Erik Meier on Analog Outbound, Pattern Interrupts, and Sales Process

Transcript

0:02 Let's get speaking of let's go. Um, so first question is good or bad? What are trends in the top of funnel motion that you're noticing right now? And what do you have your eye on?

0:12 So trends positive or negative. Austin, what are you thinking? Either one or both. Okay, so let's go with trends negative.

0:19 Uh, trends negative. Too much swapping analog for tech, right? But that being said, uh tech used the right way to

0:28 support analog is definitely a trend moving in the right direction. So where [clears throat] you can use it to support maybe some of the front-end

0:36 research, data gathering, industry knowledge, all that. Beautiful. Uh but definitely more of the trends now going back to some of the analog rhythms,

0:45 which is really just picking up the phone and making personalized outbound again.

0:49 Yeah, it's the uh the pattern disrupt, right? being able to do that because it's analog going back away from it.

0:55 Absolutely. You got a lot of sellers that were like, "Oh, cool. This is going to do it for me." And just kind of like leaned into it from that perspective. At some point, maybe it will, but the reality is I think people are getting

1:04 very annoyed from all of the body outreach.

1:08 I mean, I don't blame them. It's tempting. I don't feel like picking up the phone most of the time, but it also works, so I do it.

1:14 Yep. Absolutely. And again, if you're using tech, leveraging tech, things like top sale, I don't know if I could drop that in here if that's being too direct, but uh [clears throat]

1:22 [laughter]

1:23 But you know tools like top sale where it's it's the tech side of it is let me make sure that the analog efforts you're making are being done well.

1:32 Yeah.

1:32 Good scrub data right ICPs easy functionality all that kind of stuff. So tech supporting there but that analog function for sure. Cool.

1:40 And then on the good side any positive trends or you mostly just catching it like catching the negative and trying to just steer away from them?

1:47 Uh I mean I guess I can flip that around to say it's like positive too. um which is that it's, you know, definitely still human to human, body to body, right? And

1:56 that's where big deals are going to continue to get won. You know, it's it's harder and harder to know whether or not you're talking to a human robot or a

2:03 human. So, uh being able to make sure that you've got good relationship value continues to increase, I think.

2:10 Yeah. Nice. All right. So, with that, like when you're looking at your top of funnel, how are you monitoring the health and uh what are your canaries in the coal mine that tell you, hey, I got to change something?

2:20 Uh yeah, you know, it's always a combination. We like to teach more, better, or different. So when you're looking at top of funnel, uh I think there's a knee-jerk reaction that it's

2:28 always got to be more. But what it should be is is the lens of either more.

2:33 Sometimes it is more, but sometimes just better and sometimes it's different, right? So better means uh you're getting better training using companies like ours, making sure that your talk tracks

2:41 are dialed in. Uh different might mean it's a different ICP, right? you're reaching out to the wrong person in an organization or the wrong types of

2:49 organizations and you got to think about a different strategy there. But top offunnel activities should be seen through that lens and uh hopefully

2:58 clients are tracking that that data and they have some type of science to back up their hunches and assumptions.

3:03 Otherwise, it's all opinions. And you know what my Grammys say about opinions, Austin? Everyone has one. Yes. We'll leave it there. Yeah.

3:11 [laughter] I like the the the R-rated version, which I think you're going for.

3:16 Yeah. Yeah. Like [ __ ] Everyone's got one, right? Yeah. Exactly. You can edit that out later.

3:21 Yeah. Yeah. No, we'll leave it in unless we get banned for it, but we'll see. Um, yeah. In terms of better and different, I mean, obviously it makes sense. More is more. That's an easy knob to turn.

3:31 Yep. What are the challenges to doing the the better or different and then saying like, "Okay, we got to do something different and then figuring

3:39 out what it is and then deciding if that's the one." Yeah. I mean, there's endless supplies of different, right? So, I think sometimes it's like a sea of too many

3:48 options and that can be a little bit of analysis paralysis. Um, but often different is better than good, we'll

3:55 say, right? Like that's that's one of the go-tos that we like to lean on to different is better than good, right?

4:00 You can try to be good, but if you really just need to do something different, just go do something different and figure out whether or not that was the right choice or wrong choice and then pivot again.

