be make it boring and you fall asleep on the other side of the screen. You use some humor, right? So you're right. What do you need to know? But make it interactive. Exactly. So super interactive. And when you are defining that, you are also defining the different outcomes. Like, hey, it could be that we define the next step together. Or maybe it's not for you. We shake hands and nothing happens here. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_00

And you start from there. Question. Do you like to use presentations during those sessions? Yes or no? Sorry, we are not in.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, we're not there yet. But that could be a question for the cards that we can jump in. As it is a yes or no, but I will take the advantage of answering depends.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

If I have to pick one, I would say no. I don't like presentations. Yeah. But there are some cases that you need presentations. Enterprise is more tending to have presentations. Right now with AI and all this stuff, right now there are tools out there that you can put a prompt and a beautiful presentation will come up. But the thing is, the most important thing of a presentation is why and when. Why am I supposed to show you in a presentation that will add value to what I'm saying or asking? And when should I present that? Opening a conversation, sharing the screen, and starting showing you how good I am, how better we are, how beautiful we are, how good our solution. I mean, that's that that's shit, man. We need to make sure that it's relevant for the scenario, the context, and what is exactly. Sometimes you need to show them during discovery and demos. I hate them. Yeah. And there's we can even have one specific episode about digging deeper demos and discoveries, but there are frameworks and strategies, Alan, the framework guy, um, that are basically about what should I show, how should I show you to you, and what should I say during, before, and after the showing a specific feature. So no, definitely a no-go for me. But but what do you say? As an enterprise guy.

SPEAKER_00

It depends. Same, same, same like you, right? If you have multiple services to show it in a nutshell, I think it's good, but I'm not a big fan of presentations, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01

To conclude this topic, uh, I think that at some point in enterprise, correct me if I'm wrong, there are some political plays. Yeah. And big companies want to understand how the other big companies are selling to them. Yeah. So you need to put your credentials out there. We have 29 offices, more than 2,000 employees. We work with Microsoft, with Apple, with whatever, whatever. Uh, okay, now you have you earned my attention. Yeah, yeah. You need to build this credibility already at the beginning. But besides that, from a sales perspective, it's not the most interesting thing.

SPEAKER_00

Agree. Okay. Perfect. Ellen, so um, you want to uh quickly uh put this again in a nutshell, the last topic. Uh the agenda topic, for example. Yeah. How you control the conversation and the deal and why is it important?

SPEAKER_01

I think that the most powerful strategy is to make sure that within your first interaction, in whatever the call it is, that agenda is clear, okay. Setting the expectations. This is what we're going to do. This is what could happen. These are the next steps that we will define together. And in order for that to happen, I will ask some questions. Is that okay with you? Perfect. Boom. You control the conversation, then something will happen. And that's why it's really important not to jump in like uh without having any idea.

SPEAKER_00

Great. Alan, thanks. Um, I think it's time.

SPEAKER_01

Time to play. Time to play. You want to start? Of course, why not? So let me explain a little bit what is this about. I think that the audience already knows by this time, but yeah, for our new new listeners. For the new listeners, confessions of a seller, as you can see here, we have some cards that basically every card has a question that is a yes or no question, and we will be asking each other. And the ultimate goal is to answer for yes or no, and why. And we have between 30 and 60 seconds in each in each question. Sounds good? Sounds good. So let's start. This is the real confessions of a seller confessionary. So the category of this question is outbound, and it says call before email or email before call. Oh, it's a good one.

SPEAKER_00

Fast. Email and then call. Why? I like to refer to the email I sent on the call. Nice. Because in the industry where I work, usually we send the prospects examples of counterfeit products we identified on a specific channel or like a scam website we found, right? And they say, hey, um uh Michael, not true if if if you saw my last email, we sent you over a couple of scam websites, which we saw as well with high traffic, uh leading potential buyers from yours to their scammer scam activity. Uh, and I was just wanted to hear if you had a chance to review them.

