Why Deals Don't Close: Anne Gary's Framework for Discovery, Champions & Economic Buyers

0:05Welcome to Revenue Builders, hosted by John Kaplan and John McMahon. In this Revenue Builders replay, we're revisiting a conversation with Anne Gary, Managing Director at Force Management and one of the architects behind the MedPIC qualification methodology. She spent over 25 years coaching sales leaders and their teams on how to build repeatable, predictable deal strategies. In this conversation, Anne walks through why deals actually don't close, rush discovery, weak champion strategy, and misaligned economic buyer engagement. If you're building your Q4 and 2027 coaching playbook, this is the framework-level conversation your leadership team needs.

0:40Let's dive in. Welcome to the Revenue Builders Podcast. I'm John McMahon, and I'm joined by my co-host, the one, the only, John Kaplan. Cap, good morning.

0:55John Kaplan: Hey, buddy. How are you? Good. You? I'm doing good, man. Doing good. Excited for this one. Well, Cap, our special guest today is Ann Gary, who you know well. She's joined us on two other episodes. For those of you who have not heard those episodes, they were extremely popular episodes. we received tons of positive feedback on the episodes. Those episodes were the difference between a coach and a champion, and the other was preparing for the economic buyer meeting. Since those were so popular, we decided to have Anne to come back, join us for a discussion on why deals don't close, where we focus on self-inflicted sales process pains and other issues that an account executive might make to cause them to lose a deal.

1:48So cap with that, say hi to Ann Gary.

1:51John Kaplan: Miss Ann, it's great to see you again. Thanks for coming back. You're always very, very popular with the audience. I'm looking forward to being here. This is an incredible topic too. People get a lot out of this one. Yeah. Well, Ann, so let's start. maybe what we'll do is why deals don't close. Why don't we start with the discovery, go by stages of the sales process. Why don't we start with the discovery stage where the solution you offer does not align to the prospect's pain points or one of their internal initiatives? So I say that if I kick it off, why the deal won't close? Because you performed an improper discovery to fully extract the major customer pain points.

2:34We've all seen this happen too many times because the sales rep goes way too fast through the discovery process. No, it's true. And, you know, I think it's quite common to get excited about your products, obviously, the features and functions and start talking about those early in the discovery. I mean, why do we do this? Well, we do it because we're proud of the solutions we offer, right? And they know they make a significant impact on helping people, you know, achieve their outcomes and what they're looking for. The problem is you know how the features and functions will help, but that doesn't mean the prospect understands this.

3:09So the biggest mistake I think we make is hoping the customer will connect the dots from the features and functions to the quantifiable impact that you have on solving the business problem. And I've seen so many demos in my career, and I know you all have too, where I can't tell, first of all, what they're doing in the demo. And secondly, I have no idea what business problem we're trying to attack when we get into the demo. So it's just something to think about on the feature function front. Yeah, I think it's, you know, tying those two points together,

3:42John Kaplan: I think the preparation part of discovery here is really so critical. I think you really can't wing it anymore. Customers are expecting you to show up and have some understanding of their business and to be prepared. And so your point about connecting the dots is really incredible. And also, you know, in the discovery, I think that even in the preparation phase, you're going to find instances where you're simply outside of your ideal customer profile. And I think like right now, it's so important to make sure that when you're preparing, you just even go all the way back and say, am I even calling on somebody, a company, a persona that we're targeting?

4:32John Kaplan: Are we targeting the right people? And if not, you could do the best discovery in the world and you're going to have a bad outcome. So it's really, really critical. You can find out most of that than just being better prepared. You can do a lot of that. You can actually do a lot of that, you know, without even calling on your customer yet. You just look at NK reports, annual reports, understand what their corporate objectives are, what their strategic initiatives are, what their business risks are. You can Google the names of the executives. There's so much you can learn if you just want to do some homework up front.

