4 Ways Salespeople Mistake Information for Value
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Brooke Greening: Have you ever gotten off of a sales call and you thought, "Oh, I explained that really, really well," but somehow they still didn't buy? Well, today we're going to talk about why explaining your offer well and communicating value are not the same thing.
We feel like we're making this connection to them, but we're actually giving generic responses, and generic responses get generic results, and that's how we stay the same as every other competitor, and then it becomes a race to the bottom.
You'd just rather give a simple response. That hurts us in sales, when we give generic responses, because then all they can do is just then look at you like everybody else. But if you actually take the time, you can make a huge difference in your sales.
Scott Greening: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. I'm Scott, your host, and we'll be bringing in Brooke, our sales coach, who helps us with our sales conversation in about the time that it takes you to enjoy your matcha or coffee of choice. And these conversations are so important because if you have to talk to people to make sales, how well you lead those conversations have a direct impact on your revenue.
So Brooke, yesterday we had a big event- Oh ... that we were part of.
Brooke Greening: Mm.
Scott Greening: How's the matcha today?
Brooke Greening: Oh, always fantastic, Dr. Greening. Thank you.
Scott Greening: So yesterday we had a big event. What was that?
Brooke Greening: So we launched the Life Center. And so that is a nonprofit that we have started to help with, lead, champion, and it launched yesterday.
So we have seven counselors up and running and ready to go. We have six coaches up and running 13 to be very soon. And so it's a way to be able to help those in the church, to help those in the community, and we offer counseling, coaching, and crisis care.
Scott Greening: Yeah, we're thankful. We're thankful for Jon Anzardo and his leadership, being the director.
And it's fun to come alongside and have sort of like all of our passions and interests align. And then it's also a lot of Greenings for the other involved. Oh, yeah. And
And, uh,
We tend to tr- try to make things happen and move things forward.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm. Yeah, they call us a dynamic duo or something like that.
I can't remember what our titles were, but yeah. And it's just, it's really neat, just on a side note, to see the passions that God has given us and being able to use that. So, I have a master's in counseling, but I don't counsel, as we would say very much. And then being certified through StoryBrand for the last five years as the director of coaching, I get to come in and bring both of those into play and help people think, "Okay, this is how people are perceiving things.
This is what we need to do from our messaging side," and now we get to really help them go- Mm ... and improve their sales. And so it's really fun to have all those things tie together.
Scott Greening: Yeah. So last week, we're continuing our series through your service framework, and we started talking about verbalizing value and why that matters.
And so this week we're going to talk about what that actually sounds like when people try to do it and maybe do it well or maybe don't so much. And so we're going to, we're going to talk through that. And just by way of review, last week we talked that verbalizing value means that we're connecting how we help as a business with the problem that our potential customer just shared.
And so Brooke, I think today you're going to help us know what that can or maybe shouldn't look like.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. We're also going to talk about how accidentally we can stop doing that. It's really easy to think that we are verbalizing the value, that we are connecting it to the problem they just shared, but we're going to talk about today of how we pretty much don't do that on a regular basis, and how to stop that, and how to be able to change the way we're meeting those sales conversations.
Scott Greening: All right, so you've got some examples, and will lead us through that. What's the first example of how people attempt to do this or accidentally self-sabotage in communicating the value?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. The very first example is we call this the feature dump. It's a very common term in sales, but basically it's just beginning to overwhelm them with all of the different options that you have and how you can be able to help.
And we do that because we think we need to give them a lot of information to be able to make a decision. So an example on our side could be like someone tells me, "Hey, Brooke, our sales conversations feel inconsistent." A bad response would be like, "Oh, okay. Well, I'm glad you told me. I'm happy to help.
I can offer biweekly coaching. We do worksheets to help. We've got templates going on. I can help with role plays, accountability, listening to your calls," and just start listing all the things.
Scott Greening: And all of those things are, like, real things that we do, and they sound helpful
Brooke Greening: Yeah, and they are useful but none of them are actually answering the customer's question
Scott Greening: Okay.
So we just started sharing stuff and it may not be as relevant. What is the customer's question, at least in this example?
Brooke Greening: Their question is can you help me with inconsistent sales conversations? That's what they're saying. The features are always explaining your offer, but the value is explaining why the offer matters.
So if I answer it and it's not actually the question they've asked, I'm not connecting that value at that point.
