Stop Leading With Benefits — Transcript

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1. 0:00Hello sales people, Emily Jeffries, and
2. 0:01today I want to challenge you to think
3. 0:03about the language that you're using
4. 0:05when you're reaching out to prospects or
5. 0:08having first discovery calls with people
6. 0:10[music] who might be interested in
7. 0:12buying what it is that you sell. My
8. 0:14guess is that you are likely using not
9. 0:18optimal language. And the reason I say
10. 0:21that is one of the hardest habits to
11. 0:23break when I begin working with the
12. 0:25team, is that sales people are so used
13. 0:28to leading with products, leading with
14. 0:30features, leading with benefits. And
15. 0:31even if they've been taught in theory,
16. 0:34don't do that, don't do that, when we
17. 0:36listen to calls and we listen to the
18. 0:37language that sales people are using in
19. 0:39these early conversations, they're
20. 0:40usually focused on painting a picture of
21. 0:43how good life could be if only you would
22. 0:45buy our product and service. So, they
23. 0:47focus on, you know, you could save time,
24. 0:50you could save energy, you could save
25. 0:51money, you're going to have better
26. 0:52outcomes, better results, better
27. 0:54responses, better customer service. And
28. 0:57that really works against what we know
29. 1:00about the human psychology of what makes
30. 1:01people buy. So, let's talk about that
31. 1:03today.
32. 1:06>> [music]
33. 1:20>> Who am I? I'm a professional sales coach
34. 1:22and trainer, and I really specialize in
35. 1:25working with clients who are either the
36. 1:27[music] premium or close to the premium
37. 1:29option in their market. What that means
38. 1:31is they can never sell [music] by price.
39. 1:34But it also means that very likely their
40. 1:37customers have options within the market
41. 1:40where they could get the job done, but
42. 1:41maybe not as well. And [music] when that
43. 1:44is the case, that's especially important
44. 1:47that we really get good at using
45. 1:49language that captures the attention of
46. 1:51why might you spend more for a better
47. 1:53option? And the answer is not to just
48. 1:55paint a picture of how great life could
49. 1:58be if only you had the better thing. Why
50. 2:00does this matter? Let's start with what
51. 2:02we know about what gets people to make a
52. 2:04buying decision. There are only four
53. 2:06motivators that can get people to make a
54. 2:08buying decision. Two of them are
55. 2:09pain-related and two of them are
56. 2:11gain-related. So, let's start with pain.
57. 2:13There's pain in the present and pain in
58. 2:15the future. The gains are gain in the
59. 2:17present and gain in the future. All four
60. 2:20of these to some degree can cause a
61. 2:22buyer, whether that's B2C or B2B, to
62. 2:25make a buying decision. That said, some
63. 2:27of these motivators are a whole heck of
64. 2:29a lot stronger and therefore easier to
65. 2:31sell to than others. So, we can all
66. 2:33probably recognize right out of the gate
67. 2:35that if you are selling something that
68. 2:37is solving a pain in the present, that's
69. 2:39going to be the easiest thing to sell.
70. 2:41So, for example, if I'm in B2B sales and
71. 2:43I call on somebody who's maybe in maybe
72. 2:46they're a manufacturer and I sell, let's
73. 2:48say, logistics. Over the last week, they
74. 2:51have had trouble getting their shipments
75. 2:52out. Maybe they've been late, maybe
76. 2:54they've been damaged, maybe they've had
77. 2:55trouble with communication on when when
78. 2:58and how their shipments are going to
79. 2:59arrive. If I've had any of those acute
80. 3:01pains over the last week and I'm
81. 3:03experiencing it in the moment, that is
82. 3:05pain in the present, which means if I'm
83. 3:07in logistics and I call that
84. 3:09manufacturer at that moment in time,
85. 3:11they're going to be a whole lot more
86. 3:12willing to talk to me because they have
87. 3:15what we would call pain in the present.
88. 3:17The next pain is pain in the future.
