How to Future Proof Against Getting Ghosted | Donald C. Kelly - 2041

Nearly half of all B2B sales conversations end with no decision at all, and that number keeps climbing. This solo episode breaks down the discovery call framework built over years of carrying a bag as a software sales rep, now taught to clients to stop deals from going quiet. The Real Cost of No Decision A study of 2.5 million sales conversations by Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna found that 40 to 60 percent of B2B deals end in no decision, not a loss to a competitor, just silence. Of those no-decision deals, 44 percent come from the prospect of sticking with their status quo, while the other 56 percent come down to indecision and analysis paralysis. Step 1: Build Rapport With Something That Matters to Them Small talk gets replaced with something specific and current about the prospect's business, like a recent win or a stat about their market share, so the conversation centers on them, not the seller. This shows the prospect that homework was done before the call, and it gets them talking about something they're proud of right from the start. Step 2: Set the Rules Before You Play the Game Early in the call, the prospect hears that the last five minutes are set aside to make a decision together, whether that's moving forward or agreeing it's not a fit. The prospect also gets permission to end the call early if it's clear they're not a match, which takes off the pressure and builds trust instead of suspicion. Step 3: Run Discovery So They Talk More Than You Do Before anything gets demoed, the prospect is asked what they want to learn from the call, then asked what else, so the exact proof they need becomes clear. Data from Gong backs this up: sellers should talk 30 to 40 percent of the time while buyers talk 60 to 70 percent, and that ratio is what keeps a deal moving instead of stalling. Step 4: Use the Last Five Minutes to Get a Real Decision Every call closes with a menu of next steps for the prospect, like bringing in a technical stakeholder, so there's a clear path forward instead of a vague "let me think about it."Getting the prospect's direct cell number and permission to text also gets added in, which makes it much harder for a deal to quietly disappear. "Set the rules before you play the game." — Donald C. Kelly Resources Learn more about the research behind this episode:https://www.jolteffect.com/jolteffect.com https://www.jolteffect.com/ Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot. With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales https://www.hubspot.com/products/sales. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/cx/20/09/sales-navigator-podcast?src=re-pod&trk=tse&veh=tse&mcid=6897323946090332160. This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation. Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin https://tsesales.typeform.com/to/UCMfjZbX. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.

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  About 40 to 60% of B2B deals are going to end in no decision. I want to help you to fix that when it comes to your discovery call and to show you a simple process that I've used for years that works. And some of you are going to try it and see result, and some of you are going to not do anything about it. And I can't help that. But listen to this episode and hear me out. Check it out.

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  Hey, hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to another great episode of the Sales Evangelist Podcast. I'm your host, Donald C. Kelly, the Sales Evangelist. And I'm so excited for another great episode. I'm so excited to be here with you today. And as you can see, I'm not in my typical studio. I'm actually on the road and this is one of those busy times of the year in the fall where we get a chance to go on site, visit some of our clients. We're working on some projects out west right now. And also it's a great opportunity where you see a lot of folks like me who are in a sales arena, traveling to conferences and events. If you're looking to have a speaker at one of your events or preparing for your S K O in the beginning of the year, put your boy's name in a hat. I would love to be a part of that conversation and help you and your team to drive revenue and pipeline.

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  Now specifically today, I want to tackle a topic that I've been seeing over and over and over again. It's becoming more prevalent. It's becoming more difficult as many of us are, just straight up say it, we're just having a tough time. So some of the teams I'm working on right now, discovery call is where they're having issues. They're having deals come in. They may have a source or getting leads, which is great. And that's a problem that any salesperson would be so happy for, to have too many leads that you're going through. The challenge that they're facing right now is conducting effective discovery that's going to help them to be able to make sure those discovery meetings are progressing forward. I'm going to land a framework that I've used not only in my business, but I used it while I was selling, carrying the bag as a software sales rep.

