25. Tim Roberts ~ Sandler Training - Trustpointe
Episode Notes
Key moments from this episode
Tim Roberts joins Tailwind for a practical conversation about moving beyond features-and-benefits selling: how pain hooks and pain parables help prospects recognize familiar business problems, why pattern interrupts and original thinking create curiosity, how leadership buy-in and repeated practice make sales training stick, and why psychological safety, permission to say no, and a learning mindset help sellers navigate buyer truth with equal business stature.
Takeaways
- Pain hooks and pain parables work because they help prospects recognize business problems in their own language before a seller explains a solution.
- Pattern interrupts and original thinking differentiate a seller from the default claims of quality, service, and expertise.
- Sales training sticks when leadership buys in and sellers practice until the methodology belongs in their own voice.
- Psychological safety, permission to suck, and shared debriefs help teams unlearn old habits without hiding call mistakes.
- Permission to say no and equal business stature make sales conversations more honest because the seller is trying to navigate truth, not force a yes.
- Curious questions, tonality, and buyer-centered language make cold calls feel less pressured and more useful.
Key Moments
- 1:10
Pain hooks and right-brain access
Tim explains why prospecting should access the emotional side of the buyer instead of leading with technical, left-brain descriptions.
- 2:48
Pain parables that make prospects feel seen
The episode introduces Margin Mike, Tio Ted, and Hiring Harry as story-based examples that help prospects recognize their own pain.
- 5:45
Pattern interrupts beyond features and benefits
Tim shares how original thinking and concise pattern interrupts create curiosity while moving sellers away from generic feature-and-benefit claims.
- 8:50
Leadership buy-in and role-play muscle memory
The conversation turns to why sales training needs leadership support, repeated practice, and ownership in each seller's own voice.
- 14:32
Psychological safety and unlearning old habits
Tim describes judgment-free training, permission to suck, and the deeper work of unlearning old habits before a new sales approach can stick.
- 20:24
No-hostage training and a learning mindset
Tim explains why he screens for learning mindset, refuses to train unwilling hostages, and meets sellers where they are before skill-building begins.
- 23:52
Why pain parables beat generic claims
The episode closes with a reminder that quality, service, and expertise sound the same to buyers, while pain parables help buyers feel understood.
Transcript
0:00 All right, we have another episode of Tailwind. Today we're joined by Tim Roberts. Uh Tim, what should people know
0:08 about you before we dive into the conversation?
0:11 Yeah, thanks. And first of all, Austin, thanks very much for inviting me in. I think this is a conversation that sales folks can't dwell on enough.
0:21 You master this part of your process, things are going to go a lot more smoothly. Yeah. Yeah, been at it for 28 years now.
0:30 And I've often said to folks 20 11 hours a day, 5 days a week for 28 years. I can tell you who's naughty and nice pretty
0:38 quick. Yeah. Um, not to get too distracted, but I'm actually going through some data right
0:45 now to to start getting some proof points on some people who are being naughty. So, that was a very timely thing for me. And we're trying to make
0:53 it a lot easier to to use the data to be like, "All right, you're on the naughty list. Let's get you to the nice list.
0:58 But yeah. Yeah.
0:59 Let's uh that's not neither here nor there. Um before we hit record, you were talking about the uh the pain points and the hooks with those. Um I'd love to, you know, dive for that conversation.
1:10 Yeah. I think again I I believe that part of my role when I'm prospecting is to be a rightbrain accessor.
1:19 I am paid to access the right side of their brain, not the left side data. too
1:26 many people talk in technical terms and leftbrain orientation. I want to access the other side of the brain and so ho how do I do that?
1:37 And so for example in in our pain hooks you know the idea of a prospecting call
1:45 is often to suggest pain prospects if you just called and said oh I'm a sales trainer you need any help you know
1:52 that's a heck no. um they're they're all terrified of the phrase sales training because they're afraid it means role
2:01 play and adults don't like to do role play at all. So how might you hook somebody in a conversation? So my
2:09 approach has always been to say I don't know Austin maybe it would make sense if I told you why some other people chose me.
