Selling in a Time of Corona – S2E11 – 2020 with 2020 Hindsight – Highlights of Selling in a Time of Corona

Creative intro:           Boom Crash Opera – The Best Thing

 “….This is the best thing that has ever happened to me (this is the best thing) ….”

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             Welcome to the Highlights of the Selling in a Time of Corona podcast.

As the tumultuous year of 2020 comes to a close, I wanted to look back and share with you some of the great insights shared by so many great guests discussing the wonderful world of selling as we were dragged through months of disruption.

I created this podcast to give you some fresh thinking, a wry smile and a host of pragmatic ideas to keep the revenue wheel turning over. I want to thank you for the hundreds of messages you sent, from those of you who have enjoyed listening to my drivel, my sense of humour and my direct style of confronting sales issues as they are.

And so, to my guests, who have given their time to share their stories so that you in turn, can tell your clients better stories. Here are some of the highlights of Selling in a Time of Corona 2020 starting with my chat with leading Global Business Futurist , Morris Miselowksi discussing the new value proposition:

(From S1E5 – The Future of Sales with Morris Miselowski)

Morris Miselowski:    I think all of us in sales are going to need to look at our value propositions and see where the safety and security of our offering jumps up to near the top when it comes to what it is that we're offering clients and what our benefit statements are going to be. In addition to which, I  shared with a client the other day, that this is going to be a bit like marriage counselling, where, clients and suppliers have been together for a while and they go through a rough patch. And then when you come out the other side, you almost have to learn to re-communicate with each other and not take each other for granted so that you can have a better relationship going forward. And I think the one of the biggest risks nowadays, is to treat clients as if this is just a blip and we'll continue along the same merry way with the same budgets and the same products and the same consumption rate as what's been happening in the past.

And it's simply not the case. We have to see things with fresh eyes and have a look at how we're going to reinvigorate that relationship. And one final point on that is that the essence of what we do with clients has to be done with a new set of evidence and tools, because what you said three months ago might not apply now, in addition to which the person to whom you're speaking with may be very different because people have downsized. I imagine out of all of those businesses, you mentioned that are going by the wayside, there are huge numbers of people that simply won’t have a job. So you might have a different decision maker. And all of that has to be reinvigorated again from scratch as if you haven't met them before. What are your thoughts?

Morris Miselowski:    Absolutely. I would say that was ongoing, even before this, we should never take anyone for granted, but never more so than now. We really do have to start from ground zero. But one of the things that I would urge your listeners to do, and I know because I listened to you, they're doing this, but just want to put a line under it, is we need to be building those relationships right now and not from a sales viewpoint, but from a human kindness viewpoint. Go into our clients, go into those businesses. I'm not talking physically, I'm talking digitally and have the conversations with them about how things are going for them now, as individuals, even if they're home, not able to do their work, go back and reconnect because that's what this time is about. It’s great karma, you know, bank points for later on, but it's also a terrific way to understand what their needs and to begin to give each other hope, hope that we will get back to a normal round of activity.

So, absolutely these are very, very much like marriage counselling and the other end of that, that we will come out of this different human beings with different needs. So we must be sure that the landscape is one that we understand. So we have to make sure that we haven't taken for granted that what was before will be after. Because it won't be. The person is going to be vastly different as well. They will have evolved and changed either dramatically or not because of this period of time, the products and services that they want are going to be changed as well. And likely, very likely the budgets that they have will have changed. There are just so many of those variable landscapes, which is why I think it's imperative we start doing that groundwork right now.

And given budgets and spending have changed, my co-author and Chief Brown Wearing Procurement Guru, Paul Rogers came on the program to say this:

(From S1E6 - Brown Cardigans, Procurement and COVID-19)

Paul Rogers:              Well, I think given what you've said, that procurement has trying to avoid their contractual obligations. And I've said that suppliers are trying to avoid their contractual negotiations. The use of indirect communication does not help rebuild trust. And one of the benefits of face to face contact is that as human beings, trust is built by eye contact. It's built by understanding all of the verbal and nonverbal cues, and it simply cannot be, you cannot build trust by email, or it's much harder by phone. And even with video, it's not as easy. So we're in a situation where parties are breaking their contractual obligations, which clearly undermines trust. And then the means of communication that could rebuild trust face to face contact is being explicitly stopped. So, I think one of the short-term consequences of COVID-19 will be, where relationships have been strong and pre-existing, they will be tested. But it will be very, very difficult to recover from the behaviour of parties during this time.