5:09John Kaplan: I think it's a must now. It's not a, it's not a, you could, it's absolutely a must. I just think people don't have any time for it if you're not coming prepared. Well, it kind of goes back to something we've talked about a lot is just genuinely being curious about who you're calling on. Right. I mean, I actually love the discovery stage because I'd much rather spend time listening to them and what they're doing and what their problems are and what they're successful at. and then yeah certainly I love talking about what we do but I'm more interested in learning from it's like going to a party right and you're asking questions I love asking questions and understanding what people do instead of just talking about myself and I think everybody wants to be heard as well yeah and how many how many times I'm talking to people I'm saying hey you know what's your day look like like oh I got a bunch of you know calls I'm gonna make and I'll say, well, tell me about it.

6:03John Kaplan: And they're like, oh, I'm going to call this person. And that person, I'm like, so how did you pick them? And they'll be like, well, you know, it's on my target list. And I'll say, why is it on your target list? And then what I find out is like, if you back up from it for a moment, I used to call them like call sheets, put together call sheets. Like, who am I going to call today? Why am I calling them? So if anybody ever asked me, and I'd get together with like buddies in the past and I'd say, hey, this word and this concept that we talk about at force management called the three Ps, the purpose of my call.

6:42You know,

6:42John Kaplan: why am I calling you? What do I want from you? And what's in it for you to have a conversation with me? Like preparing those call sheets before you even get on the phone, like the day before or the morning of or what have you. I just find that people that do that are really on the mark. And then that's where you find out these problems. Like, okay, I'm the CTO. That's your target that you want to get, right? Yeah, okay, go. Talk to me. Like, what are you going to say? And people don't even know how to start the question. They don't even know how to say, like, why am I calling you? So I know we're kind of talking about discovery as, but of course, But there's a lot of detail and attention here that with these times that we're in right now are critical.

7:31Well, and then you just talked about, John. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead, Anne. I was just going to say, you were talking about the ideal customer profile, right? You may not be calling on the ideal customer profile. But then assume you are. Let's assume you are calling on them. And, you know, you understand their pains because you did your research. But here's what we, the trap we fall into is we understand their pains. We understand, you know, like you said, the business, political, competitive landscape that they're in, whatever. But then we don't explain how, you know, these products and features actually attach to that pain that they're talking about.

8:08So something that's always in my mind that I remember all the time, it's just been ingrained is I need to attach to the biggest problem. There's no reason to be in there if I'm not attaching to the biggest problem. So that's when I'm doing my research that you were talking about, that's what I'm looking for. What is the biggest problem that I can discover right before I walk into the situation? So true. I think the other reason that people don't do or can't do improper discovery is because a lot of reps are managed by activity-based metrics. So they're based on how many calls they make, how many meetings they get.

8:49So if I'm measured on how many meetings I get, I can get you a lot of meetings, but they may not be with the right person. So they wind up getting stuck with the first person that they contacted and the first person that would take the meeting, right? So I think managers, if they want people to do better discovery and get to the right person that owns the use case that they're trying to help the customer with customer value, They have to base this on quality-based metrics instead of activity-based metrics.

9:22John Kaplan: And it's also getting in the pit, Johnny. Like I was talking to a sales leader last week and I'm like, he was telling me that we don't have enough calls. We don't have, then I'm just listening to these metrics, which are very common. And I said, okay, well, when's the last time you were in the pit? And they're like, well, what do you mean? I'm like, well, when's the last time you're on the phone with them? He's like, well, you know, I have a remote group, but that's not what I asked you. I'm like, well, when's the last time you observed them? And then I said, when's the last time you actually did a call in front of them so they could see how it's done?

9:59John Kaplan: And that just opened up a whole can of worms, which was really a great conversation. So for sales leaders listening out there, it's not enough just to be telling people what they need to be doing. you have to show, especially in this discovery, you have to show great discovery. And I want to pick up on something you said. We do a lot of research and I see reps do this. They do a lot of research. They have paid points and then they wind up getting on the call with the customer and they lecture the customer about their pain. They're basically like, yeah, I wrote, I read this. You suck in these three areas.

