How to Communicate Value in Sales: The Problem-Help-Outcome Framework
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Brooke Greening: Have you ever been in a sales conversation and thought, "I know I can help this person," but then you stumbled your way through explaining it? Today, we're going to fix that
Scott Greening: I want you to notice that I'm not talking about me.
Brooke Greening: I'm not talking about my credentials. I'm not talking even about my whole entire process. I am talking about them, the problems they have, and how we can come in and help them win the day. That is what we are showing them.
And again, like when we say, "I'm going to help you implement," when we say, "I'm going to be with you every step of the way," just hear what you're saying and ask yourself, "Could I say that to anybody right now?"
And if you can, then we know that it's not specific enough. You just have to go back a few more steps to have it be that specific that it resonates with them and where they're sitting at so that then they can vision themselves in the future. If it's just generic, they can't see it.
Scott Greening: if you miss the problem, everything else falls apart.
Brooke Greening: And so one of my favorite things to talk about is how to be able to handle objections without dying a little bit inside.
Scott Greening: Welcome back to Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. I'm Scott, your host, and we'll be joined in just a moment by Brooke, our sales coach, where in about the time that it takes for you to enjoy your matcha or coffee break she'll give you some great sales advice for your next sales conversation.
Because these conversations, if you have to talk to people to make money, how well you lead them, how well you execute these conversations, directly impacts your revenue. And it is summertime as we're recording this.
Brooke Greening: Sum, sum, sum, sum, sum, sum, summertime.
Scott Greening: Which there's lots of exciting things about summer.
We're super excited about seeing our family, going on vacation.
Brooke Greening: Yes. Yes, we're going to go to Pawleys Island, probably go to Ocean City, perhaps Branson, Missouri. This is the benefit when you have family all over the United States.
Scott Greening: Yeah. We'll be- You
Brooke Greening: can go see 'em ...
Scott Greening: connecting with my family in Pawleys Island, which we're- Yes
we went on vacation there as kids, and so we're celebrating- Good ... my parents' 50th anniversary, and we're excited- Yes ... to do that.
Brooke Greening: Yep, and I think we're headed to Branson. That's where I used to go when I was little, and our kids have gone multiple times. So it'll be a great summer- Yeah ... no matter what we do.
Scott Greening: And while things dramatically change, especially when you have school-age kids for the summer, it doesn't mean that your business just goes off. So we still got to keep- ... thinking about these sales conversations and how to do them. And hopefully, you are going to, if you're listening to this, have lots of sales conversations over the summer.
Mm-hmm. And we want to keep helping you do that. So we've been talking about why verbalizing the value, that's where we're at in our service framework. We've talked about setting expectations, establishing rapport, recognizing the problem. And now for these last few episodes, we've been talking about verbalizing the value, which is connecting the problem that people shared with what you do.
And so we talked about why that's important. Last week, last episode, we talked about what are some mistakes that people do. Now we're doing the practical how to do this.
Brooke Greening: Yes.
Scott Greening: I gave the example there. I think I stumbled through it a little bit. But the idea of verbalizing the value is connecting how you help with the problem that your potential client or customer just shared.
Brooke Greening: Yes. And notice we're not saying explain your services. We're saying connect. Connect how you can help them with the problem they just shared with you. We're going to think about it as a bridge. And a lot of times people can kind of get nervous about this because they think, "Okay, I need to have the perfect pitch."
But you don't. You just need to be able to make a bridge for them.
Scott Greening: Yeah. I'm one of those people that gets nervous. I know it's getting time where we talk about what I do, and I like, the adrenaline starts pumping and all of that. even in the best of circumstances, it's hard because you know this is a big moment in the conversation.
So you've got a framework to help us, and thankfully, it's pretty simple- ... of how you do this. So- Yes ... so what do we do?
Brooke Greening: Okay. So you're going to step one, repeat the problem. So that's, you're showing them that you've heard them. Step two, you're going to connect the help. Okay? That's where we talk specifically about how you're going to be able to help with the problem they just shared with you.
And then step three, you're going to paint the outcome for them. You're going to show them what makes all of this possible. That's it. Problem, help, outcome.
Scott Greening: All right. Is it really as simple as three words? Problem, help, outcome?
Brooke Greening: It takes practice, I'm not going to lie, but it will start to put you on the right track and you will have guardrails now as you're doing this, so it doesn't go off all of these rabbit trails.
All right. So if you keep remembering problem, help, outcome, this is going to help you.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and what I did notice that you didn't say, besides "Oh, maybe I've made this a little more complicated than it needs to be," is like you're not explaining everything.
Brooke Greening: No. No, not at all.
Scott Greening: All right, so we're, we try to get super practical, and we said last time that we're going to to give some examples other than like what you naturally do.
