Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Rise up at work. I'm Dr. Deepak Bhutra and today we are unlocking the work life you were meant to live. You're watching Now Media Television.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome everyone. Today's episode is very exciting. It's accelerating your sales career through deal sense making.
There are a lot of talented sales professionals that aren't losing due to effort. They're actually losing because something has stalled because they don't fully understand what's happening inside the deal.
My guest is Mark Finnick. He's the author of When Deals Go Quiet. And I have it in my grubby
[00:00:33] Speaker A: pause here right now.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: And he is the mind behind let's Make It Rain, his consultancy. Mark is someone that is known for helping teams and sellers build decision intelligence inside complex deals. He is very focused. He is a LinkedIn top voice.
Some of the few people that I follow on LinkedIn is mark highly recommend that people listening in who feel that they want to hear a voice that is unadulterated to the point and actually get straight to the hard truth should really follow this man. Mark, it's exciting to have you. I'm going to start off, Mark, by throwing you right into the deep end. Look, Mark, there are a lot of salespeople listening into this call, right? They see deal making, deal sensing in your bio and they're getting excited. But many of these sales professionals, Mark, work extremely hard, but they have plateaued. They've hit something, something that's stopping them. Right. That ceiling.
Why does effort alone not accelerate SEO's career? Mark, let's start with that tough question right there.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Thank you again for your hospitality. Thank you for having me.
So I think, I think effort is, is, it's just a big umbrella that's, this is what we do. We. You could spend a little bit of effort, you could spend a lot of brute force trying to persuade people.
I think it's 20, 26. So I think that more and more particularly in larger organizations, you have to understand how an organization purchases and the focus of a seller. Now, no matter what your age is, no matter what you're offering, it's, it's way beyond pushing and trying to persuade and convince.
And it's really, how do you help an organization meet their KPIs, how do you help them address their requirements? How do you help them solve a problem and then equip them to do so?
[00:02:31] Speaker B: I like to connect back to the corporate goals as well. Right. Because when we talk about effort and sales careers, a lot of people think that, Mark, the typical response is bringing it back down to what's in their control and what they need to do. I like the fact that you connected the dot to the bigger organization goals because at the end of the day, you, my dear sir, are not an island selling to yourself. You're selling to people and your company supports you. So I think that's a very valuable point. But here's a question for you. When we bring in the corporate domain and we talk about the corporate domain, right, Mark, Then the reality is that when you work in a company or an organization, there's always this discussion on pipeline, right? And when we talk about pipeline, I've noticed that there's a difference between being busy in the pipeline, right? Tons of deals. I'm in this sales stage this, I'm in this stage this, and versus really knowing what's going on. So if there's a sales leader listening in right now, how do you, mark, at your level, determine what's going on actually and what's actually happening inside a deal? What do you do, sir?
[00:03:26] Speaker C: So what a great question. And, and hopefully it helps new sales managers discern what's real from what's hype. And even seasoned sales leaders articulate a predictable and inaccurate forecast. So I think one of the ways that I, I, I work with the reps that I coach is we focus on four conditions that, that an executive needs to have in place in order to, to, to own the change, to own a decision.
So there I'm going to start over again with the answer to your question.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Okay, Paulo, can we do that?
[00:04:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
So you're asking a really, really important question. And I hope what I share with you helps not only new sales leaders, sales managers, sales directors, but also seasoned founders and sales leaders who are looking at a pipeline and they have to commit to an accurate and a predictable forecast. So what I look for when I'm working with the reps that I coach, I look for four things.
A deal is going to move. When four conditions are in place.
An executive is willing to own the change.
A business case is in place that's worth funding.
There's a go live plan that the organization can actually absorb and the cost of inaction is large enough that waiting becomes expensive.
More expensive than moving.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Got it.
Mark, when we talk about frameworks, if I understand you correctly, the way that you analyze this busyness is actually to ask and look at four constructs, right? And when you get the answers to those four, you know exactly where you actually stand with that deal. That's a great technique. It's a great framework. And I'm assuming, Mark, that this going to be. It's covered quite a lot in the book as well. Right. So if anyone's interested, there's always going to get a double click on that.
