"Opened Dawes" Podcast

"Opened Dawes" Podcast Ep 9: Two Vital Sides to Sales Communication

August 17, 2021 Chris Dawes Episode 9
"Opened Dawes" Podcast
"Opened Dawes" Podcast Ep 9: Two Vital Sides to Sales Communication
Show Notes Transcript

This is the podcast of  “Opened Dawes” Live, which runs weekly as a live video show on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn at 11 am on Tuesday mornings so that we can throw open the doors and welcome you in for a relaxed sharing of information, tips, thoughts, and answering any questions about public speaking and presentation/communication skills you may have.

So, make sure you set the reminders for the shows on Facebook or YouTube (links below) as they are scheduled online and get involved.  The stream is designed to be interactive, with comments/questions able to be shown and attributed on screen.

This week’s show looks at what, from my experience in B2B sales, are two vital sides that need to come together in sales communications, whether that is presentations, demonstrations, pitches, or the initial or ongoing general communication.

Whilst the discussion will of course include listening and speaking (in a ratio many forget), the title two “sides” in this show are actually EMOTION and LOGIC.  Tune in to see why they are so important, what each of them achieves, and how you can make sure of their presence in your sales communications.

This show can be watched live (and previous shows recorded) from the following locations:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/OpenDawesTraining/live

YouTube:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCnwlPiWylgEDLrwemI8ZZjw (or search YouTube for Open Dawes Training and click subscribe to be notified)

Thanks to:
www.opendawestraining.co.uk
www.chrisdawescomms.co.uk
www.opendawestraining.co.uk/connect