2:18 Now that's a form of influence. I think of Dr. Robert Chaldini the psychology of
2:25 influence and and he will you know often suggest that ve that that very move use
2:32 a high percentage you know 92% of my prospects choose me because whatever it is a form of social proof others choose
2:41 me so Austin maybe it would make sense if I told you why some other folks chose me
2:48 oh my gosh I will never forget Margin Mike.
2:54 The poor guy was pulling his hair out.
2:58 His team just could not hold margin. He had lost several million dollars last year. He was terrified that he might
3:06 lose his job. If he lost his job, he'd lose his house. If he lost his house, he would lose his wife. And he would end up
3:13 in a van down by the river. And he did not want to do that. Mhm.
3:20 Another guy, call him tio Ted, his anxiety came on the front of his
3:28 sales team, kept putting on multi-million dollar PowerPoint presentations and then they would end up in Think It
3:37 Overland, driving Ted crazy. And then finally, the last guy that chose me just recently, as
3:46 a matter of fact, I called him hiring Harry.
3:51 Harry, his challenge, his worry was he didn't think he was using the right
3:58 formula to find the right people. His company had a high turnover rate. They weren't prepared to have a checklist of musthaves.
4:08 And so they were kind of winging their sales process. And everybody knows how expensive it is to bring on a
4:16 salesperson 6 months later you get rid of them. First of all, you should have got rid of them five months earlier. And
4:24 secondly, what was the process that you used?
4:30 So Austin, I've become a big fan of these parables because what I hear prospects often say when I use those,
4:38 they go, "Ah, Tim, oh my gosh, you must have a camera in my office. That's exactly what's going on here." Yeah.
4:47 And and that makes sense.
4:50 Yeah. Um, so would that be in like the the context of the initial or the early on conversations? Are you kind of
4:58 hitting those pain points as like three bullets and then going into your parables or are you using those parables as part of your initial 30 secondond commercial?
5:07 It's an part of my initial 30-se secondond commercial. Yeah.
5:11 You know, we you always start off, have you caught you at a good time or a bad time? If they say it's a bad time, that's not unusual. I mean, nine out of
5:19 10 say that to us. Um, so maybe it would make sense if I told you a little bit about why I called and then you can
5:27 decide whether this call goes anywhere or if you want to throat punch me or not. Not tethered to either outcome.
5:35 Yeah, maybe it would make sense if I gave you a couple of examples why people choose me and then I launch in to my pain parables.
5:44 Yeah.
5:45 From my pain parables, probably going to do my six-cond commercial. Mhm.
5:51 What is it that I do? And you never can just say sales training or I'm a lawyer
6:00 or I'm a banker because everybody thinks they know what a banker is and does. And everybody thinks they know what a lawyer
6:07 is and does and they have no idea what that individual's discipline or role within the bank or the firm really is.
6:16 For me, I want to use a pattern interrupt.
6:20 If somebody at a networking event said, "Tim, what do you do for a living?" I would shrug my shoulders like it's really stupid. And I would go, "I don't know." Original thinking.
6:32 Yeah.
6:33 And then just shut up. It drives them crazy because they're going, "What did he just say?" I mean, you already got me on the hook
6:41 with that one. I was like, "What do you mean by that?" Even though I know what you do. Yeah. That's a great line.
6:46 Yeah. Yeah. If you just say that and then you go, "Oh, um, I I help people
6:52 see sales different than they do now." And and if you think about it, at Sandler with a different approach, the
7:00 systematic approach that we have, we help people see selling differently than they do now.
7:07 We're the killers of features and benefits selling.
7:11 It features FNB. I've said so many times, FNB is dead. Stop doing it.
7:17 Because what is rule number one on the planet? No one no one likes to be sold.
7:26 Yeah.
7:27 If you told me today you were going up to the department store to buy a new sweater or something, um, I know what
7:34 would happen. You would go up to the mall. You would go into that store and the clerk sees you
7:42 and the clerk comes hustling over pretty quick to say, "Can I help you?" I'm telling you, your energy field can feel their energy field coming at you.
7:54 And that's why most people very subtly go, "Oh, just looking." Mhm.
8:01 And so even in that world, how do you do it different? Your goal should be to prevent the just looking.