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  I've taught it to clients over and over and over again, and it works. And this is a part of the discovery process. It has to be done. If not, you're not going to have, you're going to have the same problem that you have. I want to analyze and show you some data, the backup. If this is your first time listening to my podcast, that means a lot to me. And I want you to connect with me on LinkedIn. You could send me a message, Donald C. Kelly. Again, Donald C. Kelly on LinkedIn. The other thing that I want you to do, share this episode with one other team member that could benefit from it, or somebody else that you know that could benefit from it, on how they can have effective discovery and to reduce the drag and reduce those calls that are going to ghosting, those discovery that goes to ghosting, or the prospect goes to indecision. And I want to give you a couple of great ideas that I've seen work, again, that can help you out.

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  Now, the piece that I want you to do after this is to take action. If you don't take action, then obviously nothing will happen, right? So you got to try it and test it out. Let's go in. Here's some of the data that I brought for you. 2.5 million, 2.5 million sales meetings were analyzed. This was by a Harvard study. And what they found out was that 40 to 60% of those deals would end in no decision. Let's go to 50% right in the middle, right? So you're talking to 10 people, or let's be realistic, you probably have, you know, four discovery calls. Two of those discovery calls are ending in no decision. What can we do? And we're not to diminish the other two. That's fantastic that we have that. I mean, it's remarkable. But what can we do to get one more of those deals over? And let's say your average deal sits at, let's say $30,000, right?

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  So you have, and it's a $30,000 deal, and you have two of those deals that are closing. You get one more deal closed. Now you're going to $90,000 versus $60,000 with your pipeline. That's pretty darn remarkable, right? So what I would like for you to do is just to help you to get, think about it like sports. If it can help you to just to get one second faster or a millisecond faster, you're ahead of the competition by a mile. I'll have a couple more data points and I'm going to go into the concept. Well, let's call it a training that I want to give you. So here are the numbers. A Harvard Business Review study of over 2.5 million sales conversations revealed that 40% of those to 60% of those deals, those B2B deals, let's be specific, end in no decision.

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  And this comes with not only this Harvard review, which is great, but some of it comes from the author of the Jolt Effect. And we've had, had them on our podcast, so you can check that out. So great follow-up to that part about the 2.5 million. Here's what I want you to understand. 44% of no decision deals are status quo, while 56% are indecision, which usually stems from complexity and analysis paralysis. So they either you're doing, we're going to stay with the process we have. We know it's broken, but we like it and we're going to stay with it. Or we're just going to not make a decision at all. And the reason why they're not making a decision is just because they're over analyzing and they're thinking too much, so they don't choose any of the competitors. Still go with the old process. It's almost like the status quo, but they really want to make a change.

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  Is there something that sales rep could have done in that process? And I'm going to share with you some ideas that can help you with it. Now, I want you to get in the grasp of this process. It's something, again, I've tried from early on in my sales career. What you want to do at the beginning of your sales call with the prospect, you want to set the rules before you play the game. So here's what this sounds like. And I want to give a big shout out to some of my sales trainers that helped me to learn this early on in my days. So typically you build rapport and sometimes people build rapport and they talk about random stuff like the sailboat on their desk or whatever. What I like to do when it comes to building rapport, AI helps us to be able to do effective job at this these days. And what you want to look at is, is there information about their business, information about what they're doing that I can extrapolate that's going to help me? So if I can bring something about their baby and talk about that, they're going to be excited.

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  So the baby being their company or baby being their division or whatnot. So this company just saw it, you know, a 14% increase, I don't know, in investment from their investors. So I'm making this up. So this is something that you can bring up. If it's marketing, you just saw that they, maybe I can find some stats that we see that their marketing is having a bigger impression and they're getting more market share. That's something I can have a conversation with the CMO if I'm talking to them on as my poor building skill. You can still talk about the weather and all that jazz, but this is something that's more meaningful. I can say, hey, I saw something. I wanted to get to see if this is right. You guys increased, you guys, what, now the top dog in your market? You have about 56% of the market share. Is that accurate? They'll say, yeah, you know, that's something that's big was just celebrated. How did you guys do that?