Elliot Epstein:             Yes, that's a very good point. How you behave now, is going to live in the memory of both salespeople and/or procurement for quite some time. So, when we all come out of the Batcave and start to see each other again, if you've behaved poorly during this period, look out! Because there'll be suppliers that will take procurement to task and say, right, you denied us the opportunity of a fair go and we'll go and find someone else. If you're going to behave like that or put the price up, we'll stop giving you the privileges that we've been giving you. And equally procurement will be very harsh on suppliers that are not moving heaven and earth, or at least perceived to be moving heaven and earth to deliver as much as they can. So that's a really good learning,

Two great sales leaders, Michael Alp and Rachel Sakurai (Condos) joined me to share how they were managing the disruption of 2020:

(From S1E7 – The Sales Leaders – Michael Alp) and S1E9 – The Sales Leaders Rachel Sakurai)

Michael Alp:               I think the main thing is; go and look for the technology software tools to grow your business and to get in contact with people. We use LinkedIn a lot, in terms of actual conversations and finding people. I think there are a lot of tools out there like that, that you can actually go and use either as platforms or third parties to go and create and build business that you didn't have before. And it's a time to do it. Obviously if you're Virgin Airways, you've got some real issues about the cost of your infrastructure. For most people out there, that are trying to maintain a business, I think every customer you get now is worth five next year.

Michael Alp:               And so, I'd say it's a time for investing in your digital growth and on making sure that you can get to decision makers and plant the seeds now for coming out of it. I'd probably think that this mode of working that we're in now, is probably going to be persistent forever. I mean, now that we've worked out that the kids can actually school from home, guess what everybody's going to do? They're going to be saying fine, that clarinet lesson, you can do it from home. I think the same is with work environment. I think we're all going to go, “Oh, we've got used to working at home, we've got infrastructure set up, the offices are better. We've got a better technology. The systems are working.”

Michael Alp:               I think when I say this is a sort of persistent way of working, I think it's beyond the coronavirus. I think this is probably going to change office and office use and tools and attendance forever. And I think people will get much more used to using these types of tools that you we're using today. And I think building some competencies around things like presenting on video, using LinkedIn, using digital contact tools, advertising your profile, learning how to do what you do well through this digital footprint is really important. And so for anybody that's not in the tech industry, I'd say it's a time for you to actually, it's time to take a bit of time and actually see what you can do technically.

Rachel Sakurai          Going back to your initial point about how you genuinely need to care for your customer, that's the first point. So just being able to have your sales rep pick up the phone and touch base from the place of care to start that dialogue and check in, “How are you going during this difficult time?” and genuinely caring about the answer is really the starting point. And we are saying that people, regardless of their role and regardless of their outcome, they’re all craving interaction and they’re all craving connectivity. So, the fact that we are able to demonstrate that it's business as usual, and that we're here to promote certainty and we're here to continue business as usual and have that stability has been really reassuring. And I think from where I sit, we've got a lot of respect from the market where they've realized like, “Hey they aren't stopping selling. And it demonstrates and our systems and our resources and our people have robust and equipped, but more so I think people have really felt the whole sense of “They care enough about me during this time. I must be really, really important”, which they are. I also think it's really, really challenged the way we look at clients because there's a big difference between networking and selling. And there's a big difference to a buyer and a contact. And it's really, really forced us, Elliot, to be more strategic about understanding the major difference in someone who was a buyer and someone who you're trying to sell to. So now, in my opinion, it's the perfect time for us just to strategically sit back and locate those buyers. What is a buyer? A buyer is someone who's actively looking for, or in a real need of a product, service offering or anything of that kind.

So, to be able to identify that need, we need to go back to that point that you've driven home to me year after year after year. And that's that active listening. What can we provide them to improve their business, to improve their quality of life or to solve a major problem they're currently faced with? And if you nail that, it doesn't matter whether you're delivering the message by phone, by email, by text message, by webinar, you've got a very active audience. And I know it sounds very simple, but the approach that we're taking is less to do with product it's less to do with service. It's more to do with who we are dealing with. And that actually requires a lot of focus where you're putting your focus on others and not yourself and not your business. So, it's really looking into the customers or the potential customers, current situation and not yours.

One of the most popular episodes was ‘ The Voice of the Customer ‘ and its not hard to see why when CIO Andrew Pritchett shared this gem.

(From S2E1 - The Voice of the Customer)

Andrew Pritchett:     It baffles me why so many sales organizations are so inflexible. I understand to some extent some of the multinationals because of the rigidity of some of the multinationals, especially US-based companies that might have imposed the way certain things have to happen. And they can't do that in Australia. However, I've been talking about this with pitches for years, which is if you can't schedule, plan, design, craft a proposal on a solution that suits what the customer wants, then what are you doing? You can't just walk in with one flavour of yogurt and say, that's it. If you don't like vanilla, what's wrong with you. And then still spend time on that deal and wonder why it's spinning its wheels and sitting in the sales cycle for six or nine months. It's just madness. And the companies that get that flexibility are doing well.