8:10 Yeah. So so people who are stuck in the features and benefits and are open to the possibility of you know doing the
8:18 the the emotional side accessing the the right brain. um you know obviously if they're not open to it you can't com you
8:25 can't force them to do it but people who are like you know what I agree we're stuck in feature and benefit land I want to get us over to this to the selling on the pain and then being a more emotional
8:34 on the sale the sales process um you know what are some ways that people can start that transition you know obviously get a trainer they're going to be able
8:42 to really guide you through it and do a great job uh but if somebody's trying to kick the tires on how to start the process
8:50 yeah the for me and many Sandler trainers, we want to start with leadership because there has to be buy in at the top.
9:00 If if leaders don't buy in, if the top doesn't buy in, it just not fair for them to sit back and say to the
9:07 salespeople, you have to go into this training.
9:11 Again, everybody is terrified of sales training because of role play. I actually here in my training center I
9:19 keep two pieces of paper on the back training tables and it says reserved for roleplay participants.
9:29 That way nobody wants to sit there and they will all hustle to the front of the room where I need them to be.
9:35 Yeah. Has anyone intentionally sat there? Yeah. Yeah. No. No. No.
9:40 Oh no. No one No one has ever come back there. I could just see somebody just really having a hoot and just being like, I'm going to go do it. I'm gonna break the I'm new my own pattern interrupt.
9:50 Well, you know, there is some truth to that, I must say, because I have some clients that that are I can tell you 28
9:59 years ago who my first client was. And to this day, 28 years later, their company still does half hour to 45 minutes a night of Sandler roleplay.
10:12 Nice. Yes.
10:14 Their team is entirely bought in. They know if you practice your craft, you're going to get better.
10:23 Because they're very committed to making it a part of your DNA. Yeah.
10:28 The reason so much training does not stick is somebody will do a two-day boot camp. See you later. Bye. And Sandler is
10:36 really a program about muscle memory. Do it again. Do it again. do it again till
10:44 you get ownership. Not just ownership though, ownership in your voice.
10:51 I don't want anybody to be David Sandler. I don't want anybody to be Tim
10:57 Roberts. I want Austin to be Austin. And if he can capture the methodology in his
11:05 words, his voice, man, is it easy to execute.
11:11 Yeah. As I say, some of my pain hooks or pain parables, I don't think there's anybody else at Sandler that's going to
11:18 talk about margin Mike and tio Ted and um I I prefer to do it that way.
11:26 Well, it's not authentic to them, right?
11:29 And people can sense the authenticity when you're having a conversation with them. I mean, I can't deliver the lines that I could I can say the lines that
11:36 you say, but I can't deliver them in the same way and have it be genuine. And I think that's such an important part of it of that rapport building is making
11:45 sure that, you know, you're doing the the underlying structure of it, but then making it authentically your own. Um, so
11:53 that that part of the rapport building can start shining through early early on instead of having it be something that's artificial at the start.
12:00 Well, well stated. You are correct. Um, the phrase odd little man, um, I'll explain briefly where it came from. One
12:09 day I was in a meeting with a CEO and we had been meeting for about two and a half hours and towards the end of the
12:17 meeting, Austin, all of a sudden the guy did this. Yeah.
12:26 And I mean, he just kept doing it for about 40 seconds or something. And finally, I went, "Hey, dude, what is that? What are you doing? What's going
12:34 on with your face right there?" And he sort of chuckled and he said, "You're an odd little man."
12:42 Immediately, my heart warmed. I felt like a million bucks because he was saying, "You're authentic." He was saying,
12:51 "I want my people to sell the way you do." It's clear you are just you. I thought you were going to come in and
12:59 try to have all these moves and shake and bake and do all this stuff. He said you didn't do any of that. It was just a conversation.
13:09 Mhm.
13:10 Touchdown. That's all selling should be a conversation.
13:15 You don't have anything to sell somebody. You're paid to do one thing. Navigate their truth.
13:24 Yeah.
13:24 And the truth is either they need you or they don't. Yeah.
13:29 And I'm not attached to either outcome as long as I have navigated their truth honorably.
13:37 Yeah. So, so the first step, you know, going back to this transition from FnB to to the more, you know, conversational
13:46 truthf finding like approach to this is, you know, it sounds like you got to get leadership bought in. It's got to be a top down approach.