Mark, I'm going to flip this on you though, because as you were talking, actually realize the ability for a lot of people actually decipher or discern this framework depends upon the level of maturity and how far along they are in the sales function. But if I'm a young rep and I've just joined, right, and one of the things that's happening is that my mind is actually blank because I don't know what to do now I sit there and my customer is also not saying anything back to me. I have been notorious for jumping to conclusions. Mark, in the situation where a young rep is hearing this silence, he's waiting for some feedback, some direction. Is that a failure or what is going on in his mind? How does he manage that?
[00:06:31] Speaker C: Well, we're, we're absolutely talking about late stage deals. So you know, when we talk about deals, this is after we've confirmed that somebody has a business problem worth spending money to solve.
We've identified that the way that they're currently doing so they can articulate that it's too expensive or too risky to continue doing it. We've identified that there's somebody who's willing to own the change and there's, there's a path to procurement. The challenge that we all see, whether you're a young seller, whether you're seasoned seller, is you get to a certain stage in the sales cycle and people stop returning your calls, people stop returning your emails. And the natural inclination is to view that as rejection. Oh, they must be doing something else. Well, they must be looking at a competitor. Oh, they must have dropped this.
So the natural inclination is to push and just keep sending more emails and more ROI analyses and more product features.
And what you're doing is you're teaching the client in that moment that it's safe to be silent when in fact, when you're in a late stage deal, there's decisions that need to take place that don't involve a seller. So one of the biggest things that a particularly younger seller can understand is to respect that there are going to be meetings that take place that you are not ever going to be invited into and you have to give it time to form.
So that would be one of the things that I would, that I would coach a rep on.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: I think that's powerful because I just realized when I asked the question, even with all that information and the fact that you're in a late stage deal, the novice will do something very odd or very awkward. And I think what you're saying is that you actually, and I like something you said, Mark. I just want to emphasize that, which is just look at where you are. There's actually a lot of groundwork that has been done. And if you look at that groundwork, you could be a novice. But when you look at the groundwork, that should actually temper your emotion and ability to jump to conclusion. Because if you've done the work and you have that historical information with you, what's the panic about? Why are you getting exercised by jumping to a conclusion? I think I appreciate that, Mark.
[00:09:11] Speaker C: Mark, I can answer that question. Where that pressure is coming from. It's coming from a sales manager who needs to make the quarterly number. It's coming from a founder who is staring at a Runway that is shrinking. It's staring at self imposed competition. You see other reps at the top of the leaderboard and you want to
[00:09:33] Speaker B: get there and you want to get to. Yeah.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: And you're in a forecast call and you're being asked, well, what are you doing next? Go. We used to tell people, you know, I'm of an age, so we used to tell people, just go there, go sit in their lobby until they come out.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Well, people, Mark. Yes.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: Yeah, people aren't in their lobbies anymore. They're in their living room or they're in the backyard or they're in a pool.
They're living their lives. And what we must do is ensure that our champions and the people who are going to ultimately own the decisions and have what they need to defend the decision to those who are going to fund it. Because as you've heard me say before, those who, the people who we find are rarely the people who fund you.
That means we have to equip the people that we work with to go sell this internally.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: I, once again, Mark, you use the word champion. And I, and I want to be clear on this, your role of a champion is someone that's in the seller organization.
Some people would call them internal coaches, buyer coaches.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: In the customer organization.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: In the customer organization. And this is someone that sits on that side. This is a person that you are bouncing ideas off and getting input back from. And this is the person that gives you some feel of whether you're on track or not. Is that the correct interpretation for me as a champion?
[00:11:03] Speaker C: I, I think that that's Sometimes you're lucky. I think what you just described, if we listen to the authors of Medic, what you just described would coach A champion may not be whispering in your ear, but they are selling it internally. There's a lot of Mark, I'm going
[00:11:25] Speaker B: to interrupt you there. We're going to come back and pick this up in the next segment. The next segment is going to be about the invisible signals inside a deal because if you can read what others miss, you move faster, earn trust faster and win more consistently. Let's pick it up again. Mark, thank you.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: We'll be right back with real stories, fresh insights and action steps to help you rise up at work without losing yourself. You're watching Rise up at work on Now Media Television.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: And we're back.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: I'm Dr. Deepak Bhutra and you're watching Rise up at Work on NOW Media Television. Let's keep reclaiming your career and learning how to truly rise up at work.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: So welcome back. We're here with Mark Finnick. And now we're getting into the part most sellers don't get trained on reading the deal beneath the deal or reading between the lines. Now, the reality is that follow ups don't create motion. And I think Mark touched upon that in segment one. Right. And I think, Mark, I think we're going to get to a structured discussion now. So, Mark, if we were to focus on you spoke about the four conditions that must exist before a deal truly forms. And I thought that was a great explanation because it allows everyone to understand what is it giving a framework?