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  Now, this would allow me to get understanding, have a conversation. And we're talking about their baby, something that they're passionate about. So that's one.

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  Number two is to set the rule before you play the game. So what I like to do is like, after we finish building rapport, I go into the conversation and I might say something like, you know, all right, David, I'm excited to be able to go through this with you and let's see if we can help you to keep that reign at this top of the market. Several things I want you to understand is that I know I've done this plenty of times, that majority of people are going to make some kind of decision at the end of our meetings, whether to partner with us or not. So I want to leave the last five minutes for us to make a decision if we should go forward or if this is not going to go forward. And on that path, if anytime throughout the process, anytime at all, you feel that this

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  is not going to help you with the marketing efforts, are you willing to let me know sooner than later? I promise you won't hurt my feelings. All right, vice versa. And based on what you're looking for, if we are unable to do that, is it okay if I were able to end the meeting sooner and to explain to you if we can't? Sounds fair? All right, cool. So the last five minutes, if we get to the last five minutes, we can make a decision whether we are going to go forward with something, make a decision, or we're not a fit. Fair enough? All right. Now, that simple process there, what it does, and that's the end of it. So the three main parts to it mean, one, you want to build rapport with the individuals and this allows them to be able to break down their guard and to be able to feel connection to you or to have you guys have a connection to each other. You're not talking about yourself and that's one of the mistakes that people make when it comes to building rapport.

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  We might see a sales boat on their desk and say, oh, I see that you sail. I'm in sailing club. I did sailing club when I was in college. I did this, I did this and like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm in Florida, there's a lot of sailing. I don't care about you. You want people are going to like you when you talk more about, let them talk more about themselves. So give this prospect the opportunity to do that at the beginning, but specifically not about their, you can talk about someone personal, but I think when you can tie it back to something you discovered about the business or something that they did to help the business, like, come on, bro, this is exciting. Then you go into the first part. I want them to understand, I recognize that at the end, what we want to do, I've done this a lot, a lot of time, and what we would like to do is set apart the last five minutes to see if we're going to make a decision. You could put three minutes or whatever, but sometime where we know at the end, we're going to make a decision together. What is the next step?

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  Maybe it's to bring other colleagues in, maybe it's to do another disco, maybe it's to do a deeper dive, maybe it's a technical call, but we're doing something or perhaps it's not going to be a fit, so we do that. But we also give them the opportunity to be able to pull the brakes on this train at any time and get off. And that is, you can say this is not a fit based on what we're sharing and I could also tell you this is not a fit. In my experience of doing this for the past 20 years, I've never had someone say that during that call, but the fact that they can pull that brakes is what gives them that sense of this is not a trap, I'm not going to be hoodwinked into something. And then I go into it about them and we can do this another episode, but your goal at that point is to have that person talk about what they want to learn.

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  And it's fascinating what happens as a natural byproduct of that. The person, that individual, they just start to, they start to blossom. What I find that makes a seller go into indecision mode is after the prospect talks about, gives you this right or agree to these things, what tends to happen is a salesperson going to what they call show up and throw up mode, because we're throwing everything at this prospect. Perhaps this prospect came on a call and the call was to look at our HR solutions, right? And that's what we know from the lead that came in or from the discovery call that the connection we made on LinkedIn, they were interested in this. So now I go into demo mode and my goal is to demonstrate and to tell you all about our

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  self, our solution, or I do a simple pre-diagnosis by asking you several questions. Studies prove time and time again that the seller and Gong has data on this, they've analyzed millions of call. The seller should be asking the questions and should be speaking 30 to 40% of the time, while the buyer should be speaking 60 to 70% of the time. When they do this, they're divulging information to us to help us to analyze how we can and if we can help them and vice versa. When they do this, they're also analyzing to them, we're also learning from them, what are some of those things that we can do to, if we can fix their problems or not? So the piece that I want you to get from this in the very beginning, the very beginning

