When to Pitch on a Sales Call: 3 Signs Buyers Are Ready
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Brooke Greening: On the last episode, we talked about how not to expect AI or your marketing or your website to do the selling for you. But I don't want you to hear that and think, "Oh, great. Once they know all of this information, then it's pitch time on the call." The reality is an informed buyer is not necessarily a confident buyer, and if you pitch too soon, you might lose a sale
the reality is an informed buyer is not necessarily a confident buyer or someone who's ready to go.
Because knowing about your solution is not the same as knowing whether the solution is going to fit their problem or not.
My concern is not do they know everything about me and what I offer, my concern is, do I know what's going on with them and those underlining concerns?
Not the acceptable problems, but the other ones that are driving them and motivating them to make a decision.
Congratulations. They believe that you can do good work, but the confidence isn't there that you're going to do it for them yet, and that's the biggest difference, and that's when we get into confidence
Scott Greening: Welcome to another episode of Make More Sales with Brooke Greening, where in about the time that it takes you to enjoy your matcha or coffee break, Brooke gives us some great sales advice.
Because if you have to talk to people, how well you read and lead those conversations is going to make or break your revenue. Brooke, we, uh, experienced sort of a, a reality. We figured something out. If you want to get through the grocery store faster and make more decisions, ... have three hungry kids at home, and then have two of 'em needing to get to youth group within, like, 45 minutes.
Brooke Greening: 45 minutes, yes. Yes. And because it takes about 10 minutes to get to the grocery store, so you got to get there, run through the aisles quick, know exactly what you want, get out, and ask them to turn on the oven to 400 degrees while we're in the grocery store so that we can heat up our breakfast pizza when we get home.
Scott Greening: There we go. So that was, uh, a little bit yesterday, and it did speed up the buying decision for us. We're talking today about buying decisions, and we kind of, talked last week about how we don't want AI to sell for us. There's also another danger with that of kind of swinging too far to the other side of the pendulum, and then kind of people have all this information, so you think it's just time to go.
It's time to pitch. It's time to launch into things right away.
Yeah, because the reality is an informed buyer is not necessarily a confident buyer or someone who's ready to go.
Brooke Greening: And so w- there's two swing, there's two pendulums that happen. On one side, they don't want to be pushy at all, and so then they just kind of, they're a little passive when it comes to talking about what they offer and asking for the sale, and then on the other side, they go way too pushy. And so we're talking about, okay, how do we actually know when to start sharing our services in a way that's going to meaningful and that will lead to them making a decision
Scott Greening: All right. So for those of us that are less informed than you and some of our sales experts I thought, like, when people had all the information, that was, like, buying time. So if people-
Brooke Greening: Mm ...
Scott Greening: have all the information that they need, whether from AI or our website or a referral or any combination of the above, why is that not necessarily the time to start pitching?
Brooke Greening: Because knowing about your solution is not the same as knowing whether the solution is going to fit their problem or not. just because they know what your offer is, it doesn't mean that we've actually connected the dots yet in regards to what those underlying concerns are, the things that are driving and motivating them to buy.
What we're saying at that point is, okay, they know everything about you in regards to who you are and what you offer, but we still don't actually know what we need to know about them, and that's where it can get tricky. We're like, "Well, no, no, no, they have all the information. Now we're, they just need to make a decision."
No. They just have one side of the conversation at this point. It's, the other side has not come into play yet.
Scott Greening: So that is the trap that we can fall into. So the buyer says, "Okay, yeah, I've been all over your website, I've listened to your podcast, I know how the program works." And we can feel like, "Well, fantastic. They know everything. We're ready to go." But they're not.
Yeah, I think we sort of experienced this, uh, a few years ago on, we were getting ready to go hiking in Colorado, and so we knew enough that there was the Merrell store that was not too far from us. We knew that they had hiking shoes we'd boughten shoes there before, all of the things. And if we would've just gone in and the person heard, like, hiking, and then they brought us to, uh-
Brooke Greening: Colorado.
Scott Greening: Yeah, they brought us to the $200 or more hiking shoes for you're going to be out in the Colorado wilderness and Rockies for weeks on end. Yes. I don't think we would've bought that day.
Brooke Greening: No, and they started asking me questions in regards to, like, "Okay, so, uh, how is your packet, is your pack going to be, like, 80 pounds or, or 90 pounds?
Are you spending the night?" And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I've done that before. I've been to the boundary waters of Canada, and I've portaged, and I've had backpacks on in canoes. I'm not doing any of that. I just don't want to sprain my ankle when I run and I think a bear is chasing me.