How did this realization change your own personal career, though? I'm curious about that. And is this something you knew from day one or did you develop this along the way?
[00:12:45] Speaker C: By no stretch did I know this from day one, but it is a really good question. So I'll share a little of my background. I live in Chicago and when I started in this industry, I did from day one recognize there's only so many companies in Chicago that would buy from me. I wasn't in a position where I would be traveling or, or moving for a job. So I made it a point to figure out what these organizations were buying at the time, what their road maps were, and how do I become the rep for whatever they're going to buy.
And that has proved very, very well. So there was some actual thinking. But in terms of the methodology, it really came from speaking with the executives in the buying cycle and responding to their request for me to help their team present a business case as opposed to A product.
And I learned a lot from senior executives who taught me how the largest organizations buy, how do they purchase?
And we know that for, for any, any size organization, there has to be an owner. There has to be an owner that's an individual. This is different from decision makers. An owner is somebody who is willing to change the organization, improve the organization, defend the decision.
There has to be a business case that supports that.
There has to be a plan, an agreed upon go live plan that aligns the stakeholders. And really what we're doing is we're mirroring how the company or how the organization.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:49] Speaker C: Wants to purchase.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: So Mark, there's a lot of stuff you've said there. Right. So let's go back to that novice or that newbie that's listening in.
Which of this or which of these conditions that you mentioned are the ones that typically the guys miss out on? The, the novice, the new person that's coming in, which is the one that you would say that. You know what, these are the two that I really would like you to focus on because these tend to be the ones that trip up early player.
[00:15:18] Speaker C: So the very, very first one, it's actually not what I just mentioned, but the first thing that I see with newer sellers is they immerse themselves in the product or the service that they're selling and they focus on the shovel as opposed to the hole that needs to be dug. So I've worked with a number of sellers independent of age. It's just their, their sales pro, you know, their sales prowess, their what they've been trained in.
I find a lot of sellers, I work with sellers who are very good at presenting all the benefits of their solution and a price and that's great about them. But if it doesn't tie emotionally, operationally and financially to how the organization makes money, saves money or reduces risk, it's not going to get the attention that other priorities do when requests are made for capital.
So the advice that I always give sellers is, and, and, and, and the, the intervention that I have with you, if you will, in these, in the deal coaching sessions is I'll ask, just tell me how this relates to the business because at the end of the day, just imagine somebody in finance ladling out capital to priority projects based on how it fixes revenue leakage. It helps me sell more, it helps me reduce costs, it helps me lower risk. And along comes this new project and it has great features.
Well, we don't buy features, we buy business improvement.
So the first thing that I'll, that I'll always coach a rep on is, is focus on how they're currently doing things.
Why is it more expensive?
Why is it too too risky? Why do they need to change? And then how does our solution help in those areas?
[00:17:27] Speaker B: In so Mark, I'm still the newbie. I hear that and I nod my head because it makes a lot of sense right now.
Assuming for a second that I am also someone that has now got a very weak deal. Right. And this weak deal has some chance of survival. Mark, for some irrational reason, let's assume that it shouldn't have been qualified. But we did it. Now it's just, you know, hobbling along. I have a question for you. Now I'm this rep now. How do I, how do we get them to diagnose these weak deals before they collapse further? I mean he thinks there's hope. He's working on it. What's that indication that tells him that you know what you're pumping air or giving mouth mouth to that, that this deal is dead. But I don't know it yet.
[00:18:09] Speaker C: Well, sometimes you just have to walk away.
This is a very real scenario. This is why the top producers always have always in their pipeline, a couple large deals, a couple more medium sized deals, even more smaller deals.
So that they're always balancing, they're always balancing decisions, recognizing that at some point in time any of these deals might not be ready to close.
And rather than get frustrated and force this the, the situation and probably wind up not doing business because you've upset somebody, another approach might simply be to explain to the future customer. We don't call them prospects. That's derogatory. Right. Future.
At least be optimistic. Maybe they're going to be a customer sometime.