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  part of this whole process is I want you to understand that the buyer has insight. They came with a reason and a discovery call works two ways. It's one, what they're can discover about your solution and two, what you can discover about them to see if that last five minutes, we can make a decision. If they're going to go to indecision, they didn't get enough information to make a decision. And we can help them by giving them a menu of some of the decisions they can make. But if we get to the point with the end where they say, you know, I want to think about it, I want to get back to you, that is not good. That's an indecision, that's going to be analysis by paralysis, that's a cop out, they're leaving. I would rather them say, Donald, we saw another demo, the other vendor looks great, I'm going to stay with them. And you could give them the right to say that, right?

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  But once you have done that, set the tone, give them the right to stop the train, so to speak, at any time, pull the brakes. You want to ensure that you give them, find out what they are coming to this call for. So what I would say next is, Donald, you, obviously you, my name is Donald, so I'll say Matthew, you actually, you wanted to learn some things today, you came on this call to learn more. Let's say that it's, you know, 20 minutes is up, what would you like to have learned to say this was a successful call that helps you to make a decision? Whatever they say, you write it down and then you say, is there anything else? And you get all of the information. Once you have that, you can then go into your discovery and find out some deeper information,

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  find out why they want to change right now, find out what would happen if they don't change, find out who is a part of that, what have they tried in the past and what worked and what didn't work? What would success look like for them if they made something, get a solution that worked effectively within the organization and so forth? But you're asking insightful questions that helps them to divulge to you information that can make good business decision. And then you want to demonstrate the proof. So you want to show them how you can solve those problems. And then after each problem that they said they wanted to see or thing you want to see, you've verify that they feel that that could solve their problem. So let's go back to the HR solution. Time clock is an issue for them.

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  So we demonstrate to them the time and we'll find out why is it an issue and how quantify that issue. It's a big issue because we are overcharging, sometimes we're overpaying our team members because the clocking system doesn't work effectively and overtime is being an issue. At average, we look like it's, it's another, you know, a hundred thousand dollars that we're giving out every year because our clock system is messed up. Well, that's a pretty big deal right there. What would happen if they don't? Now, what would happen if you fixed that hundred million dollars, a hundred thousand dollar situation? What are these things going to happen to CEO of the board when you are the one to fix that? Oh, man, this is this, this is this and so forth. What are some of the implication if you don't at this point? So you know, you can get some of this insight from them. Based on what we see, could you see yourself, this could fix that problem that you guys

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  have with a hundred thousand dollars seepage? Great. Same thing with the other problem, same thing with the other problem. I didn't show them all things in the software. I showed them the things that they needed to see to be able to make a good decision because that is the key. We need to help them to realize this could solve a problem and make a decision and move forward. Think about all the things you wish you had help with in sales. Finding the right buyers, knowing which account to prioritize, reaching out with the right message at the right time. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is built to help with exactly that. It uses AI-powered recommendation to surface leads and accounts that match your goals. So you spend less time searching and more time selling.

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  The goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and I feel that we've successfully done so. As a natural byproduct, listeners like you would reach out and ask, could I coach them? Could I train their team? Could I come and speak in an S K O? Could I consult for them? And that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this day. So in 2019, one of our clients saw what we did and asked, could we do that for them? We experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency. Now we create podcasts for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing. I would love to show you and your team how we can create podcasts for you and use it as an entertaining source, but also educational and a lead generation. If you're interested, go to bluemangostudios.com.

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  Again, bluemangostudios.com and our team can show you exactly what we did. It's amazing.