I am doing day hikes in Colorado. I want good shoes, but I am not planning on packing my whole tent and carrying it around with me for days on end. I've already done that. I don't choose to do that again." And so then she was like, "Oh, okay. Well then, this is a good shoe for you." And that made perfect sense, because then she understood my specific examples, what I was worried about, what I wasn't worried about.
I wasn't just sharing a problem of I'm going hiking and I need shoes. It was more to it than that, and that's, that's where the trap comes in. We can think, "Oh, they know everything about it, so they can just make the decision." my concern is not do they know everything about me and what I offer, my concern is, do I know what's going on with them and those underlining concerns?
Not the acceptable problems, but the other ones that are driving them and motivating them to make a decision. If I don't know those, I'm not going to say anything yet, because we're not, we're not there. They're not going to be able to make those connections, and it's... They're just going to politely nod their head, and they're not going to buy.
Scott Greening: so again, we're just reiterating this idea that there's something more than just having the information, and there's kind of a process or stages that people go through. And one way to describe that is kind of like interest, trust, and confidence. And so Brooke, if you can help us like think through the difference between these three parts of the buying decision, and maybe we'll just take 'em one at a time.
So when we think about interest, what, what is interest when it comes to the buying decision
Brooke Greening: So interest is when they're beginning to realize, "Okay I want to solve this problem. What am I going to be able to do?" And a lot of that interest is happening from a marketing side. So when we're talking about our website or the messaging that we have or our podcast or whatever it is, they're starting to get information about who we are and what we do.
That is that interest piece. And the biggest thing that they're trying to figure out is can they help me? And they're not going to dive into all of it. They're just trying to figure out, like, out of the thousands of people in this world, can they help me specifically? That's that interest part, and that is the...
That's what I love about StoryBrand and being certified through StoryBrand, because that is what we focus on all the time in regards with our clients. If we're helping them with their marketing and their messaging in regards to our business, we want to make sure that we understand the problems that they're facing, and we create, like, sound bites to be able to, to showcase that.
So they can know in, like, three to five seconds, "Oh, okay. Yes, Brooke can help me. Scott can help me in strategic planning." that's that piece, and it's a huge part. It also makes a big difference, because we want to make sure that we're able to get the attention of the people who want what we have to offer and can afford what we have to offer, and that is a big piece in that.
So it's huge. We need it. But interest is not equal, "Okay, now I'm going to pitch at you, and now you're going to buy from me." They will just nod quietly. If they're in that lane, if they are in the interest category and you start pitching at them, you're not going to make the sale.
Scott Greening: It's too soon. Yeah, I th- yeah, I think we, we establish, like, through our marketing, through our ad, we're like, "This is the big bucket, or you're in the category that I'm interested in getting help."
And then-
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm
Scott Greening: ... it's like now we've got to introduce each other. We've got to, to move to the next part, which is the trust part, and maybe we think about that as sort of a dating analogy or something like that. Like, "Ooh, I saw Brooke, and I thought, 'I think I might be interested.' Now I have to make sure that she thinks I'm not a creeper
Brooke Greening: Well, I look at that, and sometimes people are like, "Okay, if they trust me, then we're good. Then I can pitch at that point." And I'm going to say no. Again, hold up. That is not the right time to be doing it either, because trust is when they start looking at you and they're like, "Okay, I trust you that you're not going to scam me.
I trust you that you know what you're talking about," but we've not made that connection yet to confidence. And so it's really important to realize we do need to build trust. That is absolutely important, but sometimes people are like, "Okay, now they trust me, and we're going to move forward." But if you've ever had someone been like, "Oh, you've been very thorough," or, "I can tell you really know what you're doing"- Congratulations.
They believe that you can do good work, but the confidence isn't there that you're going to do it for them yet, and that's the biggest difference, and that's when we get into confidence
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think the difference as we talk, uh, about this information and all the information that's available, with the addition of AI, and we talked a lot about AI last time, is that people not only need to trust that you understand their problem, but, like, trust that you're an actual person because it...
You're not just-
Brooke Greening: Right.
Scott Greening: ... like, an AI avatar. You didn't just write a really good script for a online video or ad. But I trust that Brooke, the real person that ultimately is going to be helping me I trust her
Brooke Greening: Yeah. And for me, it goes even another level deeper because now they're going to trust me with the people that they're talking to.
So when I'm working with people in their sales labs, they're not only just trusting me that I know how to help them make more sales and how to make more money, they're also trusting me that I am going to keep what they're sharing with me confidential. And that, that's a huge piece in regards when it comes to sales coaching and consulting.