We, we talk to our future customers and we acknowledge maybe even after being ghosted. I use this email, my reps use this email quite a bit to simply acknowledge. Now may not be the time to do this. So forgive me if I've overstepped myself. If I've, if I've been thinking that this is a, something that you're going to make a decision now.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:41] Speaker C: If I've been ghosted, I may very well send them a note to acknowledge now may not. Now doesn't sound like the time that you're ready to form a decision.
I'm more than happy to back up. But if I'm misreading this and you've simply been too busy or you might be selling this internally, let me know so that I can help you build the case
[00:20:09] Speaker B: that makes a Lot of sense, Mark. And again, lots of nuggets there for people listening in.
[00:20:13] Speaker D: Now as I listen, I actually realize that the tips that you're sharing, Mark,
[00:20:17] Speaker B: even though the question is loaded, always in the favor of the new guy, the rookie or the novice. But I noticed that there's a certain maturity that you bring to the table
[00:20:25] Speaker D: because it's not just about.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: There are tons of people who are in advance of selling that sometimes make
[00:20:29] Speaker D: this mistake and sometimes going back and reminding people of the basics is very powerful. So, Mark, I have a question for you.
So I am very, how do you say this?
Enthusiastic, Right?
I've got lots of enthusiastic, but there's this thing that you talk about in the book where you talk about that that's all good and well, but the reality is that there's supposed to be an ownership and ownership has to deliver on those four things that need to happen for a deal to be considered. How does one reconcile this enthusiastic approach? What questions would you ask? What would you interrogate to get some. Shed some light into that?
[00:21:03] Speaker C: Well, first of all, don't dilute your enthusiasm or passion for your product. I can tell you so many different times I've been on the phone with a client and they tell me, oh my God, Mark, your passion for what we're talking about, you, I, I feel it. I feel it.
That's contagious.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: Do not, do not ever get rid of that. However, people don't buy passion of a sales rep. They buy business improvements. So to the extent that you can demonstrate that you're excited and passionate about the outcomes that you're going to help a client derive.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: The key now is helping them get as excited and passionate and be able to def or have enough information to defend the recommendation internally.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Which connects it back to that earlier champion statement of yours, I guess, right?
[00:22:08] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: So, Mark, once again, you know, this is really interesting.
So we. I was expecting you to tell me that. Yeah, you got to be very careful, guys. Enthusiasm is not cool.
This, but you bifurcated this. And I think this is a very important element. If you are not excited about your own product, your own price, whatever it reflects, you're absolutely right. It's one of those mirror moments, isn't it? But at the same time you also talk about excitement is contagious. And if there were one learning that I would like to bring out from this is that if I think about the rock style sales that I have dealt with and I've coached Mark, you're absolutely right. They walk into a room With a full commitment that whatever they say or stand for is going to show that these guys we, I'm lively. I want to show them that I'm not just alive, but I'm actually going to keep this conversation at a level of excitement. And you're absolutely right. And that excitement is something, maybe it's a six month vision down the road, but when people see you living it, acting it, they also receive information in a very unique way. Mark, I'm going to start counting us down to segment number three. I'm really enjoying this.
In segment number three, we're going to make a bit of a shuffle. We're going to move from being the seller concept or seller in our brains and start thinking of being a strategic partner to our clients. And the trick here, and if you look at what Mark's been talking about, it's not by pushing harder, it's by reducing risk inside the decision. We're going to move to now risk reduction at the decision point. And I think this will be a great opportunity for Mark to learn from you as to how do you think we should go about doing that and maybe dig in a bit more on the champion concept that you articulated earlier.
We'll be right back.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: We'll be right back with real stories, fresh insights and action steps to help you rise up at work without losing yourself. You're watching Rise up at work on Now Media Television.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: And we're back.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: I'm Dr. Deepak Bhutra and you're watching Rise up at Work on NOW Media Television. Let's keep reclaiming your career and learning how to truly rise up at work.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Mark, we've done two segments and I've been enjoying this. Right, we're now going to move into the third segment here. We're going to focus on career growth in sales and it's not just about quota, it's also about reputation.
And we're going to talk about how you need to show up when things get compliment complicated. And as you said, Mark, when things go quiet right in the silence of the night is when things go wrong as well. Right now. But Mark, before I kind of go there, I'd like to bait you because there was something I was reading and I didn't, it, it didn't make sense to me. But I need to check with you.
