The 5-Minute Rule That Changes Sales Conversations
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Brooke Greening:
This is the part where your sales conversations start feeling different because you stop guessing and you actually start to understand.
The bad news is that almost everyone gets this wrong.
I- it takes me about 30 seconds when I'm listening to a sales call, when I'm talking with someone, to realize that this has gone off the rails. But the good news is that you can start to fix this in your very next sales conversation, and that's what we're going to talk about today.
And if you're thinking to yourself right now, "That's never happened to me," I am telling you, that is probably why you've missed multiple sales, because we didn't give them the space to actually tell their story and tell us what was going on in their business and how it was impacting them.
Yes. You need the bottom line is you need to be human, and you need to be curious. That is how you have the best sales conversations. Be human in what you're saying, and be curious.
Stop trying to fix things so quickly.
Scott Greening: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales, where in about the time that it takes you to enjoy your matcha or coffee break, our resident sales coach, Brooke Greening, gives you some great advice on how to move your sales forward. Because if you have to talk to people to make sales, how well you lead those conversations is going to have a direct impact on your revenue.
So let's bring in Brooke and have her join us. We just got back. I'm wearing my new hat. Hello.
Brooke Greening: Yay. Woo, woo, woo, woo. It was- Dr. Greening.
Scott Greening: It was, like, a gift from the kids and people. I was walking for my doctorate degree, so I am now official in every sense of the word for my doctorate.
Brooke Greening: I've got the funny clothes, we've got the pictures, and I have a new Liberty University hat. Yes
Scott Greening: But- We
Brooke Greening: are so, so proud of you, Dr. Greening Thank- And I call him Dr. Greening all the time, and it makes him feel weird, but I'm going to keep doing it.
Scott Greening: Well, thank you. So over the last couple of weeks, we've been faci- We do a weekly master class, and we'd love to have you jump in on that sometime if you haven't done that, if you're one of our listeners. But we've been facilitating that from parts unknown.
So you were in Nashville unexpectedly. Yeah. And then we did it- Yep ... from the hotel where we are all staying, which was a special experience- With all the kids and stuff, but we did it.
Brooke Greening: Yes. And I lost my voice, but they were good. They stuck with me, so we were able to get through it. But that is true.
So we do a master class every Thursday night at 7:00. I love being able to do it. It's been very good for our business. It really helps people to get stuck in their sales, to get out of being stuck in their sales process. but when we first started this whole 10-week sprint, we had no idea that we would be gone as much as we were.
Yeah. And yeah, we had to figure it out in Nashville, then we had to figure it out in Virginia, and we are home. Here we go. And so this Thursday we get to do it at home, and I'm super excited.
Scott Greening: So of course what will happen is this week all the technology will go awful- ... since we're home and we're, everything's supposed to work the right way.
But so let's pick up the conversation that we've been having the last couple of weeks, where we've been talking about recognizing the problem. Mm-hmm. And this is the step where we're trying to uncover people's true buying motivations and desires. Mm-hmm. And so today we're wrapping that part up by talking about how you can do this without it getting weird or turning into a therapy session.
And so we're going to get pretty practical again today with this, and Brooke, you're going to help us out. So what do we need to know about recognizing the problem? How do people- Yes ... normally do when you're working with them on this?
Brooke Greening: The bad news is that almost everyone gets this wrong.
I- it takes me about 30 seconds when I'm listening to a sales call, when I'm talking with someone, to realize that this has gone off the rails. But the good news is that you can start to fix this in your very next sales conversation, and that's what we're going to talk about today. How can we start fixing it today?
Scott Greening: Yeah, and you've got a good kind of three-step and then a fourth kind of diagnostic, like how you doing, how do you know you're doing it well step that we're- Sure ... going to work through. And what is the first step? How do we get started in doing this? So again, this comes on the heel. We've set the expectations in about 45 seconds to a minute at the beginning of the conversation.
We've established rapport, and now we're trying to uncover the motivations and desires of our potential clients. How do we get started with it?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So the very first thing is that we just ask that initial question. You need to start with one question in the beginning. And so a lot of times people n- don't necessarily do this.
Sometimes they'll just launch into pitching, but if we're going to truly uncover those desires and motivations for them to buy, we have to start with an initial question, and this is where I hope it gives hope to people because a lot of times they think, "Oh, I have to be in this really deep conversation."
No, we will get there, but the beginning is we just ask that initial question. So one can just be like, "Hey, what's been one of the biggest challenges? What caused you to even want to talk to me today?" That's a great way to first start.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and if we tried to clear this up last week when we kind of talked about some bad examples and that, but we don't want to s- stay at surface level questions-
Brooke Greening: Yeah
Scott Greening: but you, you have to start there. Yes. And so you just gave us two kind of good possible ones that people could use in a general sense that are applicable in almost every situation, but give those to us one more time just in case somebody didn't catch them.