Good morning, welcome back to Opened Dawes Live or should I actually be welcoming myself back to Opened Dawes Live apologies, there's been a little bit of a gap there, I dare to take a bit of a vacation. And I feel a whole lot better for it and away campaign and seeing family, all of those kinds of things. And I'm locked, reloaded and ready to go again. And I'm glad that we're getting into some specifics now really, with with some of the Opened Dawes Live that I'm planning over the coming weeks. And the first one I want to touch on is, is around sales communications. And that is kind of my background, before I got into all of the the media work, the Motorsports commentating the event hosting, my background was sales and marketing, I've always said that university was where I first realized that I was terrified of standing up and presenting and I went into it, sales, and we stood up and presenting at seminars, or in meetings, or whatever it might be. And it's probably, I would imagine, probably the one of the core customer base for me where people are needing to try and sell. But if you think about it, we're always selling, I kind of probably sell at home as well convincing the wife that, that I make sense, and I rarely do but you know, just try to convince her anyway. But we're always trying to get people to buy in, I always remember even I was training a group at an organization. And they, they, there was one person in there, that was the warehouse manager. And I asked him why he felt that, you know, public speaking, presentation skills training was so advantageous for him to be on this course for a day and a half. And he said, amongst other things, of obviously communicating with his staff, and, and between department heads, but he had to pitch to the powers that be the directors, the board, all of those kind of things. And they'd have to actually hit he'd have to pitch for investment, new ideas, new ways of doing things or possibly even pitching with excuses, not excuses reasons, sorry, for why something didn't go quite to plan, maybe. And it's always sort of in that same mentality that we are pitching to somebody for them to hopefully get on board with what you are recommending, you know, if I if I kind of really grind it down, it's probably along those kind of lines. Now, in terms of, of selling what I genuinely feel are two key areas, two, sort of different sides that both of them have to be included in your sales, communications, whether that's presentations, pitches, demonstrations of your solutions, or your service, and even your initial and ongoing communications with prospects that you're trying to sell to. And I'll base it around that prospects that we're trying to sell to because it's the easiest one, but as I say, that could be boards of directors or people that you want to employ you to promote you anything at all that we are trying to sell something, an idea, a product or service ourselves, whatever it might be. And that is to remember that people buy on emotion. justify with logic. So they buy on emotion, as in buy into something, but they justify that they're going to spend money that they're going to make this effort, they're going to make this investment, whatever it is with logic. Now, let me go into a bit more detail of what I mean by those two sides. By the way, if you've got any comments, questions, please do put them in the comments or questions of wherever you're watching, whether that's on Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn, because I can put those comments questions your own experiences your own thoughts up on screen and it's great to get the interaction from you all as well. which varies whether we do or not, but that's fine. If somebody stands up and does a presentation or a demonstration or or just a discussion about their product, their service and they feature dump everything A to Zed, and they just go through they know their product, they know their service inside out, and they just make a point of telling everybody all about their product all about their service. All we've done there is put the logic if you will, the features that isn't going To get the emotional side of somebody's brain going, you will get some sales because they'll go Yep, matter of factly. This is my problem. This is what I'm trying to achieve. That does it, fine, square peg square hole, let's do it. But what you're not doing is play into their emotional side and really getting them to connect and buy into the notion of what you are recommending what you are putting in front of them. So the emotion side that they buy into something on the emotion side, that's the pizzazz, it's the part I enjoy the most where you really make something come alive, you really make it sing and dance, I've always said my biggest claim to fame is that I was accused of making it entertaining. Brilliant, you know, our software was document management software. And was and still is absolutely incredible. It's got some magic wow factors to it. And I love demonstrating. And I still do it, you know, I contract to an organization and I still get to go and do that now. And really make it sing and dance and make people go, Wow, that's incredible. But it doesn't always mean if I did just that, they kind of go That is amazing. And they then need to go and justify, especially if you're not getting the decision there. And then they're going to go away, they're going to go and think about it. And they then sit there with none of those logic elements that make them go. It was amazing. And I've got to have it because of x, y and Zed. I'm going to go back to an example that I remember my my father sharing with me. And it was that he was in the market for for a new car. And he went to this particular manufacturer, and he was looking at this car and the salesperson there was like, Oh, you know, look, it's got this new widget, it's got that amazing thing. And look, you can put your your your fob in that bit there. And it automatically sets to your, your all of your settings for your, your mirrors, your your seat, all the different ways and see it's really, really cool. Yeah, it is a very clever, brilliant, and he kind of went away and he at the time, he was kind of like, Wow, that's really good. And he's then weighing it up, right? What do I need a car at all just