Scott Greening: All right. So what would maybe be a better way of framing some of this rather than just dumping all the features and that?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. If someone said, "Hey, my team is really having inconsistent sales conversations and process," I would say, "Well, one of the things we want to be able to do is to create a repeatable framework for you so everyone is having better conversations, not just your strongest salesperson."
We're connecting what they're saying to one thing that we do to be able to help and why it matters. Yeah.
Scott Greening: And so that kind of helps me, if I was the customer saying that at this point, like see, oh, this is how that helps me. I make the connection. Yeah ... otherwise I'm trying to figure it out on my own and I guess it sounds impressive, but I'm not quite sure.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. And then also, and we've talked about this over and over again, but when you value, when you feature dump, when you list all of these things and they have to start doing the mental math trying to figure out how it helps solve the problem they're thinking about, that actually starts to detract and devalue what you're offering.
Because if there's anything that you're saying in their mind that they're thinking is not necessarily connected to that or they don't necessarily want that, that is not helping you at that point. We think it's really helpful, give them all of this and then they can choose what they want. No, that's not how it goes.
If we give them a whole list, they're going to start devaluing as they check through the list, and we don't want that. That's not going to be helpful in communicating the value.
Scott Greening: Yeah. I know for me, what that looks like is, people start listing all these features and benefits and I'm like I really don't need that.
I'm not interested in that, so if I go with you, I'm paying for all this stuff that doesn't really move the needle for me. Now, once I get in maybe I realize it after the fact, I'm like, "Oh, that would've been nice," but that's where- What you're saying helps us avoid people doing that. So-
Brooke Greening: Yeah ... right?
And if I'm saying I'm giving them worksheets or whatever, we don't know enough at this point to even know what it is that they need or what they don't need. And they may be like, "Oh, but we already have all of those things, so why would we need that from you?" We play a really risky game when we start listing things that we think they might need, and we have zero clarification or confirmation that that's true.
Scott Greening: All right. What not to do. So, like-
Brooke Greening: But I'm smiling while I say it
Scott Greening: Now what's the second exa- no it's really good. It's really helpful. It's so easy just to fall into that b- and because we're excited about, we know how much value it brings, we know how helpful all these different things and what a difference they can make.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that the, your potential customer understands that yet, or maybe ever. No ... So what's the second example?
Brooke Greening: So the second one is called the credentials speech. So if someone says to me, "Hey, we're struggling in converting leads," I can say, "Oh, I've been doing this for 20 years.
I've had over 90,000 sales conversations. I've worked with hundreds of clients, and they've made hundreds of thousands of dollars. They've made millions of dollars."
The-
That's not helpful at that point.
Scott Greening: Yeah. All those things are true. You have done that. You do have that experience. You have helped your clients make hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars your employers and clients.
What's the problem?
Brooke Greening: The problem is it's completely disconnected from what they just said. And so credentials create credibility. That is true. That is important, but they're not creating the relevance, and that's where we need to make sure we're making those connections. So people care about our experience because how it helps them, not just because it exists.
Scott Greening: And with that then, again, how do we do this a little better? How do we, how could we frame this differently?
Brooke Greening: So if someone was coming to me and they said, "Hey, we're having a really hard time converting our leads," as we're understanding the problem and understanding where they're at, one thing I could say is something that we can be able to help you with is that, and, is that we can help you, and not just you, but the rest of your team, have more confidence and consistency in those sales conversations."
'Cause it sounds like things are getting inconsistent, because if they're not converting, something's not going right either with their confidence or in their consistency. And we can look at that and pinpoint, see what it is, and put them in the right direction. That's where we start going back directly to what they're saying
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think what you said earlier, like that the reality is that people care about your experience because of what it can do for them, not just because it exists.
Brooke Greening: Yeah ...
For me, when I say, "Hey, I've had over 90,000 sales conversations," that's might be impressive. Not super great if you haven't made sales with those 90,000 sales conversations, but we have. But what's more important, when I say, hey, if I share I've had 90,000 sales conversations, it's to help to say, so I'm able to pinpoint quickly what's going on, which door they've missed, where they're getting inconsistent, so that we can then give them the confidence to be able to move forward.
My credibility should only be met to be able to help them win the day. It's not about me. It's not about how amazing I am, and I'm not even trying to separate myself from the competitor in this moment. It's literally why would my experience help you? And the reason it helps you is because I've heard it probably 89,000 more times than your team has at this point.