Mm-hmm. And so we're going to do that. The trick is you help people do this all the time. And while all of the examples, we're not just making this stuff up, these are- ... come from Brooke's experience, we do try to protect the innocent and- Right. ... um, we're not, not sharing everybody's dirt and that. So then when you get to this thing where you're keep saying make it very specific- We just had to put our thinking caps on how to best phrase these and that.
Yeah. But so the first one actually is sort of related to the product that I end up talking to people about on sales conversations. Sure. And that's a strategic planning process, a facilitation. So let's talk about a real sort of client that I engaged with and how that went.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So one of the problems that they came to you and they shared with is they're like, "Okay, we've got a big problem because our leadership is not...
Like, all the people that are involved in this organization are really resistant to the change that needs to happen, and we have to make a significant change structurally to our organization, and we don't know what to do." And so what we can say is first we restate the problem. "So like based on what you've shared, it sounds like one of the biggest challenges is that people are resistant to a change that's needed, otherwise it's going to jeopardize your whole entire organization."
Then we offer the help. "So our StratOp process helps all of your team to come to the conclusion on their own the risk of what's going to happen if they don't make this change." That way, then we go to the outcome, it's going to help you move forward, and everybody's going to be on the same page and be excited about the future instead of resistant to the change that's coming.
Scott Greening: Great. And what I noticed is you didn't explain all the 27 tools that are part of the StratOp process that, that does this.
Brooke Greening: No. No, that's when they would start to devalue at that point, because they don't know all of the pieces that are going to come together. But the biggest piece is we're going to get the perspective of the whole entire room.
The way we do that is through these 27 tools, but that's not what they needed to know. They needed to understand, you know that my team is resistant to change, and how are we going to actually solve that? So instead of just saying, "We're going to implement these processes to help you make the change," that wouldn't have made any sense.
But we're going to say, "No," "your team needs to come up t- with these conclusions on their own," and that's what we're going to help them do
Scott Greening: Great. That's super helpful and a great example of how to do it. I think also, I can't remember if we talked about this way back when in the setting expectations episode, but I know like a Jedi trick that you often encourage during that set expectations at the beginning is to let potential clients know you're going to be taking notes while you talk to them, 'cause sometimes- Yeah
we are like, "I can't remember all the things that we shared. I'm so excited. I'm amped up. I don't know what to say." just take some notes. And so I do that. You've helped me to do that, and it looks like chicken scratch, but it, there's at least a few things on there that I can say, "Oh yeah, that's the problem."
And then- Yeah ... I can link onto it.
Brooke Greening: And there's nothing wrong, like we love AI, we love how they record our stuff. There's nothing wrong for that, but in that moment, that's not going to help you. So you do need to know what is the problems that they're talking about, because it's going to come back.
We're going to be able to start connecting that bridge.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and you need to be engaged with the customer in the moment. Yeah. Zoom- Yeah ... has the new feature where you can like AI, if you got the AI assistant turned on to ask questions, but then that requires you to look off screen- Right
type the question and come back, which is probably not going to go real well. Yeah. So all right. So that's an example. Let's talk about another example. This time, I think it's related to actually like finding employees.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So I was working with a client, and they were trying... They themselves were helping other people find employees through like their marketing and things like that.
So I was helping them be able to explain this in a way that makes sense. And so the problem they were hearing is "We're getting applicants, but they're not qualified." So that's the problem, so we restate it. It sounds like the challenge is like you're bleeding money because your employee turn, your turnover rate is so high, and they don't even know what they're doing.
That is the problem. Then the help is like, "What we're going to do is we're going to look at your employment ads, and we're going to look at your messaging just as a whole, as a company, to see who are you attracting. Then we're going to see how can we attract your great fit employees." That way, so that was the help, then we go to the outcome.
That way, you can hire better staff and improve the quality of what you're delivering. When they started doing that and sharing it in that way, it started making a huge difference, and people could start to understand more instead of, "Oh, hey, we're going to look at your messaging," or, "Hey, we're going to look at what's happening and look at your ROI."
Those things are important, but we're trying to get to the main piece of the problem, and that was we're bleeding out. We're having a huge turnover. Okay, so how are we going to do that? What are the steps directly that will affect them in what we're doing?
Scott Greening: Great. So those are just a couple of examples of fleshing out this very simple framework of problem, restate the problem- Mm-hmm
share the help you're going to bring- Mm-hmm ... and not all of the way, just answer the one question- Yeah ... and then the outcome of what it looks like. What's, what should people be understanding? What should people be learning as they're hearing you explain this?
Brooke Greening: I want you to notice that I'm not talking about me.