SPEAKER_01

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00

So you're leading with familiarity low and value.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Sounds good, man. I love it. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00

Next one outbound. Okay. Um 1,000 hyper-targeted leads or 10,000 broad?

SPEAKER_01

For the sake of our friendship and our partners as well, and because I do believe it, um, 1,000 highly targeted.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

At some point, it's a it's a numbers game in terms of stats. And right now, what we are seeing in outbound in 2026, I mean, the reason why I picked this is higher conversion rates uh only happens if you have the right timing context and the real people that you are reaching out. So if I have 1,000 relevant leads, highly targeted ones with the real timing, if I have a 1% conversion rate, it's the same as 10% conversion rate for 10,000 one. Correct. So I prefer the other one uh that is super highly targeted and increase the conversion rate, and we'll have more meetings and more revenue and more everything. Agree. 100%. So let's go into the next one. So we have pipeline category. More meetings, it's equal to more revenue. No. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Can you elaborate why? There are many meetings out there which could have been solved, for example, with a quick call. As well, if you jump in every meeting which is was not pre uh pre-qualified, you're losing a lot of time. If there's a lead coming in and uh you already see that they're looking for the for not the right solution you're offering, but you somehow try to tweak it to um uh make it happen, I think you're wasting more time. It's important to say no in sales. If you know you are not able to satisfy the client 100%, don't don't sell it.

SPEAKER_01

Don't sell it. So the no is a really important thing in sales. That's a really big learning as well. Always love it.

SPEAKER_00

AI sales. Okay. AI will replace STRs, yes or no?

SPEAKER_01

It already replaced some of them. Yeah um and the fun story that I always share and uh and tell is that it's replacing me at some point. I'm working with a client right now, that they are using my knowledge and my expertise or background to help train their AI tool to train their SDRs. Crazy. So basically, what I'm saying to them is like, hey, you are using me instead of training your SDRs to train a tool that will train them. So I need to find another job. So unfortunately, AI will replace a lot of roles, not only SDRs, SDRs as the first one because they are the ones doing the most repetitive tasks at some point. But I think that the SDRs that will shift and navigate those skills of how to leverage go-to-market tools, revenue tools, AI tools, as well as becoming better in psychological sales skills, they will survive. But yeah, it this will happen.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, um, definitely. I think, Alan, we had a fantastic episode again. Um really a lot of insights um from you know, like how to navigate uh sales processes in SMBs as well in enterprise, having um different tactics, frameworks, frameworks, it's important uh to you know make it more leveraging um during the sales processes. So I think um a lot of um great insights. Would you add anything?

SPEAKER_01

What absolutely. I mean, uh I think that we cover like the main difference from SMB to enterprise, political bias, yeah, uh wars internally, the complex deals, the speeds, anchoring, urgency, tension, how to uh deal with those decisions and and and to influence uh our potential buyers as well as discounts, not giving them. That's important. Uh please don't give discounts. I hate it. And yeah. Or uh uh take before you give. Exactly. And and always use the give and get matrix. Uh, we are ready to to close.

SPEAKER_00

As always, we want to thank a lot our main sponsor reply, um, an all-in-one outreach um solution, which uh of course allows us to make actually such a fantastic podcast, and important as well for the people uh who actually liked our episodes. Um, hit the subscribe button. Every like counts for us um because um yeah, this confirms that we are doing here something valuable for the audience. And if you have questions, hit them in the in the comment section. All information as well about our main sponsors you you find uh in the comment section.

SPEAKER_01

And yeah, um, so yeah, here we are uh for the next episodes. Great things happening, invites, uh new topics, AI, go to market, evolution, sales, techniques, discovery. I mean, I I cannot even think of the amount of things that we have. Subscribe, as Kevin said. Reach out to Kevin on LinkedIn. Reach out to me. Let's connect. Let's be friends. And see you in the next one. See ya.