Brooke Greening: So one, you can just be talking about what is their biggest challenge in the area that they're facing, but the one that I really love is, "What caused you to want to reach out and talk to me today?"
That is the reality of what's going on. We just want to remind ourselves that people don't really necessarily want to talk to us, so something made them pick up that call or get online, schedule the call. That's, so that's what we want to know. What, what caused you to want to talk today?
Scott Greening: Good
Brooke Greening: You'd be amazed how much that opens up.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I would say that's probably a very different question than most people... Even just that question is a- Mm-hmm ... different approach than most people take. So the first thing is to ask that initial question. Mm-hmm. But there's something more. So where do we go from there?
Brooke Greening: Then I want you to follow the thread.
So one way of doing that is understanding more about what they have just shared with you. Sometimes people will sell, say, "Tell me more about that." That's not necessarily wrong. Sometimes people will be like, "Oh, well how is that, how's that affecting your business?" Again, those aren't necessarily wrong.
We just want it to actually feel natural, and that's when things... This is where it doesn't happen all the time. Someone will ask the initial question, but then they're going to ask another initial question, and then they ask another initial question. I can't talk today. And they're not getting, they're not following any threads.
They're just asking question after question after question, and there's nothing to start uncovering those motivations and desires. So you have to follow the thread, and one way that you can do that is you can say, "Hey, I can imagine what that would look like for your business, but can you help me understand a little bit more about how it's affecting you personally?"
Instead of just saying, "Oh, tell me more about that," or, "How's that affecting you?" That's when it can almost come across like we don't know what we're doing. So if someone tells me, "Hey, Brooke, my sales are down," and I say, "Oh, man. Well, how is that affecting your business?" W- A- A- Are you an i- are you an idiot?
Do you not know how sales going down affects your business? So you can't just have these scripted answers that don't make any sense. It has to be a regular, normal conversation where we follow that thread. So if my sales are down, "Oh, I'm really sorry about that. Can you help me understand where is that happening the most in your business?"
Or, "I can imagine that if your sales are down, it's affecting your revenue. Is that the biggest concern that you have right now?" We want to be intelligent in the following the thread questions that we have.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and what I'm... I think sometimes maybe myself, maybe other people, we think if we just keep asking questions, we're g- we're going to find we're going to stumble upon the magic one that opens everything up."
And so you, you try to maybe get in as many questions as you can. Mm-hmm. And that might start to feel like an interrogation. That might- Right ... start to feel a little unnatural. And if I hear you- Yes ... correctly, you're saying maybe instead of doing that, just slow down- Yeah ... and just keep following up on that one question.
So step one was ask the initial question. Step two- Mm-hmm ... was follow the thread. Follow the thread.
Brooke Greening: And
Scott Greening: then what do we do for step three?
Brooke Greening: So then we can start to clarify impact, and that's when we're trying to understand, okay, now how is the problem that they're sharing with us, how is that affecting them? But again, we're doing that in a natural conversation, not a scripted, "Oh how's that affecting your business?"
Like when I'm in a regular conversation, I don't usually ask that, and so that's not how I want to encourage you to have your sales conversation. Like, how would you normally ask how it's impacting people? If you were talking to your friend and they were sharing a problem with you, would you say, "How's that affecting da, da, da, da?"
Or would you say it in a little bit of a different way? We just want to have that human aspect of our sales conversation. And so we want to clarify the impact. We do want to know how is that affecting them, but we're not doing it so that we can corner them and start making them feel bad if they don't work with us or making them feel like they don't really care about their business because they're not going to work with us 'cause you told me these are all the bad things that are happening and what would happen if this continued.
No, we're not doing this for any manipulation purposes at all. We are doing this to truly understand what is driving them, what is motivating them, and what can I do to be able to help with that? Because if I don't have anything to help with that, I want to be able to give them other resources. That is our whole plan for a sales conversation.
And so that's why we have to know this, not so we can get better at spinning it and then selling it to 'em.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think part of clarifying the impact, one, you're wanting to find that out, but sometimes you're helping your customers realize the impact too. Mm-hmm. And there is both business, job-related impacts, but there's also- Yes
Personal or family or other type of- Mm-hmm ... impacts that might be as, or in some cases, more important than the actual business problem or solution. And so when we're clarifying the impact, if I'm hearing you right, I think you're trying to sort of draw all that out.