89. 3:19Now, the thing about pain in the future
90. 3:21is that it has to be a matter of when
91. 3:24the pain happens, not if. So, if, for
92. 3:27example, my doctor says to me, "Emily,
93. 3:28if you don't stop sitting on your butt
94. 3:30all day and eating McDonald's three
95. 3:32times a week, you are maybe going to die
96. 3:36five years younger than you had to."
97. 3:38Well, that's a it might happen and it's
98. 3:40way off in the future. So, depending on
99. 3:42my personality, I may or may not be
100. 3:44motivated to actually take action to
101. 3:47solve that pain. Now, what if my doctor
102. 3:49said to to "Emily, if you don't stop
103. 3:51eating the way that you do and sitting
104. 3:53all day, you are going to have a heart
105. 3:55attack in the next 12 months, and that
106. 3:57is going to cause X, Y, and Z problems
107. 3:59for your life." That is a pain that I'm
108. 4:02way more likely to take seriously
109. 4:03because now it's a matter of when it
110. 4:06happens and it's in the shorter term
111. 4:08than a matter of if it happens, and I
112. 4:09can really understand what those
113. 4:11consequences are going to be in the
114. 4:14future. That one is also, if I have to
115. 4:16choose, obviously I want to solve the
116. 4:18pain in the present, but pain in the
117. 4:19future will work, too, as long as it's a
118. 4:21matter of when, not if. Now, then we've
119. 4:24got the two gain motivators. Gain
120. 4:26motivators, by and large, are about five
121. 4:29times less likely to get people to take
122. 4:33action in making a purchase. Gain in the
123. 4:36present is going to be things like your
124. 4:38impulse buys, right? So, it's those
125. 4:40things that you buy in the supermarket
126. 4:42that are along the register, and you
127. 4:44just sort of grab them and put them in
128. 4:45your cart. But, also gain in the present
129. 4:47is the category that is most susceptible
130. 4:50to buyer's remorse. So, we've all heard
131. 4:53the trope about boats. Okay, if I decide
132. 4:56that it would be really fun to buy a
133. 4:57boat because it's really hot in South
134. 4:59Carolina in the summer, and so that
135. 5:01sounds like a really fun thing to do.
136. 5:02Boats, notoriously, are full of buyer's
137. 5:05remorse. So, those kind of impulse buys,
138. 5:07this will be really fun thing to do
139. 5:08right now. It's not that you can't sell
140. 5:11them, you certainly can, but they are
141. 5:13five times harder to sell, and they're
142. 5:15the most subject to buyer's remorse.
143. 5:17Then we've got gain in the future. Gain
144. 5:19in the future is the hardest of all of
145. 5:21the motivators to sell to because it
146. 5:23requires an enormous amount of trust to
147. 5:26exist between the buying and the selling
148. 5:29parties. For example, if you trust
149. 5:30somebody as a wealth manager, you are
150. 5:33really trusting that this investment
151. 5:36that I have made with this person is
152. 5:38definitely going to pay off. So, I have
153. 5:40to have that trust that by making this
154. 5:42investment now, I am really trusting
155. 5:46that that benefit is going to pay off in
156. 5:47the long term. So, gain in the future is
157. 5:50really hard to sell to without a lot of
158. 5:53trust. It's definitely the hardest one.