But then that's not the only piece. Then the last piece is the confidence, and that is when they say, "Okay, not only do I trust you as a person, but I trust you that you can help me with what I need and I want to be able to move forward." That is where we need them to be able to come to, and that's when we're able to start sharing what we do and asking for the sale.
If they're not there yet, we shouldn't be asking for the sale 'cause they're, they're, they have not come through those stages to be able to get to that point. And if you go too early, then they're just, like I said, they're going to just nod nice- nicely and keep moving forward. They have to not only believe that they can trust you, they have to believe you can help me and I want to move forward.
That's where it has to land in order to be able to start talking about your services and how you can help
Scott Greening: All right. So we don't want to, we don't want to pitch so early and jump the gun where maybe somebody's only at the interest stage and that or the trust stage. We need to get them all the way to this confidence stage.
So then helping people get to that confidence stage is-
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm
Scott Greening: ... one of our tasks as salespeople. And as, as soon as we start talking about being deliberate with this, being intentional, having a strategy, a lot of people that you interact with and help then start to get really nervous really fast that, oh, I'm going to be pushy, I'm going to be manipulative, I'm going to, to be that used car salesman, whatever bad picture- Mm-hmm
they have in their, their minds. So how do we help people? How do you help people to do this but in a way that's not pushy, that's not all those typical bad sales ideas that people have
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So w- and one, I think it's good when people are a little nervous about that 'cause it just means that they're decent human beings and they don't want to come across as a jerk.
But w- the way you can do that super clearly is we're going to talk about this in two ways. The first piece is let's just talk about how do we know if it's actually being manipulative or if it's being helpful? 'Cause we've created what's called the SERVICE framework. We believe sales should be serving our potential clients and helping solve their problems or getting them to other resources that can do that.
That's what I believe every single sales conversation should be, and if we lead it that way- We're not going to have any more problems in regards to our sales or the income that's coming in. But how do we know that we haven't, like, tipped the other way and we're being pushy? And it's just a simple question you can ask yourself.
Just ask yourself, "When I'm asking for this sale, when I'm asking for them to make the decision and we're moving forward, is it because it's going to benefit me solely? I need this due date, I need them to do this now, I need this to happen so I can have a great client and I can have a great testimonial.
Like, it's only going to benefit me." If that is what's happening, you are manipulating, hands down. Don't even have to really think about it. If it's only about you, you've manipulated. But if it's going to benefit you, 'cause it's not wrong for it to benefit you, and it's going to be benefiting them, we're not manipulating them.
We're helping them to come to a decision together. We're not going to try to toy with their emotions. We're not going to make the problem bigger than it is. Like, none of those things are going to happen. We're going to help them logically think through, "Okay, is this the right next step? Is this what we need to do?
Do I really feel like you can help me with this, and do I want to work with you?" Those are the questions we're helping them to solve. And so when you're doing it to help them and you, then it's not manipulation, and you can rest easy and you can keep moving forward.
Scott Greening: All right, Brooke, I think that's a really helpful sort of diagnos- diagnostic on our motives and what we're trying to do with it, and it's, it's really easy to slip into "Oh, I need this to happen," and so we get manipulative. The, question then is, like, okay I've done the, the check on myself.
I think I'm in a as good a spot as I can be, uh, with that. How do I know then that it's time to share to ask for a decision to ask somebody to buy, or for me to make the sale?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. There needs to be three things that need to come into play. I was just saying before earlier, if you ask too soon, what normally happens is they'll just nod politely, and then they won't move forward.
Either you'll feel like you've gotten ghosted, they don't want a proposal. Like, it'll just stop because we went too soon. So three things have to come into play in order to know, like, okay, green light, green light, green light. I'm ready to, I'm ready to go. The first one is we need to know, like, what is their...
We need to know if they're ready to buy. We should've figured out in our sales conversation what is their buying timeframe and the investments. We need to know that before we start asking them to be able to work with us. If you don't know that, don't go 'cause it's just going to come up in regards to the, the red lights later.
You need to know that through your sales conversations. The second one is we really want to understand, like, did we get- did we truly understand what's motivating them to buy? Not these acceptable problems that they're going to share with all of these competitors, but what's driving and motivating them to make this decision.
If we do not have the green lights that those are, again, we can try to come up and tell them what our services are, but we're not going to be able to connect the dots the way that we need to, and that goes to number three. If the problem's wrong, then we can't connect how we're able to help them, and if we can't do that, those three things, we need to know their buying timeframe and the investment.
We need to know, okay, we've truly gotten the right problem, and we're able to connect those dots of how we're able to solve those underlining concerns that are driving and motivating them. If those three things don't line up, don't ask. We're going to go, we need to spend more time uncovering those before we start pitching and before we start telling them w- how we can be able to help them, asking for the sale.