Brooke Greening: I would say that is exactly correct, and it's really important because a lot of times the people that I work, like with the consultants and agencies, different things like that, they're doing incredible things.
And so I imagine people that are listening right now, you're doing incredible work, and one of those impacts that I hear all the time is, "I want to keep doing that. I want to keep helping more and more people." That's different than just "I just want to make more sales." That's what we're trying to understand, and that's what I mean by that.
If someone's sales are down, is that a problem? Absolutely. We're going to follow that thread, but how is that really impacting everything else? On the flip side, in service-based industries, like what is a problem that they're facing? And then follow that thread, understanding, okay, what is it that they're truly talking about and how is that impacting them?
And helping them to see that impact, not in a way to manipulate them that they have to buy from you, but in a way that gives them direction and hope that this can be solved, and now they have a clearer picture of what they're looking for. 'Cause a lot of times they don't. It's our job to draw that out.
It's not their job to do that.
Scott Greening: Yeah. It's, that's, we're there to be the guide, to be the help, and sometimes people don't even know or they may know it like sort of in their gut but they can't get the words out. And so when you're clarifying that, you can even provide direction and hope because they're learning how to even talk about, Right
the problem in a helpful way.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm.
Scott Greening: So- Exactly ... we've had three steps. The fourth step, if we want to call it that, is sort of like a here's when you know you're doing it well. So we talked about- ... Asking the initial question, talked about following- Mm-hmm ... the thread, talked about clarifying impact.
What's the- Mm-hmm ... the fourth step or the success look like?
Brooke Greening: So the last piece, 'cause every- I tell this to all of my clients all the time. I say, "If you get the problem wrong, everything is going to fall apart." And we're going to continue that as we go into verbalize the value in our next series of podcasts.
But that is the reality. If we don't get the problem right, then everything is going to fall apart. It doesn't matter what we do, it doesn't matter what we offer, it doesn't matter what that investment is. So this is, they always ask me, they say, "Brooke, how do I know? How do I know if I got the problem right?
I now understand I've missed the problem, but how do I actually know when I've got it right?" And this is what you're going to do. You're going to listen for stories, and they're not yours. They are not your stories. They are not how you've helped other people. This is not the time.
That will come later. This is not it right now. We are listening for their stories because if it's something that really truly does impact them, if it's something that really is bothering them, both whether it's a good problem or a bad problem, they are going to give you examples, and they are going to start sharing stories.
If you are just getting one or two word answers or one or two sentences answers, we don't have the right problem yet. You will know because they will completely open up to you. And if you're thinking to yourself right now, "That's never happened to me," I am telling you, that is probably why you've missed multiple sales, because we didn't give them the space to actually tell their story and tell us what was going on in their business and how it was impacting them.
When they do that, they trust you, and now you can really see how you can be able to help them, and you're going to tell them how you can, and it's going to move pretty quick
Scott Greening: And I know it's very intense, and Torah keeps telling me, "Mom, smile. You'll make more sales." and so I... 'Cause I don't want to intimidate people, but it is so incredibly important. Th- this is literally why people lose sales every single day, because they didn't actually get the problem right.
Brooke Greening: And I have people tell me in every, every client that I've ever worked with, they get to this point where they realize, "Dang it," even when they've made millions, "I've done it wrong. Now I know where I missed sales. Now I remember these customers where I didn't get that problem right." They know it. They can see it, and then that's the good news.
You can start to fix it.
Scott Greening: All right. So, I know that you're talking, and we'll keep coming back to this theme you want to have this happen in sort of a natural human conversation- ... not just a grid of questions.
Yes. You don't want to diagnose their problems necessarily, and you don't want to fix it.
Brooke Greening: So many times people launch into how they can fix it if someone says, "Hey, I have... I need more leads." They're like, "Oh, well, I can do this, this, and this." Or they'll just ask one other clarifying question, and then they launch into it, and that's not what we want, 'cause we really don't know exactly what they mean yet at this point.
We're just making all of these assumptions, and that's where it gets us into trouble. And you don't have to make assumptions when you're talking to them face to face. You can just continue to ask questions, follow that thread, and give them space to be able to share what they're talking about.
Scott Greening: Yeah. I- so it's, I think it's Shrek that has it.
Like, we're the- Yeah ... we're, everyone's an onion. We're peeling the onion, onion back. Sorry, we want this to be Sipping Matcha, not Spitting Matcha. But...
Brooke Greening: Yes. You need the bottom line is you need to be human, and you need to be curious. That is how you have the best sales conversations. Be human in what you're saying, and be curious.
Stop trying to fix things so quickly.