So what can we do to help shorten that sales gap? What can we do to understand where they're getting stuck at quickly, teach them how to do a different way, and get them to be successful in their sales conversations? That's why it's important.
Scott Greening: Great. So that helps us know how we can talk about ourselves.
So I know you talk about 70/30 rule and all that, where you're mainly talking about our customers, but even in those moments when we're talking the point is not like, "Look at me, look at me," but " Here's how w- I can help you, and you can be more successful. You can make a difference and I come alongside."
All right. So what's the third example?
Brooke Greening: So this is called the generic promise. This is when someone says, "Hey, we're trying to grow."
And then we're like, "Oh, we help businesses grow."
Scott Greening: So what ex- what does that mean? What d- everybody wants to grow. What does that mean?
Brooke Greening: Exactly. See, the problem is problems deserve specific connections. And so we have spent so much time working on trying to uncover the problem so that we don't have to have these generic responses.
This is what I find a little bit so ironic. So being certified through StoryBrand for five years, I get to work with a lot of marketing agencies, and it feels like a lot of times we grab the marketing techniques and try to push them into our sales conversations. And what I mean by that is from marketing, we're always doing one-to-many.
We're trying to figure out hey, does that problem resonate and can we get their attention? But then we almost do it the same when we're in our sales conversations because it's a generic response again, where we've just spent time trying to understand where the real problems are. So if someone's saying, "Hey, we need to grow," but we know we were just talking to you, and you were just saying what you mean by that is you want to be able to continue to grow but not pour all of the hours that you're pouring into it.
So for us, an actual response to that problem would be, we want to look at what's going on with the leads you already have. We want to help you be able to convert the leads that are already coming so that you don't have to keep working and working and working to get more and more leads. We want to help you with what you already have.
That way, that can help you, and you don't have to kill yourself over and over again. That is the biggest difference. We feel like we're making this connection to them, but we're actually giving generic responses, and generic responses get generic results, and that's how we stay the same as every other competitor, and then it becomes a race to the bottom.
But in our sales conversations, we don't have to do that.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I know it's... You get very frustrated or you think it's almost a crime, like, when people have tried to take your advice, and they've had these really great conversations that people have actually shared a genuine problem that then okay, I've got a script, and this is how I talk about things, and you just, you lose all of the power of what you've just done.
And if you're wondering what in the world we're talking about, go back to the previous set of three episodes that were there. We'll put the links in the show notes for you to find that conversation on recognizing the problem because you don't want to settle for- Mm ... these generic or we talked about acceptable problems that people start conversations with.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, and when I'm working with my clients, what I love is, 'cause we'll listen to a call, and I'll... We'll stop, and I'll say, "Okay, right there. Right there is where you gave a generic response." And then I can ask them, I can like what did you really want to say?" And they'll tell you They'll be like what I really wanted to say is I know they were struggling with this, and then I thought maybe we could bring this piece in to be able to give that support."
And they were giving specific answers, but in the moment, it's just it's just easier to give a simple response. It's almost like when you have a child, and they're asking you, "Can we go outside? Can we go outside? Can we go outside?" You're like, "No, no, no." And you don't have time to go into all the details of why that's not a good idea, or it's raining, or we have to leave in 20 min- Like, you just don't want to spend that cognitive energy to do that.
You'd just rather give a simple response. That hurts us in sales, when we give generic responses, because then all they can do is just then look at you like everybody else. But if you actually take the time, you can make a huge difference in your sales.
Scott Greening: Great, and I think y- the listeners can also just e- you can pray for us and-
as we're coming into summer and know we're going to have that question 40 million times- Oh, my gosh. ... a day. So
a day. So
the joys of having school-aged children. But all right, great. So we've got three examples. I think you've got another one. What's the next example?
Brooke Greening: So the other example is the premature solution.
That is, so you've got the generic one that we just talked about. That's not good. But the premature one is about the worst one that you can do because, and this goes right into recognizing the problem, but if someone says, "Hey, we need more sales," then I can be like, "Oh, great. Then we can, we are absolutely able to help generate more leads for you."
That is a problem, though.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I, when people do that to me, I am like, " Uh, really?" Like- ... i- i- c- is that true, though? Can you really do that?
Brooke Greening: And the reality is they might not need more leads. If we just try to answer it quickly without actually understanding what the problem is, that's when we get in trouble.