You're a smart man but you say something that surprised me. Stop selling. When you say stop selling, what does that mean in practical career terms? Because if I stop selling, I'm on pip anti
[00:24:46] Speaker C: when I use the word selling.
I'm talking about trying to persuade somebody to do something.
There's times in the sales cycle you just have to stop pushing and start listening.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:25:02] Speaker C: The focus for us, for a new salesperson, for a senior salesperson, is how well you can help others, how effectively you can marshal resources.
When you're not the right person to answer a question.
Will a customer view you as trying to answer everything and push and get you to sign here, or will they recognize you as, oh, this person's in it for the long run? This is going to. I'm an enterprise. It takes six to nine months, 12 months, maybe year to get deals done.
So is this person going to be here with me?
If I ask a question, do they immediately answer or do they say, hey, that's a great question.
Let me make a note of it and let me bring in a resource to answer a question.
The subtlety there is. Sometimes you don't want to answer the question.
You can feign ignorance and buy more FaceTime with another resource and ultimately demonstrating that your credibility by helping the client.
One of the things that I learned early on, there was a CIO who told me, mark, every product, every product ultimately fails in some regard. And we can look at the news and look at the very, very best technology that's out there at some point in time, okay, somebody released a version of it and it and it deep sixed their customers. Somebody released a product and it and it had a vulnerability. Somebody released a product and there was a problem.
What I learned was that, see, the more senior executive, the more senior an executive is. That's not what they choose. That's not how they choose a vendor. They choose the vendor based on, well, how is this organization and individual. How do they respond when there is a problem?
So let's go into the relationship. Assuming it's software, there's going to be a problem.
Tell me about your biggest, your biggest failure as a company in delivering a piece of software. Tell me how you responded to that. And if you can answer that without selling features and persuading them to buy, but having expanded honest conversation, you'll earn trust and confidence.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: I would buy that, Mark. And I think there's a very powerful message in what you said there about earning trust. Right. And I was actually surprised by people. Sometimes they would argue about the fact that I've done so much. Why don't they trust me? And my question is, you've done a lot. Yes, but did you do it on their terms, in the frame of reference that they would argue because at the end of the day, trust is in the eye of the beholder. And if you're going to look at building a trust bank, then you got to understand that's an investment.
And to get investment, you need to get interest, you need to get someone very interested. You need to earn that interest and that trust. It's a very powerful message there. Now, I want to just pivot with you again. And I know we kind of touched upon the champion and the coach scenario earlier. Right. But I do want to get into a distinction on the two because I think there's so much power in understanding how to sell to people that are fighting for you in rooms where you are not present. I think that's something similar to what you said earlier also. Right, Mark, in terms of who's going to make your case for you when you're not in that room over there.
Mark, could you really help my listeners make sense of coach versus champion or how you see and what is the advice you give to your guys when you coach them on how to manage this coach infrastructure so that you get your better outcomes?
[00:28:59] Speaker C: Sure. So let's just start with the understanding and agreement that the people who find you are not typically the people who fund you.
We're dealing with people who might have hands on keyboards. This is in technology, but it's the same thing. If a roofing contractor, you might deal with an office manager, but somebody else is going to fund the roof. It might be a business owner, it might be the property manager. But you know, going back to technology, these are people typically who have hands on keyboards. They've recognized a problem.
Some technology they're using is taking too long to do something.
It's, it's, it's costing too much. It's risky. But, but they don't buy this solution as off as, as you sell it.
So whether they admit it or not, they need your help putting together a irresistible and forwardable business case that's going to resonate with those who will own the decisions, those who will fund this. It has to resonate emotionally so they, they hear the story.
People up. Yeah. People are working over the weekends. They have to understand operationally this is taking too many people. Maybe I have to hire two to three more people. Well, that's $150,000 times three. That's $750,000 a year that I have to fix just what I already own.
And it has to ultimately tie back to what CXOs care about. The love language of a CXO is how do we make more Money, how do we sell more, how do we reduce costs, how do we lower risk? If you can think in those terms and send somebody to your website for the product information.
Because yes, product management does a great job of creating brochures. They do a great job of building the website. They do a great job. But it's like playing telephone. And a lot of us are better just passing along technical information.