I'm not talking about my credentials. I'm not talking even about my whole entire process. I am talking about them, the problems they have, and how we can come in and help them win the day. That is what we are showing them.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and why that solution matters to them matters to their business and moves things forward.
Brooke Greening: Yeah.
Scott Greening: All right. So we often give... We've been weaving examples all through this, but let's talk just on a little bit more detail. Again, some anonymous features to this. We're not saying names and all of that. But let's talk about how the process of what a team that you work with was doing before, this was an education setting- Mm-hmm
and then how they changed and what the impact made.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. So let's just talk about how maybe this is the first time that a student is heading off to college, and so we can say things like, the admissions teams can say things like, "Hey, we're going to be with you every step of the way." And we feel like, oh, that's really verbalizing the value.
It's not. It's generic. Instead, we start to say, "Hey, you know what? There are multiple steps that we've been talking about, like the interview, the applications, the essays, all of that, and that can start to feel overwhelming. But we're going to be connecting with you each week, so you know what you need to do this week and be able to get it done.
That way, you, your family, everyone can be excited about enrolling, and you get to look forward to all the fun stuff that's going to come with college life." Problem, help, outcome. And when they did that, that made a huge difference.
Scott Greening: Yeah. In that situation, like for the high school kid going to, to- that's typically who they're interacting with, like the high school kid going to college, like they didn't want to spend their summer figuring out paperwork.
And then parents were just overwhelmed. Yes. And so then it just, it fizzled out. But when you changed it and helped them realize it it made a big difference for them.
Brooke Greening: It did. Absolutely. And again, like when we say, "I'm going to help you implement," when we say, "I'm going to be with you every step of the way," just hear what you're saying and ask yourself, "Could I say that to anybody right now?"
And if you can, then we know that it's not specific enough. You just have to go back a few more steps to have it be that specific that it resonates with them and where they're sitting at so that then they can vision themselves in the future. If it's just generic, they can't see it.
Scott Greening: Yeah. it's not that they have to come up with completely different things.
No. I know when we were talking through this you were saying like you'll sometimes ask people like, "What did you actually just want to say?"
Brooke Greening: Right. I do.
Scott Greening:
Brooke Greening: I ask a lot. I'm like, "What were you wanting to say in that moment?" And then they spit it out. I'm like, "That would've been really good,"
Scott Greening: right? Yeah.
Yeah.
Brooke Greening: They're like, "Oh, okay."
Scott Greening: And so it's not like you're coming up with some radical... No, you're just-
Brooke Greening: No ...
Scott Greening: being more specific. This is what implementation looks like. This is what- Yes ... this looks like. This it's not different, it's just specific.
Brooke Greening: Yes, exactly.
Scott Greening: All right. How would somebody try this out?
How would they do it this week?
Brooke Greening: So on your next two sales calls, before you explain your offer, I want you to write down, this is the problem they just shared with me, this is how I can help with the problem they just shared with me, and this is the outcome that they want. You're going to write three things down, the problem they just shared, how you can help, and the outcome they want, and then you're going to connect those three things.
Scott Greening: All right. I've got my homework. I've got a couple of conversations that I'm in the middle of with some people that could be clients or whatever, so I- I'm going to try to do that. And so thankfully it's not super complicated.
Brooke Greening: No, it doesn't have to be.
Scott Greening: All right. But for those of us that are trying this out for the first time, it's riding a bike, and you're, like, a little wobbly at first and unsure.
Help us think through that. What are the wobbles w- and how should we think about it?
Brooke Greening: Yeah, a lot of times when we start sharing this, people are like, "Oh, this feels really repetitive." And I'm going to say good. That's a really good thing, because customers need clarity more than variety at this point.
So many times we feel like, oh it's going to sound like I'm dumbing it down. No, you're not. Again, you know your business. You know all the things that are going on in and out of it. They don't, so you need to remember that. You want to have that clarity for them. Also, sometimes they think what if I leave something out?"
You can always add details later. We're not saying this is concrete, and this is the only thing you're allowed to say, and then you have to shut the conversation down. But this is giving you the guardrails, and it's better if they're actually wanting to know more. So that's a good sign. When they want to know more, that means we haven't overwhelmed them, and they're curious.
That is a great thing to be having in a sales conversation.
Scott Greening: Yeah, just always leave them wanting more. That's what- But-
Brooke Greening: And, and then the last thing is: what if my solution helps with multiple things? That's okay. We're going to talk about what matters most. And this is leading into what's going to happen in the next episode of our podcast, but I am not telling you that you make $20,000, $100,000 sales with just one problem that you're solving.
I understand there are multiple ones, but there's a way to be able to work through them, and that's what we're going to be talking about next in regards to when objections are coming and all of that. But in this moment, don't overwhelm them, and be very specific of how it helps them
Scott Greening: All right, so we've gotten a good framework for how to try to do this.