13:53 Um then you have to be regularly practicing. Now when it comes to that too though there's also the well we were always just saying we do XYZ and now they have to say something different.
14:04 when it comes to like that transitioning over to that new messaging, like what advice or guidance do you have on how to
14:10 pick the right stories, how to start t talking a different way, you know, how to, you know, make the transition from
14:18 just even, for lack of a better word, the the script transition, which I know you're not trying to say everyone should read the same thing, but
14:25 the the key points that you want to talk about. Well, one of the first things that that has to occur, um, there's two
14:32 things that go on in in our company. We start off with making sure everyone knows very clearly our environment is a judgmentfree zone.
14:44 Psychological safety must reign. So, part of our upfront contract is permission to suck.
14:53 Yeah.
14:55 I I really want people vulnerable in our environment because if somebody says, "Hey, I would
15:03 like to share with the group a call I blew up last week." Somebody else in the room blew up one the same way.
15:11 Yeah.
15:12 And when they empathize with each other, when they understand that, man, a lot more wisdom sharing goes on. And I like
15:20 to think of my environments as nothing more than wisdomsharing environments. Yeah.
15:27 But the thing is, and this is where kind of really going to your question, I'm very mindful early on,
15:35 what has to occur is they have to unlearn what they have done in the past.
15:43 And unlearning is a little bit more of a process than people are aware of. You have to like cut some neural pathways in
15:52 half and put new neural highways together. Yeah.
15:59 And that and that can be a little bit of a challenge.
16:04 So it can be more than do it again, do it again, do it again or permission to suck. They have to really understand the neurological process that is going on.
16:16 Mhm.
16:17 Unlearning requires a lot because that unlearning means that a habit had been formed and this is what you've said on
16:25 your 30 secondond commercial or when you walk in for the first meeting over and over and over again. 28 years ago when I
16:36 bought my Sandler franchise, I I think one of the most challenging things, and you've probably heard this a lot, was learning how to set an upfront contract the first time.
16:47 Yeah.
16:47 How many you you don't hear salespeople empowering people to say no?
16:54 Hey, and at the end of a meeting like this, Austin, there's only a couple of outcomes. A no and a yes. Permission to
17:00 say no. I I mean I struggled with those words. I I think I was stuttering with
17:06 those early on because it was completely foreign. There's actually a book I have on my shelf and it's called You'll Never Hear No Again.
17:19 Well, at Sandler, we're begging for nos.
17:24 We we we It's not that, you know, we want to hear yes all the time. Yes. I get that's the ideal outcome, but no, it
17:32 doesn't have to be. That might not be their truth.
17:36 Yeah. So, with that, I mean, you got talk about something to truly unlearn as a salesperson is like to be totally fine
17:42 with no or even to do the the even next step, which is I don't even think this is a good fit for you. And like throwing
17:50 the no into their their court and being like, I'm going to give you the layup on this no, which seems a little bit counterintuitive, but for some people it
17:57 is. It's like, okay, we're going to save each other time. I want that layup. I want to get that no and other person going, well, hold on, hold on. I am committed to this and let's figure out
18:05 why it seems like I'm not committed to this idea. Um, and it's such like a counterintuitive thing, but once you start practicing it, um, super helpful.
18:13 I mean, I'll give you a quick example. Early on here, my wife Katie works with me. Um, she's well known within the Sandler
18:22 community as Boss Katie, but Boss Katie would answer the phone and someone would be looking for sales training.
18:31 And it was only a couple months she wanted to become a product of the product as well. Yeah.
18:36 And one time I listen on the phone over there to what she is saying and all of a sudden I hear Katie saying, "Oh, well,
18:44 you know, sales training doesn't work, don't you?" And then you could tell the person was going, "Yeah, but no, I've heard about
18:52 Tim. I've heard about Sandler. I'd like to." And she would go, "Oh, yeah, but it's not for everybody." Yeah.
18:59 And then they would really start selling themselves. And it was like, I you know, Katie, let's go get a beer tonight. You're a genius.
19:09 I love it when it works out like that. That's so cool.
19:11 Yeah, it it really did. But I I was caught off guard at first because she was really pushing always get business and then she's the one over there trying
19:19 to talk them out of it doing the exact opposite of what they expect. And you know that Sandler is a contrarian methodology.