Let it be read, let it be digested or presented by a technical engineer, a security engineer, and you do your job as the salesperson, which is help the customer buy.
Bye.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: That makes sense. So again, a lot of stuff that I could really get into. But Mark, I really want to keep going with this for now because with all these ideas there comes this need to figure out all the cogs and all the stuff that's going on. Now. I'm a salesperson, right? And I have got this notion that I want to manage this pressure because I'm getting a lot of information from all over. Many of them are emotionally not able to understand what this pressure means.
When you go back to looking at some of the young, young Padwans that you've coached, right, and you're trying to. How does forecast pressure distort development early in someone's career and what would you give advice to some of my listeners on how to manage that distortion?
[00:32:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I, it, it's very difficult if you have an overbearing manager who
[00:32:29] Speaker B: is
[00:32:31] Speaker C: dissecting every deal needing the Social Security number of the decision maker and the birthday of the procurement person.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:32:41] Speaker C: I have been in those calls.
I think it's simply not simply. I think it comes back to establishing, establishing yourself as a rainmaker, establishing yourself as a sales professional and following a certain discipline.
If you don't see that a particular deal is, has enough information internally about how they're going to help their business and they're unable to form a decision and there is not going to be an owner.
That is not something that goes into the forecast.
So I think you have to be an adult and I, I think you have to be candid. If they want to fire you for missing your numbers because you're not finding the right organizations, there might be a system problem, not a people problem.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: When you say system, we're talking about the sales methodology. Are you including some bigger variables in there?
[00:33:46] Speaker C: Oh, I actually, I would think much bigger variables.
I've seen many organizations where all the pressure is on the reps.
Just go close business. Fantastic. Give me a use case. No, we don't have one yet.
How do I tell somebody that we've solved problems just like yours at organizations? Just like yours. All right, I need you to go close this deal this month.
Well, the customer has a security committee meeting and they don't meet till next quarter work.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: So that's. Yeah.
[00:34:23] Speaker C: How does persuasion and pushing help? I think it's, it's difficult to say. But this is also why as an impartial, external, independent sales coach, I work with reps and I am their champion. I am their champion. I am their cheerleader and I help them focus on closing deals. The CEO or the founder has hired me in addition to a sales leader, if one exists. They have their job in doing forecast calls. They have their job getting marketing to do what marketing needs to do. They have their job in prepping in the CEO for board meetings, in, in, in hiring and firing. But somebody has to be there to help with a seller and it doesn't matter if they're new or if they're the best. Michael Jordan had a coach.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: So we're going to move into segment four soon, Mark. I'd love to speak with Michael Jordan, but I'm going to start wrapping up because segment four, I think is going to be very juicy because there's so much ground we again covered here.
So segment three has been very interesting. We spoke about selling practical career terms. Right. I'm now going to get ready for segment four where we're going to talk about compounding how deal intelligence multiplies your earning power and leadership opportunities over time. Really looking forward to getting some nuggets from you on that one, Mark.
And let's wait for segment four. Thanks, Mark.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: We'll be right back with real stories, fresh insights and action steps to help you rise up at work without losing yourself. You're watching Rise up at work on Now Media Television.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: And we're back.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: I'm Dr. Deepak Bhutra and you're watching Rise up at Work on NOW Media Television. Let's keep reclaiming your career and learning how to truly rise up at work.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: So welcome back to our final segment of Rise up at Work. We spoke a lot about why people stall. We spoke about invisible signals and what it takes to become a strategic partner.
Now we're going to zoom out a bit because the real goal is compounding Mark's focus and his work is on people. You know something that I think people underestimate, Mark, which is the quiet stage of enterprise deals. Now, I must be honest, a lot of people are wondering what's with this quiet stage of it sounds like some Christmas suspense going on over there.
But this is very critical and I really want to give Mark an opportunity to talk about deal sense making directly and what it does for sales growth. So Mark, when I got the book in my hands and when I see when deals go quiet, I must be honest with you, that is a title that needs no explanation because 100% of your audience says, I know that feeling. I know that feeling because we all go through it. Right? So. But I still need to ask you, why did you focus your book specifically on the quiet stage of enterprise deals? What's so unique about this quiet face?
[00:37:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you.
And I, I, I've always been fascinated by this.
It's, it's interesting when, when you have agency in a sale. So when you have control.