And I know many organizations that have, and I refuse to use the word 'pivoted' that have recrafted the way that they go to market with proofs of concept, with pricing schedules with the way designs are done, the way things are cut instead of three-year contracts might be two-year contracts or whatever the flexibility needs to be. And what you've just highlighted there is, is a fabulous insight for anyone listening, no matter what industry you're in, which is if you've deeply understood and diagnosed the situation, you built a relationship with the client, it's your job on the sales side to craft something that is going to help that decision maker get a result for their organization. It's not your job to just ram a widget down their throats, or if you can't do it for whatever reason, because you've got strict rules that stop you from doing it, tell the customer and move on to someone else. It's that simple.

Andrew Pritchett:     Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. I think the only other thing I can think of around what may have affected, my implementation and budgeting is absolute cashflow sensitivity. So that also goes back to, you know, almost having the flexibility. A lot of the vendors want 12 months upfront. And for me to get that through as a business charter right now, really challenging. Whereas if I just said, we'll try it for the first 12 months or 18 months, we're going to charge you month by month.

Like that's almost doable in nearly every situation, but even having that conversation with the vendors so far, but mainly for software, having those conversations just hit roadblock every time. Now we don't do it that way. You know, I can get, I can get this through if you can do it month by month, NO!

Michael Bishop:         And who would’ve guessed a lawyer would’ve got literally thousands of downloads on a sales podcast? Michael Bishop did with this story of his involvement in attracting customers with his legal and public speaking  expertise.

The example was I was going to share with you, I think is which I think is a great way to get in front of customers and also, you know, ultimately to help you or your sales teams – I remember, for example, when we had the GDPR regulation came in a couple of years ago, that was really a great opportunity to get out in front of customers and talk about the impact of GDPR on their businesses. And in fact, at the time I was working for a different company, but we've got a huge amount of demand and interest off companies and universities in New South Wales and Victoria, particularly. You know, really just talking about the impact and fundamentally not selling to customers, but really trying to drive relevance in their business and great mind share, I think, and ultimately those kinds of opportunities really led to deals that we did, and I think because people saw that we weren't just out there actively trying to sell to them, but we generally want to be relevant and find ways which we can engage with in ways outside of the standard sales process. And a great example of that by the way Elliot, is that I found that we went in and spoke to one of the large universities in Victoria and we probably got 25-30 people attending one of these meetings. And there were people who probably we would have struggled to get in contact with, you know, whether that was security officers or data privacy officers or governance, they all came and attended. And it really extended our network within those customers.

Social selling was a big topic throughout the year and LinkedIn guru, Nathanial Bibby joined me with this insight into getting more eyeballs.

From S2E2 – COVID Content is King)

Nathanial Bibby:        I think another creative way that you can share client stories is to celebrate their wins. So, like I did some capital raising for a company that developed e-bikes and they were looking to raise a million dollars in five weeks, and they managed to achieve the goal. LinkedIn was a part of the fundraising, marketing campaign. It wasn't the only part of it, but when they reached the goal, you know, I posted a photograph of me with some of the directors and just, you know, say, congratulations, achieve your goal a million dollars in five weeks, what a privilege to be part of it. And, you know, quick, you know, send it, it basically just praising the client. And then I've got, you know, somewhere between 40 to 60 inbound messages off the back of that from start-ups.

Superstar Keynote Speaker and Olympic Gold Medallist stopped doing yoga for 5 minutes to explain how presentations can be uplifted with one key connection.

(From S2E6 – Coaching in a Time of Corona)

Lauren Burns:            …everyone said to me, you know, after the games, ‘Milk it for all it's worth, you'll get a year out of it and then you'll never speak again.’ But you know, it's been 20 years, 20 years, that's pretty much been my full-time job. But one of the things that I really noticed, the difference in with working with you as well was, once the presentation changed from being just my story, but developed into ‘this is my story, but this is how it applies to the audience’, that's when I think there was a real shift for me as a speaker. And it was, I realized early on that me telling my story, people were really enjoying and then everyone had come up to me afterwards and go, ‘That's amazing. I could never do that’, or ‘I don't know.’ And it was sort of like this distance between my story and their own lives. And I realized that I wasn't connecting the dots of, well, this is my story, but it's these messages within the story that apply to business, personal life, you know, or to different individuals. So, once I was able to sort of weave in key messages, then everything really changed. And I think that's what's provided the longevity.

We travelled around the world meeting ‘ze Germans’ and even Prince Charles left Camilla behind as we discussed pronunciation and accents with the charming Daniel Wolfson.