4:08 Yeah.

4:08 Take a guess, test it out, see what's going on. So, yeah, absolutely.

4:12 Yeah. On that front then, I mean, what would be like the tactical or tangible move that goes with that? like, all right, I'm going to try a better or

4:20 different, you know, is it setting up I'm going to just call 200 people and then look at that and make a decision or like how do you how do you structure that like actual tactical aspect of it?

4:30 Well, uh self- serving. I I think it's impossible to connect the dots to a process that doesn't exist. So if selling is a function that's being done

4:39 by winging it, right, through an organization and there's no formalized sales process to look at, it's hard to figure out what different even is because everyone's already doing different stuff anyway, right?

4:48 Yeah.

4:49 Uh no one's reading from the same playbook. So first thing is align that playbook. Make sure everyone's reading from the same, you know, script or sheet music or whatever you're using process.

4:58 Uh and from there learn where to tweak it. You know, it's [clears throat] selling is no different from manufacturing in terms of a theory of constraints. if you're not tracking

5:07 what's going in and where it's getting stuck before it comes back out. Um, you can plug as much as you want in, but it's still going to get stuck at that constraint.

5:15 So, different is uh learning how to approach the conversation in a way that doesn't necessarily align with what

5:22 someone might expect, but in a healthy way to change the direction of where it goes.

5:28 We call those pattern interrupts. I don't know if you want me to go into depth or detail on any of that stuff, Austin. No, depth and detail sounds great. Yeah. So, you know, pattern interrupts.

5:36 You've got normal patterns of behavior.

5:37 Often in selling, I'll use a very quick example of it. You know, most sales calls, we're talking about outbound uh rhythms. Sales people have a tendency to introduce themselves as representative

5:45 of a company. And the problem is they're the only humans on the planet Earth that will call someone out of the blue and say, "Hey, Austin, it's Eric Meer calling from Sandler Training." Right?

5:54 Like every other casual dialogue would be, "Hey, Austin, it's Eric Meyer." And then they wouldn't say a company that they represent. So just doing something like

6:02 that, leaving the company out until it's relevant is a pattern entrup. It's much less likely to get someone's guards up quickly that they're the recipient of a sales call.

6:12 Yeah. You know, one thing that you were telling me about was calling and then not even doing like a 30 second commercial, just dropping a name and then a number.

6:20 And that really changed my mind on how to think about that. And then the second we call, if you get a voicemail again being, hey, I'm not trying to sell you

6:28 something. I'm working on something. Um, you know, just for my own personal personal edification, I was going to ask you at a different point, but let's do it here.

6:36 Um, you know, when you were saying like, hey, I'm working on this project. I was like, that feels like not authentic to how I would say it myself.

6:43 Um, so I was thinking about like, hey, what if I said, hey, I'm trying to find out if this makes sense for your industry. And then is that like online with Okay.

6:51 Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that's the project, right? So, the concepts in line, the words, I think, should always be authentic to the person. So find the words that work.

7:00 Yeah. And then from that perspective, like there's also the value of going, hey, I understand your industry. I'm kind of an expert in fixing the problem

7:07 that I'm calling you about, so I'm actually going to go more to the point.

7:11 Like, so balancing those two ideas, how do you decide when you're going to make that transition from I'm curious, teach me, maybe I have a solution to, hey,

7:20 I've worked with people, this is the answer.

7:23 Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, you know, it's always interesting, right? Like who cares more about your expertise? You or them?

7:30 Probably you, I guess, right?

7:31 Yeah. Most of the time the seller is like more proud of their expertise.

7:34 Buyer's interested in whether or not you understand their problem, right? Yeah.

7:38 And an order at least if they figure out that that is leading the conversation and that you seem to be genuinely interested and understand it, then you

7:45 compare your expertise to it second. I think leading with that expertise just sounds overly arrogant in the recipient's mind. Right.

7:53 That makes sense.

7:54 Yeah. It's leading with curiosity for sure. That seems way more natural for me as well, which is cool to hear. Yeah.

8:02 Um, all right. So, you know, with outbound being this difficult thing, what's one of your favorite counterintuitive facts about like funnel

8:10 activity like for and just getting to do it?