There used to be a term, oh, we have account control. There's no such thing as account control. The customer always has control. However, there are times in the sales cycle where you do have agency and you get, you have something that your future customer wants.
A demonstration, a price, a proposal. And before you just go fetch a ball and bring it back to them and give them that deliverable, that is the time that you have to ask questions about the deal.
Tell me please, I'm going to send you some pricing. What, what do you plan to do with it?
And then who gets it?
What is the approval process?
[00:38:26] Speaker B: The approval process? Yeah.
[00:38:28] Speaker C: Is, is there a, and what is the selection process? Is there a committee that has to vote on this? These days there's multiple committees, not only Security and Finance, there's deal committees, there's AI committees, there's groups that scrutinize everything these days. So prepare yourself. The worst thing you can do is proceed with a deal almost as if you're at a intersection and you see a yellow light.
The worst thing you can do is go through that yellow light and get t boned to the site, to the side. Oh yeah, smart sellers, they recognize, ah, this is a yellow flag. I now need to slow down and ask some questions. So if I'm, if I'm being asked for certain things. Demonstration, price, proposal, reference. Fantastic.
Tell me now what happens when you have that information.
Now you're going to have the good fortune of progressing sales based on your ability to improve their business. That's what they're there to do. The more that you can understand what they're looking to accomplish, their KPIs, their, their cost overages, to the extent that you can help that individual grow in their career, expand in their influence and, and improve the business. That's what makes a great seller.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. So you know what? Again I'm thinking about all the juicy tidbits that you're throwing at me. Right, Mark, and I have a question for you.
So if I take all this stuff and if I were to implement it, there's one reality that I've realized, Mark, in deal making is that everyone wants to be a salesperson, but not everyone is a deal maker. And the deal making process is it's told or sold to me, at least as a subset of selling. I've actually come to realize that deal making by itself is actually a separate branch of study.
It's that important. And if I look at at least the top eight salespeople that I coached over 20, 25, when I look at them, I would tell you, sir, they made all their money from big deals. The big chunky number that suddenly dropped in the lap that hit their quota. And one of the things I realized was that they were all exceptional at looking at how to structure deals and they were very focused building. And I also realized that they were all doing this for some, some time of it. Right question for you. There are some people that just want to survive quota. Right. Then there are some that become revenue leaders. And my assertion is that most revenue leaders are going to become revenue leaders because they're going to find that whale of a deal that's going to help them. And if you can find the right deals, qualify the right deals, it's deal making. And deal sense making is the one that's going to get you the most money in your career. Is that something that you would challenge, Mark?
[00:41:28] Speaker D: If I were to say to you
[00:41:29] Speaker B: that, Mark, guys who are bad at deal making are going to end up with, let's say, $100,000 on retirement, just a number I'm throwing out at you. But guys with immense deal making sensing are going to be the ones that will get propelled.
[00:41:43] Speaker D: You could literally end up with 3x
[00:41:44] Speaker B: more money if you're smart about this
[00:41:46] Speaker D: over the course of a decade.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Do you buy that argument?
[00:41:48] Speaker D: Would you find any?
[00:41:49] Speaker C: I, I don't, I don't, I, I think actually there's nobody that, there's nobody that good where every whale they encounter, they close.
So the sellers that I've coached, the sellers that I've learned from myself, I know to keep a balance.
Every quarter I have a couple large deals, a couple meet, a couple more medium sized deals and a lot more smaller deals. And I'll give you a visual. So just Imagine, you know, you come across a stream, you're in Montana or you're Wyoming, wherever there dreams.
I live in Chicago, so we don't have frozen streams. Frozen, yeah, we have frozen.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: I'm imagining those.
[00:42:37] Speaker C: But you, you, you happen across two types of bears and what you'll see is one is a skinny bear and it's just awful looking and it's, it's fur is falling out and it's sickly looking. Well, that bear is probably looking for the biggest fattest salmon and ignores everything else.
[00:43:00] Speaker B: Everything.
[00:43:00] Speaker C: And then if you go a little further downstream, you'll see a big fat bear.
That fat bear eats everything.
That's what I encourage sellers to do, is focus on becoming the fat bear. Now you still have to apply the same principles, but I don't recommend that you only focus on large fish.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: I, this is one of those things, right? I, I like that metaphor for some reason, even though I don't like the
[00:43:29] Speaker D: use of the word fat in it. But I do appreciate that a bear that is gorging itself is the bear that will survive a feast versus famine situation as well. Because you have put some money away, you put some resources away.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: But more importantly, a fat bear also
[00:43:47] Speaker D: tells me that you've mastered the art
[00:43:48] Speaker B: of killing or learning from your killing.