yet? Can I survive without buying a new one? Is this the right car for me? Wow, that was quite cool that really do I need it? It's not particularly important. There was no logic for him to kind of go. That's why I've got it. That's why it's helpful. That's why it's useful. It's not just a fad, or or whatever it might be. And this went on for a little while. And this isn't just about whether a decision is made. It's how many times have you been involved in a massively protracted sales cycle? And you're thinking what what is stopping this from going ahead? And you step back and you look, have I covered all of the steps of the sale and, and everything else? And it could be that there is not quite the logic there for them to get hold off to use their logic of going. There's the facts, that yes, I love it. This is why it's going to work and how it's going to work. So the sales cycle went on and on and on. And eventually, my dad got a call from the the boss of this particular dealership. And he said, Mr. Dawes, I know that you've been chatting with my colleague, he's no longer with me on Friday, but I'm just picking up all the bits and pieces. I want to get an understanding where we are. And he just kind of said, Oh, yeah, you know, I like it. I just can't decide whether I really want to go ahead with it yet. He said, Well, let me go through and you know, and he went through some of the cool things about this car. And he included a big thing about this fob. And it would suddenly set everything. And this is back when this was new. You see, I know some of us are going. Yeah, that's quite common. It wasn't meant it was quite a new thing. And I'm not that stop you there your guy was was making a big point about this is really cool. But I'm not sure I really understand why you're making a big point. It's cool. But why does it mean I need to buy this as well. So imagine this, you go to a party and event a gathering whatever it might be, and yourself and your wife, so my mum, you go there, you've driven there. And the evening goes, Well, you're relaxing. And then suddenly, the next thing you realize you've actually had two, maybe three drinks, and so you can't drive. And let's just make an assumption that your wife hasn't done that. And she could write How many times have you done this that you then switch over that the other person gets in and they suddenly change the front and back on your seat, the back on the seat, the hardness of the seat, the height of the seat, the wing mirrors then all get changed. You sit there for ages waiting to go home, and eventually you get to go home and happy days, you're back. You go to bed, you whatever. Then Not only did that take a long time but you get up the next morning. You go to get back in your car and it's all shot to peace. Isn't it the seat is changed its direction in so many ways. And you cannot find your sweet spot again for love. Normally you cannot get it into that sweet spot, and you spend ages messing about. And with the wing mirrors getting it the right set up for you. What if suddenly that happens on the evening, someone else takes your keys, puts it in, they have a memory mode to and it automatically and instantly sets the seat the mirrors everything to exactly what you need it to be they need it to be. Next morning, you go out to the car, you put the fall bed, it's you that's in there, set it to your memory set in your seat, go straight back to your sweet spot, you don't mess about you don't never find it again. It's there instantly. Wow. You know what, that sounds really good. That is a good point. Because actually, some of my staff occasionally use my car and they mess about with it. So this is even more, yeah, this is this is it, bang, the logic was given to go with the emotion about how cool it was. My dad's like me, we love cars, and all of that sort of stuff. So he certainly loved that element. But it didn't make him part with his cash, the logic made him part with his cash. But you've got to always make sure that you have both sides, if you just feature dump, there'll be no emotion for someone to make a decision on. If you just give it the pizzazz, they won't necessarily be able to justify it and, and it will just drag on and on and on, they'll go away, they'll think about it, they talk themselves out of it, or they'll continue to an AR and it won't necessarily work necessarily work. The key things for me now, I made a point in my notes is that it's not necessarily the two key things that you would think of, and one of them is first thing first, listen. It goes without saying in sales communication, you have to listen to these, one of them, use them in that order, a mantra that I've always been bought up on. Listen to your prospect. What do they do? How do they do it? What problems are they encountering? What impact do those problems have on the organization? The cash flow, the profits, the operations, anything like that? What are they their objectives? What are they trying to achieve? going forward? And you know, now, tomorrow, next year, next decade, what are they trying to do as they go forward? And you digest all of that? And take a pause? Because I tell you what every company, every person will happily talk to the cows come home about their business about their themselves, whatever, let them do it, encourage them to do it, and sit there listening and making notes and taking it in and thinking right? How can my product or service? or How can I help this person this organization, overcome those things achieve those things? So how can we solve or provide all of this with my product service or myself? Then you move into showing that could be an hour say showing it could be telling because it might not be something that physically you show but more often than not, it's going to be showing them something, but refer to the bits that allow the glib statement is relevant to them. But even more so is going to help them overcome their issues to achieve their objectives. And keep referring back to those as you are going through you are deliberately taking them on this journey going. Right. Okay, I've got a couple of fundamentals, I do need to make them aware of this is critical to what they've shared with me already. And I'm going to keep referring back to what they have already said to me what