10MINMC.Ep.27.V1.AUDIO
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Trey Sheneman: [00:00:00] Sales is an assembly line lead close delivery. If one part breaks, the whole system shuts down. It grinds to a halt. Today I'm gonna teach you how to spot the traffic jams before they happen so that your sales can be as smooth as possible.
Welcome to 10 Minute Masterclass, your weekly mic drop for business breakthrough. I'm your host, lead MC. Hopefully your friend by this point, if you've been listening for any length of time, Trey Sheneman, and it's my goal each week on this podcast to teach you timeless business principles that I think can help solve today's business problems.
Now we do that through something we call the core four [00:01:00] drivers of growth. Essentially, we want to teach you through marketing, sales, operations, and leadership. And in today's episode, we're stepping into the sales lane. But it's got a little bit of an operations lane, so I'm cheating a little bit, but I really want to talk to you, um, about this concept of sales being an art form.
So I was having lunch a couple of weeks ago with a buddy of mine. He's a, he's a great salesman. And we really, I don't know why we got so stuck on this, but we got really stuck on his sales of science or an art. And he fundamentally believed it was an art. And I fundamentally believed it's a science. Uh, and it's more like a machine, like an assembly line than it is an art form, and that people who lack.
Unless you just can't communicate clearly that people can be taught how to sell better. And he just was like, well, they might be able to sell better, but they won't be able to sell as good as an artist who's a salesperson. So listen, you and me, we're not gonna really have this AR argument right now.
'cause you know what? I'm gonna pull the card. It's my podcast. So I'm gonna teach you what I think about sales, and I actually think it's [00:02:00] more like a system, more like a science. And I think there are indicators that show. Why deals stall in what you can do about it. And there's also other indicators when, like, say you have a full pipeline, but your revenue's not growing either.
That there are certain things that prove it's scientific and there are ways that you can actually treat it like an assembly line, like a machine and work on the machine and actually see the numbers and prove. So the, the big idea not to bury the lead is ultimately at the end of the day. Sales is a process, whether you call it an art form or a science or a machine, it is a, is a process and like an assembly line.
The best way I like to think about it is every stage has to feed the next, the, the outcome is only the outcome if the steps happen. Um, now sometimes you get a really warm lead. And the steps happen really, really, really close together. And other times you get a really cold lead and the steps happen over months, but the steps still have to happen.
So [00:03:00] the, the, the steps we're gonna talk about is leads, leads, moving to conversations, conversations, moving to proposals, proposals, moving to demos or pitches. This is kind of B2B language right now. And then ultimately down to closed deals. If you're on a, um. You know, more of a D two C framework. It's something more like leads are traffic, tr uh, you know, conversations are time on site, on time, on page.
Uh, proposals are add to cart. Um, demos are when they abandon and you send them a retargeting video and do a bit more of a project explainer video as an example. So it all kind of follows the same logic, uh, the, the same logic, excuse me, whether you're in B2B or in D two C. The big thing here is, is when one step in the process though breaks down, everything downstream from that step is gonna suffer.
So many times working in the space that I work in is, you know, founders will come to me, owners will come to me, and they'll say, Hey, we have a we, we have a lead problem. Um, but you know, it, there are times, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of times where we meet people that actually have [00:04:00] lead problems.
I could think back to post iOS 14, 20, 20 21, 20 22. A lot of brands were having lead problems because they were trying to do pre iOS 14 tactics and they weren't working anymore, but. I would say many of the times that we meet brand owners, now that we work with brands, they end up having a process problem.
They just hadn't really thought about their sales process in the way that I recommend that they do, the way that I've seen hypergrowth happen inside of some of the organizations that I've been a part of, and so today. Inside of the process step, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lean into what I think are the three most common breakdowns in a sales process that I see brands get into and just kind of walk you through what I would do about 'em if I were to uncover them, say, in one of our clients.
So the first process breakdown is actually. Not just a leads pro, it's not a leads problem, it's a qualified leads problem. Like it's what I call the input problem. We're not putting enough qualified inputs into the system to get the output that we want. [00:05:00] So it's, uh, you've got the capacity, you've got a great offer, but it's kind of like the conveyor belt that's supposed to be feeding those, those really well qualified leads to the next step of the process.
It's not working. Uh, you know, it might even be empty. Uh, the, the symptoms here are. The sales team feels like they are having to hunt a lot, like they're having to go outbound a lot. There's not enough inbound or referred business that's coming in where they're functioning more like a handler. Would function instead of how a hunter would function.
Um, and normally, uh, you know, a lack of qualified leads is causal because of a lack of bad traffic, or, excuse me, a, a preponderance of bad traffic. Bad traffic creates unqualified leads. Good traffic creates qualified leads. So what do I mean by bad traffic? Well. Most of the time when we find bad traffic, it's because there is a mismatch of channel and avatar.