(From S2E8 – The Accent on Performance)

Daniel Wolfson :        So, China, the pronunciation features that they particularly have an issue with is the N and the L that they're particularly hard ones. And that's really interesting because if you think about what's happening with the tongue, with those two sounds, the tongue is actually in exactly the same spot for both the N and the L. If you try and do an N and an L right now, your tongue will touch the roof of the mouth just behind the teeth, for both of those sounds.

And they have a very, very weak position there. And so that's really hard for them to articulate that sound.

They don't. So Chinese speakers don't tend to over pronounce consonants, which a lot of other languages do. They pronounce the consonants in English.

What they do is they tend to under pronounce most of them, but they have been taught so well by their school system to articulate everything, every single little sound that they end up speaking kind of like robots.

So, it kind of it's speaking like this where they are trying to articulate everything and then then there's no flow and then it doesn't sound natural. And then it's hard to relate to the speaker because they're not kind of expressing the full the full feelings and thoughts that they're having in a subtle way. Yeah, and you coach that float, actually. Yeah, so I'm all about the flow. Flow is the absolute key to this whole course that I do. I think of it like water.

Top blokes and sensational relationship sellers, Scott ‘Huddo’ Hudson and Jarrod ‘JBOMB’ Bloomfield cracked open a beer to discuss relationship building during and beyond COVID.

(From S2E9 – The Relationship Seller)

Scott Hudson

Scott Hudson:         What you're up to today is going to be very different from what you were doing five or 10 years ago. And equally so some of those historic contacts is, there's a lot of relationship gold that’s sitting in your historic networks. Now, I think the second was thinking about, so you've got today’s relationships, you've got yesterday's relationships and one eye looking forward to who  are the relationships going to be, meetings with the people and the relationships I'm going to build as I go forward.

So, it's very much like today, yesterday and tomorrow. So essentially, ‘3 eyes  relationship management’.

Elliot Epstein:             I really like that. You should copyright that.

Jarrod Bloomfield

Elliot Epstein:             What would you say to people who say, look, I like to have a clear delineation in my life. I, I am I a wife or a husband and a mom or a dad. And that's my life separately. And when I sit in front of a camera or I go to see a client, that's my business life. And the two are very separate and I don't want those lines to be blurred. What would you suggest to them in that thinking?

Jarrod Bloomfield:    Well, firstly, I'd say, you know, each to their own, and if that's the way you want to operate, that's the way you want to operate. But I think if you if that's your mindset, it'll come out when you speak to people. So, if your mind set is this is a business arrangement, and that's all I'm going to be,  that's all I'm going to think about when I meet you, it'll come out in your body language, it'll come out with how you communicate to people, and you won't be open and honest, and you'll get that reflection back from who you talk to.

So, I think it's okay to, you know, split up your family and work life, that's great. It's good to have balance. But if that's genuinely your mindset, it'll come out in how you communicate and how you present. So, I'd say have a think about it and just change some of your techniques. And yeah, because you get to experience people at a deeper level and then probably have a bit more fun whilst doing it.

And finally , Comedian Jack Levi aka Elliot Goblet added a few more laughs and allowed me to share a true story that I’m proud of much more than I should be.

(From S2E7 – Two Elliots for the Price of One)

Jack Levi:                   I went to a restaurant, there was a sign that said, “We take all cards”, so I gave them a sympathy card with the words “Sorry, I left my wallet at home.”

I have a total of three and a half alcohol free days a week. I don't drink every day of the week for the first half of the day.

You know, when it comes to superior service, you can't go past Optus. I'm not just saying that because Optus is one of the sponsors. I said exactly the same thing last month at a Telstra function.

Because my material was not smutty and not racist, not crude, I got another six Amway jobs from other Diamonds around Australia. So, it's interesting that the perception sometimes of Elliot Goldblatt does not equal the reality. Yeah, absolutely, everyone's got their own taste and we can only read it as best we can.

Elliot Epstein:             I remember presenting at a conference once and picked someone out in the audience and just picked a few people to introduce themselves.

And this woman said, “Hi, my name's so-and-so, but people call me DIGI  because my first job was a Digital Corporation.” And I said, “Lucky you didn't work for Country Road then.”

So that was the Year 2020 for Selling in a Time of Corona.

I hope you enjoyed listening in the car, on a walk or even as one deranged person suggested, in the boudoir when the Barry White recording wasn’t working.

Thanks again to all my guests for their outstanding contribution. Big thanks to Hymie Lipszyc at Webmentum.com for his terrific production of these podcasts and putting up with my pedantic requests .

I’ll be back next year with new ideas Beyond Selling in a Time of Corona.

In the meantime, I wish you, your loved ones and your sales quota Happy Holidays.

Stay Safe, Stay Positive

Remember your ears are safe, I recorded this podcast for the first time without a mask, gloves, hand sanitiser …. or pants.

Take care of yourselves , till next time.