[00:43:50] Speaker D: I mean, I was thinking of salmon not killing to get a deal, right? I'm talking about salmon. A fat bear is simply stating to the world that even if he got lucky, he did his killing, he's accumulated knowledge. Fat. I'm looking at fat not in terms of lethargy or laziness, but the fact that it represents the fact that he's also absorbed all these deals. And as, as, as the Borg would say on Star Trek.
[00:44:10] Speaker B: Right. Assimilation is magical. Right?
[00:44:12] Speaker D: So I like that. I really think it opens up a very interesting conversation here. Now if I were to force you, Mark, to tell me about, I want to make that extra money, I want to be that gorged bear. How would you tell a 25 year old sales? Because my show is Rise up at work and I'm very focused on the early stages because I really believe Mark, and I think you would agree with me as well.
You and I may have been lucky in what we did, but I think a lot of salespeople will leave this function at age 35 because they just never find the right person to coach guide. And they are actually not realizing that it's their mindset and that's holding them back because when pressure comes, they buckle and they fold and we look at that and we make fun of them, perhaps we think that that serves them right or sales is not cut out for everyone. And Mark, knowing the type of person you are, I'm very sure you'll be appalled at that comment because you've seen them come and go in all sorts of flavors.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: Right.
[00:45:03] Speaker D: I cannot answer for you, Mark, what makes a great salesperson? I still don't know the answer to that. There are certain characteristics that I clearly see. But if you were to ask me, you know, questions like race, sexual orientation, height, I really can't tell you. Introverts, extroverts, I don't know. But if you ask questions such as what are the communication skills look like I can give you an answer. Do they do what they say they will do? I will tell you.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:45:26] Speaker D: When I was reading, you know, this book, I actually realized that there are some principles that you really talk about quite aggressively here. And those principles actually require people not to dig into what holds them back, but actually digging deep to bring out stuff that can move them forward.
Mark, I want to pivot. One of the last few things I want to do is talk about you. So I understand you, Mark. I am one of those people, as I may. I said it and I'll say it again. I think that you are a walking, talking dictionary. You are amazing in terms of your cyclopedic knowledge. I also know that you put in a lot of effort to seed knowledge, distribute knowledge. Mark, if I were to ask you to please share with us, how do people find you?
Do you have any newsletters, blogs that people should subscribe to?
Do your website, if you could just detail it out, tell us what's there, what can people come to you for? What problems do you solve? To put it crudely in our own terms, right. So what pain should I be feeling
[00:46:22] Speaker B: that you feel you're capable of solving? But over to you, Mark, take, take a minute or two and give me an elaboration. Sure.
[00:46:27] Speaker C: Well, I, I do want to touch upon something you asked earlier. What makes a great salesperson with a G capital? It's, it's a, a genuine, genuine conviction to helping somebody else above everything else. So I'll, I'll, I'll share with you. You know, this is what I do. My world centers on helping younger senior, any age, any maturity level of seller. This is my passion in life, is to help them in increase their lot in life. I've been very fortunate in my career and so this is a pay it forward effort for me. I, I have a website. Let's make it rain dot net. I have a book on the, on the website. You can buy the book. But really what reps do to succeed with me is they'll engage me as an individual. I have reps who work for Google, for IBM, for large organizations. I have founders who engage me to help their reps. I have founders to help me before they hire reps on a, on a deal coaching basis. The easiest thing to do is schedule time on my website and let's just chat about deals that you're currently working and how I can help you.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: Mark, really appreciate that. I would also recommend to people just kind of follow Mark's ramblings. They are not ramblings, but I would like to call them that because I think I don't want to give them a structural frame. I think, Mark, in my study of your work, you have covered so much ground. But when I scratch the surface, it's always about sharing a practical concept of feedback. So, Mark, thank you very much. You made it very practical. You've given people a way to think clearly when deals get quiet. And some nuggets we got there about early career, early stage and I think that's very valuable to my audience. This is Deepak signing off. It has been a great time with you, Mark. This is Rise up at work. See you all next time. Bye bye.