Not all people spend their time on all channels, and so [00:06:00] when we meet teams that have bad traffic, we, we say, well, it's because the people who are the qualified people for what you do. Aren't on that channel, that that's not how they're behaving. You need to go and figure out where they are. So the fix here is to fix the targeting.
And sometimes the targeting is in switching channels, not just tinkering with the targeting on existing channels. That might be a part of it, but most of the time it's like, Hey, the ICP, the, the, the core avatar, the ideal customer here, they're not on this channel, so you need to go somewhere else. And so the way you, you, you fix this is you double down on knowing who your customer is, knowing where they spend their time online, making sure your offer positioning is where it needs to be for that customer.
And then you move channels. So if you move channels, you're gonna get better inputs, you're gonna get better traffic. Um, alright. Um, the second problem that I see, so input problems number one. The second one is the process problem. The, you're getting qualified leads, but they're not moving smoothly through the system.
Um, either they're becoming ghosts, like they're qualified, you do an intake call, they're qualified, [00:07:00] then you never hear from 'em again. Um. Or you're getting them to the proposal stage. And then the proposal stage is taken in three weeks, four weeks, five weeks. Like there's these, these lags that happen in the system.
Most of that time it's because your team doesn't actually know how to do follow up. They don't understand how to match, engaging, follow up based on levels of, um, of understanding of the customer based on where they are in the process. So that, that's a potential, uh, cause of it. A second, uh, potential cause of it is there's not enough urgency in your offer.
Sometimes people just languish because they didn't have a, uh, you know, an offer that was gonna go away, or they didn't throw in a bonus that would expire. Um, they didn't say, Hey, uh, we only have four spots left in this month's coming cohort, you know, as an example, or. The other thing that could be happening with the process problem is your team's just not great at handling objections.
And if that's the case, there is another episode four or five episodes ago that's all about handling objections that your team, that your, I would recommend your team be going and listen to. So what's your fix here? Well, [00:08:00] one thing would be go listen to the episode on overcoming nos and objections, if that's the, the cause that you think is happening, if it's the follow up calls.
Audit your audit, your follow-up, like I think follow-up systems and cadences, especially if you don't have a sales manager whose job should be to do that really frequently. If you don't have that role, then you as the owner, you as the founder, you should be auditing your follow-up cadence. I would say at least two, three times a year, if not every month, honestly.
And then the other thing you can do is change your offer, build more urgency into your offer, add in some deadlines or bonuses, or, Hey, price is going up in 75 days. If you don't take us up on this offer now. All of those things will help that section, the proposal stage, the demo stage of the sales process, get more efficient, more scientific.
And then the third problem that I'll see, so you got the input problem, you got the process problem, then you got the. Output problem. Okay. So this is where everything feels good until you get right to the finish line and the deals stretch out and they give a, or they give a verbal yes, and then they don't sign, uh, [00:09:00] or they die on the vine and they just ghost you.
They don't go anywhere else. Or they, they'll start saying things like, yeah, I changed my mind. Now it's not the right time. Or, you know, Hey, I gotta check with. So and so soandso, so and so, you're gonna have to gimme some moment then you never hear from again or they gi give the classic. I just need more time to think about it, you know, when those things happen.
What that tells me is, is we moved through the, uh, risk, uh, addressing stage of what we were doing way too fast. And we didn't do it frequently enough because we never really overcame some of those core objections. It also means your offer probably doesn't have some level of risk reversal in it that you could use as leverage to say, Hey, what do you, what do you really have to lose?
Because we've got a 30 day money back guarantee, so I don't, I don't understand why you still can't sign and move in, move into onboarding and let's see if we can actually work well together, or your ability, uh, to close. Needs to be questioned. So either you gotta install a stronger closing mechanism, like a good piece of risk reversal.
Um, another behavior that I like to see people do is I [00:10:00] like 'em to say every time they talk to somebody, I like to see 'em say, here's what we covered. Here's the outcome, here's next steps with clear written follow-ups and the deadlines on their decisions. I think if you're doing those things, the, the idea of it stalling out more frequently is probably not gonna happen.
So. Hey, this week, grab a whiteboard, map your sales process and see if you can identify, do you have an input problem? Do you maybe have a process problem, or maybe you have an output problem. Revenue is hiding in those gaps, guys. So if you can lean in on your process. It will get better. Sales isn't magical, but it is mechanical, and so if you treat it as such and you tinker with the machine and you don't like what's coming out the other end, you can change it.
So check the parts, check the process, even check the people if you have to, but get that science of sales working in your favor. I hope this helps you this week and until next time, I'll see you on the flip side.