they've already said, keep referring so you remember that you mentioned this, if you see this, that will make sure that never happens again, etc, etc. and you work your way through showing them now as you're doing it, you're giving it the pizzazz so we're now adding the logic based on what I've heard from from this prospect, the facts, the features, but I'm giving it the pizzazz with the benefits, the making it sing and dance with the emotion, the enthusiasm, the conviction, you know, some of the critical things when it comes to demonstrating because they will carry people along. I have once did a closed up pretty reasonable size software solution sale. Were got it closed after doing a big seminar presentation and the CEO of the organization bought it. My technical guys then went in to do the installation. They had the full implementation. And the first conversation is right. Okay. What are you going to use this for? And how are you going to use it so we know how to set up? And his answer was, I have no idea. But Chris made it looks so amazing. I just had to have it. And I knew in some way it would help my business and I had to get involved and we had to Step it back. But that is very, very rare that will happen. That was a lovely, lovely compliment. And not something that happens very often when it's actually spending cold, hard cash. So we add the pizzazz to what they've told me taking them through this journey. And you know, I get into this whole towel show towel. So tell them what about what I'm about to show them and why it's important for them, show it in action, and then tell them remind them. So what you just saw there, imagine your organization using this, and that you would be overcoming these issues, you would be achieving these objectives. Okay, yeah, I've got that right on to the next element. Right? This was critical, because I, when you said about x, y, and Zed, I realized that we needed to achieve this. Look, this is it doing it, right. So you see that if you're using that you're going to overcome this. So you are now taking them on a towel show towel journey, that is with enthusiasm, conviction, it is referring to the logic that they have given you that the read the raise on their thrusts, excuse my friends, but you get the idea. You What you are doing is you're showing them how good things will be when they have this product or service. And you are planting the fear of how bad it will be, or continue to be. If they don't, there's nothing underhand about this, because what you are doing is that you have listened to their problems, their objectives, and you've gone right? Does my product or service work? Yes, it does. I truly believe it. Because of this, right? These are the bits I've got to show, this is the sizzle, that I've got a wrap around it to make them understand what I'm showing them. And you do, look how good this will be. Look how scary it would be if you didn't take this on, you have to have this you take it from a nice to have to a must have. And that's the critical thing. So what we've done is we've gone through three stages, listen, think, show, Okay, listen, think show, that's three stages that we then make sure we play, but we work on their emotional side, and their logical side so that they're going to buy into it, and they're going to justify it that it gives you more chance of actually securing the business legitimately. And in a shorter sales cycle, because invariably, an elongated sales cycle will be as a result of them not quite getting it in, or, or us not quite getting it that we're kind of trying to put this circular peg in a square hole, it will go. But there's a lot of gap around the edges. And that's where this it's not quite. By the way, that could also mean that you then identify some areas where you actually have to educate because they've picked up on information in magazines, or online, we're all as bad as each other. And they go, Oh, I want to do this. Even worse, if they only understand it a little bit, and they've sort of misinterpreted it slightly. And you step back and go Look, I understand what you're trying to achieve and why we don't do exactly what you're saying. They're the reasons being x y Zed. And therefore what we actually do is this, this is it in action. And you'll see that it is actually going to achieve what your objectives are. It's not doing it in the exact way that you're saying, but it is achieving them in this way. And then you're giving yourself that fighting chance, but they are understanding why you are suggesting it, how it's going to work for them what it's going to do for them. And they can then make a both emotional and logical decision of whether to invest in it. Now obviously, we're living in a in an age where we're doing so excuse me so much by video conference, including having coffees together on these Opened Dawes Live sessions. I forgot I had mine didn't know. But what we need to accept is it's exactly the same when we're doing it via video conference. I think video conference is going to stay we'll still meet face to face now. But let's say for example, there's three or four meetings in the sales process. Well, maybe only one or two of those are actually face to face. Who knows, maybe even the initial exploratory one may be via video conference. Now, we can achieve all of these things that we've talked about here very easily via video conference. You know, we can certainly get them to have a conversation and talk we've all done it socially during lock downs and what have you. So we can talk about their organization, their their processes, their problems, their objectives, and making my notes and thinking about it, I can then position something verbally. I can share screens and and whatever else and show them the things that I want to show them relevant to What I'm recommending, and I can still, you know, I make a key point, I train a lot of people these days on how to present or have meetings and how to provide training via webcam, because you you do you need to have this enthusiasm as if you've got a crowd of people, you have to create it in your mind, but still do it. So we still have the right levels of pizzazz, the logic is very easy to do the same level via webcam doesn't really matter, I, you know, it might even be easier to show it via shared screen rather