If you don't, it's just, it it will not land in a sale, and you will get frustrated, and you will come to me, and you will say, "But it was the competitor," or, "It was the marketing," or whatever, and I can know listening, like, nope, red flag, red flag. Shouldn't have gone. And so those are the things to think
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I, I think when people-
Brooke Greening: Kisses.
Scott Greening: Yeah, that's what we do with the kids. We have our hard conversation and just throw in kisses at the end, make sure- ... uh, they know we still love them
Brooke Greening: Yeah. I know it's hard, and I don't... I know I can get really, really excited about things, but it is literally the reality between making the sale or not making the sale.
When you go too fast and you miss these three pieces, you will not make the sale, or you will end up making the sale and it is going to be a bumpy, bumpy road. Yeah. So just let's get these three green lights and we can keep moving.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think that's why people sort of get into this manipulation or this pressure or pushiness, uh, when they don't even necessarily want to at the beginning, is because they haven't gotten these three green lights of knowing somebody's, their timeframe is, that they're ready to buy now and they have the ability to do it, that then you've uncovered the real problem that they're facing and connected what you, you do to it.
And if you don't have those things, you have, if you want to make a sale like quickly, like you're kinda left- ... with manipulation and that's not a great place to be I'm guessing many of us are maybe looking at our sales conversations a little differently as a result of this conversation that we're having today with Brooke. And the reality is, is that many of us may not know, do we have these green lights that we're talking about and we're ready to go and, and sell?
Or are there red lights and we need to wait? We don't know when to do it or how to do it. If you're feeling like maybe I don't know as well as I'd like to how to read and lead a sales conversation, that's what Brooke teaches in her sales lab. She helps people be able to, in a systematic way, learn how to have these types of conversations that aren't too pushy and aren't too passive.
And so if you'd like to make more sales, the first step for you is really simple. Just schedule a meeting with Brooke. She'll take a little bit of time to get to know you and your business, and then you'll discuss whether or not it's a good fit to move forward. You can always schedule a call with Brooke at buildingmomentum.info/meet.
Again, that website is buildingmomentum.info/meet
We've woven a lot of the, these things in throughout this whole episode, but I want to just give you a chance to kind of recap and, like, a short summary of your sales philosophy, right? So we don't want people to be too passive and just rely on the information that people are gathering from AI, websites, friends, strangers, wherever they're getting it.
And we don't want them to be, like, overly pushy because they think, "Well, people know everything, so now it's just time to pitch." So where you're threading the middle here, you're showing a third way-
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm
Scott Greening: ... which is really encouraging. What's your nutshell version
Brooke Greening: The nutshell version is our sales conversations should be service conversations.
We are there to understand, okay, what are they facing? What problems do they have, whether good or bad?
What's
driving, motivating them to be able to make this decision? And is our service going to help them or hurt them in what they're looking for? That is literally what we are trying to understand on our side and also help them to understand as well.
Once we know that answer, then we can confidently move them in the right direction, whether it's working with us or working with someone else. And so it's not pushy to share your services, offer them, and to tell them how that's going to help them. That is not pushy at all. That is serving them. If you actually know you can help them and you don't, that is a disservice to them.
On the flip side, if we're only trying to make sales 'cause we just need them and we, and it's not going to be a great fit, and we know we're not going to actually be able to help them with what they need, then that is not serving them. And so the line is, how do I serve them in the best way? Offering your services and asking them to work with you, that is not being pushy.
That is a way to be able to serve them. Also realizing, hey, this isn't the right fit. Here are some other resources. That is a way to be able to serve them.That is the best type of sales conversation that you can have, and you will not have to struggle in your sales conversations any more. So if you're focused on serving them in your sales conversation instead of pushing them or manipulating them, that is what we want.
Scott Greening: All right, you heard it from Brooke.
Let's all be those types of people that are focused on serving our customers and helping them out, make the next step that is best for them and for their business. We're wrapping up this sort of five-episode miniseries on how all this information that's available out there is changing the buying realities for B2B, service provider businesses, and really anyone that's, that's talking to people to make sales. the last episode, we're going to talk about how over-sharing information may be actually hurting your sales process. And so if you'd like to, to participate in that, as always, we encourage you to like, to follow, to subscribe, to do all of those things. If you're finding value in these episodes, we'd love to hear from you by sharing a comment or reviewing or sharing it with somebody else that, uh, could use the advice too.
You can find all the links to do all of those things, plus our archive of all the episodes that we've done in the past at buildingmomentum.info/podcast And remember, if you're ready to make more money, call Brooke
Brooke Greening: Bye-bye