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  And then at the last five minutes, we get to that last five minutes, I put the call, I'm going to say, Matthew, I made a promise to you, the last five minutes, we're going to decide. So we were able to demonstrate these three challenges. There are several things that we can do at this point. One, you can say, Donald, take my money. Let's go ahead and start and fix this solution. Number two, we want to be able to look at your, maybe sometimes typically at this point, you want to have a technical team look at it because, I mean, obviously you're bringing new software into their environment. So you want to make sure they have the blessing of that. Based on what you've seen, based on what you know so far, what would you like to do as our next step? Now, you see, I gave them some options prior to them making a decision, options that are viable and options that I know sometimes come up as objections. I need to get my technical team to come in,

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  or I need to do whatever. Now, I bring that up because I know that's one thing that could be an issue, and I'm trying to get them to be able to make that, to alleviate that, reduce the fact that friction as a challenge that pushes this deal back to indecision. Now, you will say, yes, let's do that. Let's get the technical team. I'll ask, who are those technical team members that you'd like to have? I see that you have, you know, Daryl, and I see that you have Jessica on the team, both of them. Well, let's get Daryl. He's the CTO. Perfect. Let's get Daryl on a call. And we get that person, we confirm with them, we set up a calendar invite, but this is all moving. It's not indecision. We're not getting ghosted at the end. We have a clear next step that we worked out, and this makes such a big difference. You can go back and listen to this episode, and you can see it.

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  But I'm telling you, it works time and time again. I want you to thrive, and I want you to succeed. I would love to hear from you to see if you've tried this before. Again, what you want to do is build a rapport, focus on the things that they have accomplished, and what they're working on. Two, you want to look at how you can, you want to set the rules before you play the game, give them an opportunity, pull that brakes on that train anytime, go into what they want to learn, not some superficial, you know, information. Whatever they say, ask them, is there anything else? Once you do that, you demonstrate how you can solve that particular issue. And then you want to ask them, based on what you see, do you feel that this could solve that problem? You do that to all of those challenges that they explain. Then, you respect that the last five minutes, you've got to manage your time wisely. Last five minutes now, or last three minutes, we're coming down to a decision. Give them some decision option that they can make, based on, you've

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  done all these calls already, you've probably done like 200 of these types of calls. Why can't you just give them some, they may have never made a decision like this, but you can give them some options, and that's going to help them. And then after that, that's it. You get them to commit to the next step. And now we eliminate the indecision, we eliminate the inaction, and then the whole ghosting matter. This commits them forward. If you really want to push that no ghosting, you can, you know, just let them know, if something comes up, what I like to give to the prospect is like, here's my cell phone number. If something comes up and you can't make the next call, will you text me or call me? Vice versa. What's the best number to call or text you at? Maybe we have it on the file already, but that allows for me to get their direct line. Then I know, as a surety, we have a way of communicating. And they can, sometimes either you do all of that, and

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  they can still ghost you. But what I find, it reduces that chance. And you can also tell them, you know, the last thing I would want is to be a nuisance, or to ghost you, or to ever, you know, for you not to feel comfortable talking to me. So if you decide that this is not a fit, I would love for you to be able to just text me and let me know, I promise I won't be annoying salesperson and try to push you. But would you do that? Great. And now we have that with them. But that's, you just be willing to have the conversation and be open with the prospect. This makes such a big difference. Listen, I want you to thrive. I want you to succeed. I want you to be in that group, that you have, you know, 40% of your deals, that you, 40% of reps, that get most of their deals not going into indecision, and not going to inaction. But you get these people who are needing

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  your solution, you have the courage to open your mouth, you have the knowledge, you know what to say, and you're doing it, and you're talking to them, you're helping them solve problems. This is the beauty of a selling position. When you're able to fix a problem for somebody that's been going through an issue for a long time, it's amazing. So, listen, I want you to thrive, I want you to succeed. But most importantly, I want you to raise your level of thinking. I want you to go out and do big things. See you on the next one.

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  The Sales Evangelist Podcast is created by the Sales Evangelist Sales Training Organization. It is produced by TSC Studios. Our podcast production manager is Nancy Paul. Our audio engineer is Jershun Obayal. Our video engineer is DeSahn Kunado. Guest management is done by Jill Vito and Kristy Virtus. Our content writer is Carlisa Galberith. Our graphic designer is Yurvish Savalia. And I'm your host and executive producer, Donald C. Kelly.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  Sales Podcast Network.