Scott Greening: All right. So we've been tracking along in each of these kind of how-to episodes on some people that you've actually helped. And in general, we use my name to protect the- ... the, the identity of those that, that we're talking about. So, help "Scott" and explain how- what I was doing wrong
Brooke Greening: So one of these examples is a client that I worked with, and this was so abundantly clear because this happened both in his regular sales conversations, in his cold calls, and in his calls with his already he already had the clients, but then they were trying to figure out, okay, are we extending the contract?
Are we doing an upsell? In every single place, we realized this is happening because he just didn't really recognize the problem. He might ask one or two questions, and then he immediately wanted to try to fix it, or he immediately wanted to see, okay, how could they be able to be a referral to him?
And we weren't actually getting what was driving or motivating them ever. Every time, 'cause I listen to my clients' calls, every time I would hear it, I could hear and I could see, okay, there's the door. There is a thread that we need to go through. But he just continued to kept going over it. And so we were able to help him to say, "Okay, stop."
When they said this, this is the time we could have followed that thread. When someone shares a problem, instead of us diving in and fixing that problem, that's where we start to keep asking questions and following the thread. That's what we need to be able to do. And so when I was able to help him to start realizing this is where it went off the rails, when they said this, when they said they were so frustrated because it was a holiday weekend and everything went kapooey on their online sales, and it wasn't their fault at all, they didn't have anything to do with it, but that's what was happening for them, now we're getting there.
Their main motivation and desire is people don't care much about me and my business. I'm just a number to them, and I want support. I need that direct support, and I need to make sure that when the next holiday comes around, I'm not freaking out because everything is falling apart. That is what needed to happen.
But we- they skipped over all of it, just trying to ask another question or trying to solve it quickly. And so when we went back and we said, "No, this is actually the problem, and this is what's going on. Go back to them and say, 'Hey, I think this is actually what you're trying to say, and I missed it. I'm sorry.
Is that accurate?'" They did, and then they made a much bigger sale. That's how important it is. So even if you miss it, you can still go back and fix it. It is the easiest thing to start fixing today. Doesn't mean it's going to be perfect, it doesn't mean it's not going to be clanky, but you can start to move in that direction, and that's what he did.
And then he continued to make sale after sale after sale. And then he would call back, and he's like, "Whoops, I missed it." And so then we would we would have to review it again and say, "Okay, nope, nope, that's the door," and then move on from there.
Scott Greening: Okay. So if people aren't currently one of your clients, obviously a great step would be is to become one of your clients.
But what is something that, that they could do on their own that they could try this week in regards to that?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So this is what needs to happen. On your next couple of calls, I just want you to do the five-minute rule that I share with my clients all the time. When they share their first problem, when you have that initial question and they start sharing with you a problem, do not try to fix it Do not offer a solution.
Do not give other examples of how you've helped other clients in the past. Don't do any of that. Just look at the clock and say, "For the next five minutes, I'm not going to solve this. I'm not going to give solutions. I'm just going to validate what they say, and I'm going to have another clarifying question. I'm going to agree.
I'm going to agree with the frustration that they have, and then I'm going to ask a clarifying question, a human clarifying question. And then I'm going to do it one more time." And that will probably get you to five minutes, and you will be amazed at how much that can start to change your whole conversation.
I've had people come back to me and they've said, "I had no idea. I had absolutely no idea that they could open up this much to me." Just give them space.
Yeah, so five-minute rule. Yep. Ask your initial question, then ask another one. Mm-hmm. And then here's the big stretch, ask another one. And then you're, you're probably closing in on five minutes at that pointSo- And when they- Oh ... when they start to share a story with you, now we know we're there. Now we know we're beginning to hit it. When they're just continuing to give one or two an- word answers or a sentence or two, we're not, we haven't hit it yet. So that's how you know. Just you ask the questions, but they're going to lead, and th- they'll lead you to it
Scott Greening: All right.
Sometimes we talked a little bit about this in our last episode. You can get a deeper dive in there, but there's like some common "Aaah, I don't know if I'm doing this right or not." so one of them I hear people talking with you about is "I feel like I'm prying."
Brooke Greening: Mm.
Scott Greening: What would be a different way to think about this?
Brooke Greening: Well, you might be. So let's be real. If the questions don't make sense or you're only asking them to benefit you, then yeah, you're probably prying at that point. But if you're not, and we're trying to truly understand where they're coming from to see if we can help them, then you're helping them think.
You're helping them process what's going on.
Scott Greening: Okay. So hopefully we're not prying. We don't want to do that. What if someone's "What if I don't know what to ask next?"
Brooke Greening: Yeah. If that is... I mean, you can say, "Tell me more about that," or a lot of times, and I've said this before, just having a real conversation and being like I can pretty much assume why this would be a problem, but I don't want to do that right now.