And again, that's when they can devalue because they're like that's not actually what I was talking about." And so it's easy to just jump the gun and just to give the solution before we've actually understood.
Scott Greening: Great, and again, we they're closely related, we can't help but keep referring back, but w- how do we get to that problem?
Like, why do we do that? What have we skipped? What did we miss?
Brooke Greening: You cannot verbalize the value if you've skipped the discovery. If we've missed what the problem is that's driving and motivating them, there is no way that we can actually create value at that point. It doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter if it's free.
They're not going to see it. They're not going to want to move forward.
Scott Greening: All right. So how could we reframe that? How could we do that a little better?
Brooke Greening: Something you can ask is just asking another question before we dive into it, but just like, "Well, based on what you've shared, it sounds like probably the bigger challenge is, might be the converting the opportunities you're already getting, not necessarily needing more leads.
Would you agree with that?" And then we can go from there.
Scott Greening: Great, and then either there's more discussion or they agree and you move forward. So help us think through. We've given these four examples. What are some of the patterns that you see when people maybe could do this a little better, or when they do it well?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So the biggest thing that you're going to look for, so when we're looking at the bad examples of verbalizing the value, that's when you're solely focused on the service, the process, or you as the provider. That's when we know we're going down the wrong trail. The good examples are when we're focused on the customer, on their problem, on the outcome they're going to have.
That's how you know we're actually verbalizing the value.
Scott Greening: So you mean it's not just talking about my I don't get to just have people think I'm amazing and talk about myself?
Brooke Greening: No not at first. We have to first understand why it's important to them and then why it would matter that they would work with us.
These other things in regards to your credentials and different things like that, those can come into play, they do come into play, but not in this moment
Scott Greening: All right. It's maybe a time for a little bit of self-reflection. People are thinking this.
Brooke Greening: Yes ...
Scott Greening: What were the options again? What people can think?
like-
Brooke Greening: Yeah.
Scott Greening: Which one fits me most?
Brooke Greening: I want you to ask yourself which one do you feel like resonates with you the most, the feature dumper, the credentials collector, the generic promiser, or the premature problem-solver.
Those are the four main ones. And think, "Okay, which one do I land in?"
Scott Greening: And if you gulp and say, "Um, maybe all four?" what happens?
Brooke Greening: You're not making sales. No. No it's really easy. You're not alone in that. There's... That's why they are common, because those are things that can happen pretty easily.
But the best way that we can start to fix that and help you with that is to first recognize which one do you tend to lean into more, and then we can create the other side to help you be able to serve your customers and be able to verbalize the value in a way that's meaningful to your potential customer.
Scott Greening: All right, everybody. Brooke just asked us to think about how we're doing on these conversations, and this is a great time to remind you that Brooke has a sales conversation assessment where you can see how well you're doing on verbalizing the value, in addition to figuring out where you could maybe improve in all of the different areas of her SERVICE sales framework.
And even if you're a sales all-star, there are still room for improvement and ways to figure it out, and I know that you'll find this assessment to be valuable for you. You can always reach it at buildingmomentum.info/assessment, and so encourage you to do that today and find out how well your sales conversations are going All right, Brooke.
We're going to spend the whole next episode you've given a lot of examples, especially related to your type of work. Next time we're going to go through, like, how people can do this and some of the underlying principles on how to do that.
But what- Mm-hmm ... what questions, what applications should people be thinking about today?
Brooke Greening: So one reflection question I want you to ask yourself is, when I talk about my offer, am I making it easier for my customer to understand the path forward, or am I just giving them more information? That's the first question I want you to ask.
And then I want you to ask, like, how are you beginning to make that connection? So the first one we're asking is am I giving them a path forward? But then what we're going to talk about next week is, how can we actually do this with the information that they've shared and what you're able to help solve the problem with?
How can we make that direct connection without being salesy or scripted, but that it's authentic to you, and more importantly, it resonates with your potential clients? So that's what we'll talk about next week.
Scott Greening: All right. We'll look forward to that. We'll remind everybody that the way that you don't miss next week episode is to subscribe, to follow, to like, to comment.
We love it when you leave a review, when you let us know what's going well, when you comment. We would love to read some of those reviews, give you a shout-out. If you do that, we'd be happy to include you on the podcast in that manner. You can find all the links to find us on the podcasting platforms and YouTube and all of that at buildingmomentum.info/matcha.
And so until next week, we hope you have a great time enjoying your matcha and making more sales.
Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.