than being in front of them. In some cases. What it does do is it kind of enforces us to be that little bit more precise, which I think is a good thing, instead of, you know, waffling and going around and going off the subject or whatever else is that we're more likely to be precise, I except by the way, the one thing we do lose is at the end of a video conference, everyone goes right, I've got to go by and it ends And you don't get that free flow chat, which I genuinely feel is very, very important. So just as important, even if you via webcam, just be a bit more concise with what you're saying. Be mindful of your connection, you know, have are they missing some points? If you're darting all over the screen with with a mouse with a cursor? Are they suddenly seeing this coming up? You know, make sure are you seeing this now make sure you're still getting the emphasis over. And it may be that you're just planting that seed for them to realize, you know, this is what I'm recommending. And this is why. So the next time you will actually be face to face with some additional people from the organization's and you're listening even when you're demonstrating or, or presenting because and making notes because by the time you then face to face, and you've got these extra people, they've bought into it emotionally and logically, they're now telling you Yeah, that's going to work because of this, this is and this and in fact, this department heads going to love it because it's going to help them with that. Okay, yep, keep going, keep going, tell me more. Because that is what then forms what I'm intending to then present when I'm face to face with all of those department heads, I've got more knowledge more collateral to play with in terms of getting the logic and getting the emotion over. And really making them realize that I can help them with my product or service, or myself. Of course, including promotions, or whatever else it may be. Even your ongoing communications, the final bit that I'm going to touch on, whether it's via phone, whether it's just a quick catch up via video conference, heaven forbid, even via email, I guess, to a large extent, is always be thinking the same way. They buy on emotion, they justify with logic, therefore, what all of your future communications refer back to the logic that we have been able to establish in our conversations. You know, don't forget, I know that you said that, you know, you're having this problem. And we really need to find a way to stop that for you. And I know that we're getting closer to when you're hoping to be, you know, achieving this as your objectives. So we need to get this in place. And remember, this is how we're going to do it, you're reminding them, they may have forgotten, they've gone and done 1,000,001 things, but you're reminding them of the key elements to it. And you have also bring in the emotion back into it in those conversations don't feel just because I'm not presenting, I don't need to still be have that conviction and conviction and enthusiasm and passion in a telephone conversation. I still will, because I truly will be believing that this is going to help this organization. So yes, it's vital to listen because it's what's going to enable to do this. And I say that because some people, when I say the two most vital sides of sales, communications, they will automatically go, you know, listening and speaking or whatever, and in the order of Listen, then speak and yes. But for me, it's about remembering that somebody will buy or buy into something based on emotion, they'll then justify to spend that money to take you want to promote you, whatever it might be, based on logic, it's exactly the same when we're delivering training as well is that you don't just go well, they're in front of me now they're going to give this training, if you want them to truly pay attention to digest the training, that might not just be something they bought, it could be something to make sure they use your product or service properly. And that's what you need, then don't just kind of go right deliver my training, make sure that they have bought into it. Not just with the emotional side, but with the logical side again, and you are going to get them paying full attention to your training to to implement in your training to therefore making use of whatever it is that you're training them to use or do after you've left them to their own devices. So that's the key things for me the two most vital sides of sales can be vacations. I hope that's been really useful. Thank you very much for joining me on on this episode nine of Opened Dawes Live. I will be back again next Tuesday. And I think the plan is that we'll get back into it being every single week after I dare to take a little bit of a break over the last couple of weeks. But we're back and gotten so many subjects to cover if there's anything that people suggest would be a good one to cover. I'm hoping to try and get some guests on the shows going forward as well, which would be really interesting to sort of almost interview some experts on particular areas. Again, any any people that feel that that they've got something to add to this, that would be good to be part of the Opened, Dawes Live, please do drop us a line. You might even be listening to this now on the podcast, if you're watching and wondering what I'm talking about. This is available as a podcast as well, audio only podcast via all of the usual whether it's Apple, Amazon, Google, you know, they're all all of the podcast platforms. Just do a search for opened doors. And you will find the open doors podcast on there as well. And you can listen as you're walking with your headphones, and hopefully it just can help you or just that little bit to have that confidence to have the willingness and you know, hopefully so even further improve skills with your public speaking presentation skills, meetings, training, delivery, interviews, media work, whatever it is, because you owe it to yourself and everybody that can listen to you. So for myself, Chris Dawes, the founder of Open Dawes Training. Thank you so much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure to have your company for the last what was it just under half an hour. And I look forward to seeing you again. Next week. Many thanks.