159. 5:55The good news is, you know, we all sell
160. 5:56different things and we can sell to all
161. 5:58four of these motivators, but where
162. 6:01sales people go wrong with this is they
163. 6:03take what might be really good pains
164. 6:05that they solve. They turn them upside
165. 6:07down and frame their solutions through
166. 6:12gain motivation instead of pain
167. 6:14motivation. So, my husband used to be on
168. 6:16the receiving end of a lot of sales
169. 6:18calls for his company and I used to
170. 6:20periodically ask him, "What do people
171. 6:22say when they reach out to you?" And he
172. 6:24always would sum it up with some
173. 6:25variation of the same. They're always
174. 6:27calling me and saying, "Hey, if we could
175. 6:28save you time, save you money, save you
176. 6:30energy, would it be worth a
177. 6:32conversation?" And when I start working
178. 6:34with teams and I listen in on their
179. 6:35calls and I kind of analyze what type of
180. 6:38language they're using for outreach and
181. 6:39for the beginning of discovery calls, I
182. 6:41hear a lot of the same, which is, "Hey,
183. 6:43let me talk about with you about how
184. 6:45great life would be if you were to
185. 6:47purchase our stuff. We have better this,
186. 6:48better service, better quality, better
187. 6:50reputation, better outcomes, etc." And
188. 6:52the thing is, I believe you when you say
189. 6:54that all those things are true. But the
190. 6:55problem is, if I'm a buyer and I'm on
191. 6:57the receiving end of this, I'm trying to
192. 6:59make a decision really quickly whether
193. 7:01or not this conversation is really worth
194. 7:03my time and do I want to spend more time
195. 7:05and energy on it? And if I'm already in
196. 7:08a place where life is okay, it could be
197. 7:10better, but life is okay, that gain
198. 7:13language is not as likely to catch my
199. 7:15attention. What will catch my attention
200. 7:18though, and has a much better chance of
201. 7:20succeeding, is if those same gains were
202. 7:23framed as pains or losses. So, I'll give
203. 7:27you an example from my world. Instead of
204. 7:30saying, "Hey, let's talk about how your
205. 7:32team could have better success at
206. 7:34prospecting, better closing rates, etc.,
207. 7:37bigger pipeline," I could flip that on
208. 7:39its head and say, "Look, I won't make
209. 7:41any assumptions about your team, but you
210. 7:42tell me. Typically, when people decide
211. 7:44to work with us, it's because one or
212. 7:46more of a few things is going on. It's
213. 7:47possible that they've got a very large
214. 7:50pipeline that they built,
215. 7:51congratulations, but when they look at
216. 7:53it, they're not enough is closing out of
217. 7:55that pipeline as they would like, and
218. 7:57they would they would like to figure out
219. 7:58how they can close more of what's in
220. 8:00there. Others say, you know, we tend to
221. 8:02close what is in our pipeline, we just
222. 8:05want that pipeline to be bigger because
223. 8:06we do tend to close it." Okay, what I
224. 8:08just did is I took the things that I do,
225. 8:11which is make you better at prospecting,
226. 8:13better at filling your pipeline, better
227. 8:14at qualifying, better closing, and I
228. 8:16turned it into language that talks only
229. 8:19about the problems that I solve. Hey, if
230. 8:21you've got a big pipeline and you're not
231. 8:23you'd like to close more of that, that's
232. 8:25a conversation that we need to have. Or,
233. 8:27if your pipeline is not as big as you
234. 8:29would like, that's a conversation that
235. 8:31we need to have. So, I'm leading with
236. 8:33the pain instead of leading with the
237. 8:34gain, which is this outcome at the end
238. 8:36of the day. I want you to think about
239. 8:39how you are talking about what it is
240. 8:41that you sell when you reach out to
241. 8:43prospects and have discovery calls. Is
242. 8:45there a way that you could loss frame it
243. 8:48to only focus on the pains? And again,
244. 8:50this is something that is a really
245. 8:53common habit that in in my role I have
246. 8:57to work with teams to try and break.
247. 8:58Because the reality is buyers don't
248. 9:00really care about your solutions. What
249. 9:03they care about is the problems that
250. 9:05they have, and the quicker and easier
251. 9:08you can make their decision when you're
252. 9:10talking to them, especially early on, on
253. 9:12is this a conversation I should have? Do
254. 9:14I possibly have a problem like this? The
255. 9:16easier it is for them to make that
256. 9:18decision on is this a problem that I
257. 9:20want to invest energy into and a
258. 9:22conversation, the more successful you
259. 9:24will be.
260. 9:26I hope this helps. If there's anything
261. 9:28at all that you would like me to cover
262. 9:30here in this channel, let me know. We
263. 9:31can build it together. In the meantime,
264. 9:33remember, the world's best sales people
265. 9:35are not magically born with a skill.
266. 9:38They are trained and I train them. Good
267. 9:40selling.