Can you please help me understand how this is affecting you?"
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think again, we've talked about acceptable problems and different things like that. Mm-hmm. That opens the door to people to be like, oh, she actually wants to know. She actually understands that, this is the polite thing to say or the acceptable thing to say, but there is something- Mm-hmm
more to it.
Brooke Greening: Good. Yeah. People know that there is... That's why I'm saying you don't want to sound like you don't know what you're talking about. If you're an accountant and they're like, "My books are bad," you're like, "Oh how is that affecting you?" Well, you should know, like you're an accountant. And so you can't just have these like flippant answers.
They need to be real, and they need to be able to say, "Hey, I understand that, and I've got some good ideas about that, but I want to know more from you." That's when they are saying, "Okay, this is a different conversation. You're not just trying to get me to answer questions. You don't just have a script in front of you.
Like we're actually trying to have a real conversation to see if we can help or not."
Scott Greening: All right. So they're doing this. People are beginning to open up. They're sharing stories, and then people are like, " What if it gets emotional? What do I do then?"
Brooke Greening: That's actually where the trust happens. We do not push people to get too emotional so we can make a sale.
We're not doing it in a manipulative way, but sometimes people may get a little bit more emotional, and it is just what happens when we're able to truly understand what's driving and motivating them. It doesn't mean that you need to start having tissues on your desk for every sales conversation you have.
I did when I was in senior living 'cause it was a very emotional, high-driven like decision that people had to do. But you don't have to do that. You don't have to be afraid of the emotion, like we are all business owners. We know that things can get stressful sometimes, and there can be good problems and bad problems, all of those things.
So getting emotional is not a bad thing. It continues to help build trust.
Scott Greening: thank you. That's good, and the emotions don't have to run from them. Yeah. And that- that's actually a great moment to step in a- and to build trust. Mm-hmm. What's the big picture? Why we started here, let's come back to, like, why this is important. Remind us of why it's so important to do this, to find these motivations for buying decisions.
Brooke Greening: If you get the problem wrong when you're having your sales conversation, everything is going to start falling apart because you're not going to be able to connect the value. It will not connect. If the problem's not the one that's driving and motivating them, you can't connect value at that point, and that's why people stall.
That's why people don't move forward, because they don't see the value. And you, and we're going to go into this next week, but you over-explaining or listing all of the features and benefits or whatever the case is not going to fix that. You have to get the problem right in order to be able to connect the value.
If the problem is wrong, everything's going to start falling apart. If you get the problem right, everything is going to go pretty smoothly and pretty quickly.
Scott Greening: Hey, everybody. It's Scott here, jumping in. Brooke's been giving all sorts of truth bombs today in this episode and helping us think about how we can better recognize the problem in our sales conversations. If you're wondering, I think I might have some work to do on this or another part of the SERVICE Sales Framework, we encourage you to take Brooke's sales conversation assessment, and she'll help you in about three to seven minutes understand what you're doing well and maybe some areas for improvement.
You can always take that assessment at buildingmomentum.info/assessment, and we encourage you to do that right now, unless you're driving and listening to this, and then you can wait till you're parked somewhere. But let's- let's bring Brooke back in to this conversation, and we're- we're wrapping things up.
I know you like to give us a question to think about to- to encourage some reflection. What's this week's question?
Brooke Greening: So when you ask your initial question, I want you to ask yourself, am I following the threads, or do I just have a pile of spaghetti, and I just have an initial question and another initial question and another initial question?
I want you to ask yourself, do I actually follow the thread of any of the questions that I ask? That is the most important, and so the best way to do that is just ask one question and start following that thread.
Scott Greening: All right. You've been l- kind of working in the- through all of this if you get the problem wrong, everything else falls apart.
Mm-hmm. So what's next in that everything else category?
Brooke Greening: So next week we're going to be talking about we've worked so hard in trying to understand the right problem, 'cause now we're going to start talking how do we connect the value to that? How are we able to start sharing how we can help them with the problems that they've just shared?
So that's going to be what we start working on next week, what to do, what not to do, why it's important, all of those things.
Scott Greening: All right. If you want to make sure that you don't miss next week's episode or any future podcast episode and keep getting this great, helpful advice from Brooke, we encourage you to subscribe.
We'd love it if you'd give us a review or leave a comment. You can find all the links and all the information at buildingmomentum.info/matcha, where you can get the feed links and all that. And if you want to leave a question, you can still do that, and from time to time, we have question and answer episodes.
And so we'd love to hear from you Until then, we hope you have a great week making more sales. Have a great week.
Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.