8:13 Yeah. Well, or like I'll give you an example and I'll steal this one which is low hanging fruit, but like you know calling somebody and they're

8:20 retired and being like, well, that was a waste of dial. But actually often times you grab somebody who's retired, they're more willing to chat for 15 minutes, give you a lot of valuable information.

8:31 They might know the exact person for you to call and be like, "Oh, by the way, here's your cell phone. I think you're a nice person." And I've run into that, you know, which

8:38 I would have expected from not making the dial. This is a waste of time. But then, you know, counterfactually, boom, actually, it's actually way more beneficial than calling a gatekeeper.

8:48 Yeah. I mean, you get 100% of the value in things you ask for versus things you think about but don't ask for. Yeah. Right.

8:55 Uh, actually, you know what? I had a funny story on that. It wasn't a cold call. It happened live here in our office.

9:01 So, I was I was coming back from the bathroom. You've been to our office? You know, it's down the hall there, right? Yeah.

9:06 And I'm walking back and I'm I'm coming across uh uh the elevators, right? And this guy pops out and he looked a little

9:14 confused, right? So, [clears throat] is that going to help you with anything?

9:18 And uh he said, "Yeah, is there a restroom down here?" And I said, "Yeah, I just came from it. It's up the up the hallway there, right?" And he said, "Well, thank you very much." Uh he said, "Do you work here?" I said, "Yeah, I

9:26 work here." I said, "What were you doing here?" He goes, "Well, I just came back from talking to my financial adviser." And I said, "Oh, that's interesting." He was up on the second floor. Yeah. You know, we chitchated just a little bit.

9:35 Anyway, long story short, to that point, uh he was telling me about how he had retired a couple of years ago, right?

9:42 And uh I said, "What's great? Where'd you work?" Right? He started telling me that story. And I said, 'I don't suppose you got anyone that took over from you that you could make an introduction to.

9:49 I own this company around the corner, right? We're a sales sales manager training business. And he's like, you know what? I think they could use something like that. Gave me his car. We

9:57 set up an appointment and you know, yeah, so be it. Right. That literally happened. Was it yesterday or the day before?

10:04 Oh man. [laughter] Yeah, that's fun. That's like that's cool.

10:08 Um, you did steal my next question, which was your favorite story about an unsuspected win. So, I'm either gonna ask you for another unsuspecting win question or force you. They tell me like

10:16 a counterintuitive fact like calling calling uh you know the wrong person actually can get wins or something else along those lines.

10:26 Yeah. So, I I don't know if I can call that one the story I just told a win yet because I haven't had the conversation with his counterpart. But the win is at

10:33 least I had the conversation I suppose, right? Success is at least doing that.

10:37 Uh no, my my favorite unexpected win actually was getting uh Ken as a client.

10:44 And as you know, Ken has been a part of our company now for almost 15 years as a member of our team. But he started off as a client.

10:51 And so before, [clears throat] you know, tech was tech and you could get lists and all this other stuff. So going back to like 2010, maybe you could have. I just didn't know where to find them.

10:58 So I'd grab like business publications and I' I'd call through them and I had my hands on an expired chamber directory. was like two years old,

11:07 right? And so that's what I was going to use to do my outbounds for the day. And I was like, why would I call it's an expired chamber directory, right? I'm like, I don't have anything else to use

11:16 today. I'm just going to use it. So I started calling through it on like the 20th call. I got a hold of Ken and uh he became one of my first clients because

11:24 when we were starting the business and then a year and a half later, he became employee one.

11:30 All right, that was awesome. I love that one. It uh it reminds me like constantly that like sometimes it's like the fourth person down the line that you talk to

11:38 about something. So like hey we don't need you but you should talk to that person.

11:42 It's kind of like how you and I started working together which is you know talked to somebody I used to work with. He said you talked to this other person and then all of a sudden you and I are in a room having a

11:50 conversation without any direct intent of oh here's Eric I'm going to go try to talk to him. But we really have the action and follow along and having conversations that were up front.

12:00 Be open to the dialogue. Don't be dismissive of the dialogue and just have it right.

12:06 Yeah. Well, that's a perfect way to end this one because I think everyone should be thinking that. Be open to the dialogue.

12:12 Let's go, Austin. Love it. Thanks for having me.