19:30 We're really paid to do everything exactly opposite of traditional salespeople. Yeah.
19:37 And I have I haven't really enjoyed that role or that process. Again, not easy. Oh, but so worth it.
19:45 Yeah. So, so for this this transition for a team, leadership bought in practicing regularly, safe zone where
19:53 you're allowed to suck a bunch. I mean, I sucking is the first step to being good at something. You can't skip it.
19:58 Like, you're never going to look nice. Yeah. Well, it's not mine. It's not original.
20:02 I can't remember where I heard it, but I'm like that's just stuck with me ever since because I'm a very competitive person. I'm like, I have to remind myself you just started. uh those three
20:11 elements. What is there anything else that people should be considering while they're making this transition from you know FMB to you know actually talking
20:19 about pain and navigation navigating the truth.
20:24 Well the way I can frame it and you know permission to cut me off is one of the things I do before I before somebody comes in I have a no hostage policy.
20:38 Mhm.
20:39 I will not let hostages into my environment.
20:43 Um 20ome years ago, I picked up a bank as a client and the bank wanted to put 50 people in.
20:54 And I remember looking at the CEO and I said, "Um, Jim, of those 50 people,
21:02 close your eyes. Who doesn't want to go through sales training?" Yeah.
21:06 Jim said, 'Well, I don't have to close my eyes. I know who they are. And then I said, 'Well, then why would you do it?
21:14 I'm expensive and I'm paid to be a good steward of your money.
21:20 So, here's what I'm going to do. I'll take five, the very best five, but I'm
21:27 going to decide what best five means, not you. And I remember he looked at me and said, "I'm starting to like you a
21:34 whole lot better already." But then I do an interview. I have a very unique interview process.
21:42 Not that I'm counting, but as of yesterday, I've done it 3,234 times. It's like a one-on-one 2hour
21:51 interview where I take you back in time to age six.
21:56 If I could figure out who Austin was at age six, I can tell you a lot about how you're going to sell, serve, manage, or lead to this day.
22:07 Nobody learns the same way. And so I just can't bring a group of people in and treat them all the same way. So I
22:16 want to get to know them first. And one of the first things I say when they walk in and sit down, I go, "Oh my gosh,
22:24 Austin, your boss told you sales training. I can only imagine when you were driving over here today, you rolled
22:31 your eyes into your head and you were puking down your throat. What are you walking in with and it's I found I have found it very
22:40 interesting. There are those that go, "Oh, yeah. I you know, it's all the same. You just grab a nugget here, you
22:48 grab a nugget there. I, you know, okay, that's not a good candidate for my program.
22:54 Yeah, because the other group of people will go, well, no, not exactly, Tim. I'm the one that initiated this.
23:02 Very technical, very good at what I do, but I have no clue how to sell. Yeah.
23:10 And for me it has been very important that if I'm going to start the learning process, do they a learning mindset?
23:21 If they don't have a learning mindset, it's really not a good match because they're going to hear so many things that are foreign to their brain.
23:34 I'm sorry. I'm stuck on the fact of you got to do it again. Do it again. do it again. Break thy nose daily.
23:42 I I have to take your permission to cut you off and cut you off because I have to respect that you have a hard stop. Um any final quick parting thoughts uh before we uh we end the episode.
23:52 I'll end if I may where we started. Um think about what your pain hooks are.
23:59 Think about why people choose you. And Austin, when I ask the question to a room full of salespeople, why do people
24:07 choose you? And you know what you're going to hear? Quality, service, expertise. I mean, the same things are rattled off.
24:17 That means that buyers all day long, the only thing they hear is quality, service, and expertise. And so then their default button is, okay, can you lower your price 3%.
24:28 Because you're all the same. But when you have a pain parable in mind, you have a better chance of them going,
24:36 "Huh, this is different. He just described what's happening here. I think he gets me." Then they're more inclined to buy.
24:49 I love it. Tim, this was great. I could ask you about 50 more questions and pick your brain on so many different topics, but I do have to let you go, unfortunately. We'll have to do this
24:58 again sometime. Thank you again for coming on.
25:00 I'd be grateful and uh thank you for the good work you're doing for the profession of selling. Thank you very much. Very grateful.
25:08 All right. See?