We've spent a couple of weeks now talking about what this is, why it's important, bad examples- Mm-hmm ... and all that. Let's step back to the beginning for just a moment and kind of look at the big picture. How does this fit in with the whole SERVICE framework and overall sales conversation?
Brooke Greening: So if you've done a good job of recognizing the problem, which we talked about, and the only way we recognize the problem is when we set the expectations and establish rapport correctly. If you've done a good job of that, now verbalizing the value is going to get a lot easier, and the rest of the sales conversation is going to get so much easier because now we're just simply starting to connect the dots and lead them to the next step.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I know you often use a bridge example of they got the problem, and then on the other side you've got the sale, your solution. Mm-hmm. And so this verbalizing the value is connecting it.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm. Exactly.
Scott Greening: And it doesn't have to be, like, the Golden Gate Bridge. It doesn't have to be this-
huge elaborate bridge. Just start simple.
Brooke Greening: That just breaks apart all the time. That's right. And you got to get the right timing and, like-
Scott Greening: Yeah ...
Brooke Greening: that's where people get really confused and frustrated because they're like, "Oh, I have to say the exact thing. I have to have the right timing.
I have to be able to spin it and catch them." And like, no. Just clearly explain. Make sure we understand what the problem is, and then explain how you can help that specific problem they shared with you, and that gets them closer to you and making the decision to move forward with you or not.
Scott Greening: I think you're going to agree with this because your line is if you miss the problem, everything else falls apart. But I think- Yeah, you get the problem wrong ... a lot of you help people coach on this verbalizing the value. But a lot of times when they're having a problem here, it probably is maybe hey, go back and make sure you got the right problem.
Brooke Greening: Yes, because it's not that people aren't aware of what they do. There are times when we look at it and we're like, "Okay, you've completely confused them when you're telling them how you can help, and this is what we need to change." But usually what happens is the problem was wrong, or it was the surface level problem.
It wasn't the one that was driving them and motivating them, and so they were solving the wrong problem, which then isn't very valuable to the potential client or customer
Scott Greening: All right, so let's think about what question should we be
asking ourself this week about how they can use this framework?
Brooke Greening: Yes. You want to just ask yourself this question. So when you're explaining your offer, you want to ask yourself, "Okay, so is my client going to immediately understand why it matters to them? Or am I going to be making them create all of these connections and dots?"
'Cause if we make them do it, then it's going to be harder for us and for them to make a decision to move forward.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I was thinking earlier and that clarity is kindness. Simple is almost always better. just make sure people understand it Really easily. Sometimes we say make it easy for people to buy from you.
Just- Yes ... Don't overcomplicate it. So, oh great. Thank you, Brooke, and if you're sitting here wondering, we've worked now through another part of the SERVICE framework in wrapping up verbalizing value. If you're wondering how you're doing in this or any part of your sales conversation, we encourage you to go to buildingmomentum.info/assessment, and you can, in 10 minutes or less, probably about seven minutes, you'll go through the assessment and get a report back that'll help you know how you can improve your sales conversations, whether you're just starting out and trying to figure everything out, or whether you've been doing it for a while and just need a few tweaks to, to hone your skills.
Brooke where are we going next in our SERVICE framework? We got a new letter coming up.
Brooke Greening: We do. We are in I, identify objections. And so one of my favorite things to talk about is how to be able to handle objections without dying a little bit inside. We have got a lot coming, one, in regards to what are good ways to handle objections, what are the bad ways to handle objections.
It's going to be a great couple of episodes. I can't wait to get into it because it, this also ties in with verbalizing the value because sometimes people think, "Oh, no. Well, what happens if they want more? What happens if they have other problems?" This is going to make sure we don't miss any of them. So get ready.
It's super exciting. And it makes everybody uncomfortable.
Scott Greening: Yeah. So, yeah, this is one of those things where initially, almost everyone, this is the part of sales, 'cause you almost always- Yep ... you're such a nice, smiley, bubbly person. The people you, in your world end up being, people that don't want to be jerks when they're sales.
Yes. And so these are, like, the hardest parts for people- Mm-hmm ... 'cause they're like, "I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be that girl. I don't want to be- Yep ... a sales bro." but identifying objections- Objections are a good
Brooke Greening: thing ...
Scott Greening: is really important. So- Yeah ... it'll be interesting. Yeah. I know you're going to find, Yeah
some value and excitement, and we won't give away all the answers, but it's going to be fun.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. And I'll just let you know, objections aren't usually about the price. So we'll just start from there.
Scott Greening: All right. On that note we hope you have a great week enjoying your matcha and coffee. We, yeah, make some more sales.
Have a great day.
Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.
