How we are always selling. Pt. 5

Welcome to Leadership Sovereignty the Podcast. I'm your host Terry Baylor along with Ralph Owens and today we'll discuss how asking why is the most powerful tool in understanding one's needs, why we all prefer to buy rather than to be sold to, and how these techniques discussed can be applied in both personal and professional settings. Enjoy the show.

I do wanna tie it back to, something that Frank Bretcher, the way he phrased it, he articulated. He calls it to your point, Terry, identifying the key issue. Right? Yes. So in this in this context, he's a salesman trying to sell to someone who has a lot of objections.

Right? And, what he and I love the way he phrased this. He talks about how objections are like an onion. There are multiple layers to it. Typically the first layer that you get is not the root issue.

Right? So you have to ask questions to get to the root issue. To get past one layer to the next layer to the next layer until you pinpoint what the actual root issue is. And so I think you said the way you said pinpointing the most critical factor driving your customer's decision, making process is critical. This allows you to tailor your sales pitch and address their specific concerns.

So if we go back one step, the art of asking questions is for the purpose of identifying the key issue.

Yes.

And how do you do that through questions? You use the word why. He calls that the most powerful word in the English language. Right? Because by asking why you can dive deeper into a customer's motivations and gain valuable insights into their underlying needs.

Right? Yes. And he he phrases this so beautifully. He says that people don't want to, be sold to, they wanna buy. And to Terry's point, when you, ask great questions, you dig into, a key issue.

You get past those layers of the onion by saying, well, why is that? Really? Okay. Well, why is that? Okay.

Well, why is that? Usually, I think he said typically about four layers in you'll finally get to the what the root issue is. And then that's what you actually create your offering around. Right? To help them achieve their goals.

So again, though you may not be in a selling capacity in the sales and in the industry that works and could talk about, you know, what I do, you know, for a living. There may be something that I want an initiative that I wanna push out in my organization technology wise and people have objections to it. Right? And if I just took the first objection that they gave me and just stopped and gave up, then I wouldn't be able to push my initiative forward. Right?

So what I have to do is start asking, okay, well why do you feel that way? Well, you know, it was because it is. Oh really? Well, okay, well what makes you feel like that? Okay, yeah, okay, what makes you feel like that?

And then I get to the root of the issue. And then I could say, well, know what? This solution can address that if we go in this direction. I mean, do you think? Right?

And now they feel like, oh, you know what? Maybe I can get with that. So guess the point I'm trying to make is that this is not just for being in the sales capacity or sales industry. Right? You can use this in any type of negotiation that you have.

But Terry, any thoughts on that?

Yeah, no, I think it's spot on Ralph. So one of the some bullet points I have around that is questions to spotlight the big problem. Here's some questions. What are the main external trends that create pressure for your target buyers? Again, can change target buyers to internal teams.

If you don't have a outside customer. What are your business units goals? Are their frustrating challenges your solution can resolve? What is the big central theme in four words or less? So defining, giving it a name.

So one of the examples in the book that was provided was there was a guy who had a virtual reality company who was selling to doctors and hospitals. And the idea was that junior surgeons could practice, right? And so there was a host of problems that were going on, right? There were malpractice, there were repeat surgeries occurring, there was fatigue because the physicians and their staff were having to do so many surgeries. The younger surgeons weren't getting enough practice because the senior surgeons didn't trust them to do the surgeries.

So when he was selling his product, it was, I got a virtual reality platform for physicians and hospitals. He was like, no, that's So the idea was to understand what that big problem is and then sum it up in four words or less. They took all of those surrounding issues and summed it up into better patient outcomes. So think about that guys, how many problems are we trying to solve? Now granted, we become a campaign at this point, right?

So let's say that you're in accounting and receipts are taken two weeks longer. Right? Vendors don't have a centralized place to upload all the receipts. That's why it's taking you guys so long to process all the invoices. Right?

So, and then there's an impact on your cash flow, right? Because you're not able to pay vendors in enough time and also it's impacting your ability to receive revenue because the services that are being provided are being held up. So how do we sum all of that up in four words or less? So I'm just gonna make something up off the top of my head. SaaS efficiency increased revenue.

And so when all the parties who are involved in this, ecosystem when they see that it's going to resonate with them. So now we've been able to slogan it in a way, right? Where we're not saying, yeah, we're gonna speak to the details of the technologies and details of the practices within accounting. So in that same way, as we identify what the big problem is, we present a narrative that summarizes all of the pieces of the onion Ralph, which that's what I love about it because it's not that that first layer of the onion wasn't important, it's just not the big problem. It's not that the second layer is not important, it's not the big problem.

What is the big problem? And so I think sometimes as subject matter experts, and this is a challenge for all of us who are experts in a discipline. We wanna solve the issue within our discipline. But our goal should be to solve the business problem.

That's right. Right. Which is what I love about the the the forward statement because what I'm hearing is the forward statement is the the business outcome, the expected business outcome.

Exactly. As is the bit is the bit and here's the thing guys, this this works wherever. It could be in your family. Right? You guys want to spend more time together as a family.

Create something forwards or less. Fun Saturdays. Fun Saturdays. Yeah. That's the outcome, fun Saturdays.

And so these techniques work wherever you are. You are volunteering at church and the Sunday dinners are taking too long. Man, the food is not ready when church is out. How do we Where do we go name it?

Hot ready to it.

You know what I'm saying? Again, right, because you wanna solve the big problem, right? That's essentially it, Because ultimately you want the visitors who are showing up to feel welcome. So you name it, whatever. I don't know.

I can't think of anything for that right now. I haven't been in missions in a while.

But yeah.

But yeah, it's the big problem, Solve the big problem, term it forwards, unless you can do that on your teams, right? This can be used, you're an operations in IT and you want to ensure that desktops are patched and in a timely manner and end users are able to log in no matter the time of day, remote efficiency everywhere, something, I don't know. Right and that's what you name it you know. Thank you for being with us today on Leadership Sovereignty. Stay connected with us on X formerly known as Twitter and on Instagram by searching for Leadership Sovereignty.

And just like this podcast, let's all collectively grow as we go. God bless.