10:33John Kaplan: And then I heard that your biggest customer is under, but no, So if you're a leader, you look for this and you say, I want to teach them how to ask a question to get the customer to tell us that moment of pain versus telling them all about what you've read. Do you guys understand what I'm saying of difference there? It's such a critical difference right now. And I find that leaders that aren't getting in the pit, they're seeing these people do all this research and they're prepared. and then they're failing on these calls because they're telling more than they're asking. So there's a difference there.

11:12Big time. And so let's go down the questioning. So here's another thing we see is that people are asking questions, but they're asking closed-ended questions, right? That I can answer with a yes or no. So it seems like it should be easy to ask an open-ended question, but it's not. You have to think about what am I learning and what are they learning at the same time? So those open-ended questions. So you talk about the how of coaching, right? That's a big how of the discovery as well. I love that. Yeah. Okay. So let's move on to, let's say, the quantification or scoping stage where you're supposed to get the quantifiable metrics for the pain that you've discovered.

11:53And so you can understand, let's say, the as-is process of the customer. so eventually you could propose a 2B process and show quantifiable value. So if you've made a mistake in the discovery phase because you went too fast, and let's say your customer actually does quickly understand what your product can do for them, I've seen it where the customer is now unwilling to give you the metrics required for you to create a compelling ROI or value proposition because they know what you're doing to them. So now you've just made it really difficult for yourself to justify your price and possibly the purchase of your product.

12:37Have you seen that?

12:39John Kaplan: Yeah. Do you mind? You guys stay there for a second if you would. I'd love to get your feedback on this because people tell me, attaching the biggest business issue, understanding business problems, influencing decision criteria with your differentiation and then measuring customer success. Like out of all of that, people come back to me constantly and say, metrics are the hardest. And I want to come back to what you just said, John, on how much of finding out how a customer is going to measure success has to do with that customer understanding how they're going to measure success and the seller understanding how a customer should be measuring success based upon their knowledge of those problems and the solutions.

13:35John Kaplan: So would you guys comment on that a little bit? Because I don't know for you guys, metrics, when I talk, even in MedPick, just in general MedPick, people will say to me, yeah, the metrics, they're like really hard. What do you think's behind that, Ann? Well, let's unpack that a little bit too. Metrics come in a lot of different flavors, right? There's financial metrics and there's technical metrics. And I think all too often what's happening is we're calling too low in the organization. And I should say this, we do have to call on technical buyers and user buyers. It's critical, right? But when we're in that part of the process, we're trying to influence the decision criteria and get the technical metrics.

14:15I think those folks haven't often thought about the financial metrics that are attached to this because that's not what they do every day, right? So we might be able to get the technical metrics that are necessary for the proof of value. And we'll talk about this in a little bit, but we're not thinking about the financial metrics that we have to help them get to that point as well, that these technical metrics lead to the positive business outcomes they're looking for. Here's another thing that, because you talked about metrics and MedPIC, and we always talk about financial and technical. The other thing is, is that we can often be talking about financial metrics with someone who understands that and do the opposite.

14:54They don't get the technical metrics that you're talking about. I mean, how many times do you get in the conversation? And I find this more and more, you know, I'm an engineer, I'm a technologist. I call on a lot of technology companies. And frankly, sometimes I'm like, I don't understand what you're talking about from the technology perspective, right? But I can attach the financial part of this. So I think we need to think about it both ways in terms of, you know, of defining that. And to your point, one last thing, John, Cap, is that you said something that was really good. We've been around this for a long time in the industry that we're in.

15:29So we typically know what people are interested in measuring and we should be armed with these are some thoughts that you might want to use in terms of how to measure these things. So be armed for that when it comes up, because if you don't, often people don't know what to take a look at. Yeah. I think that a lot of it has to do with going back to your word preparation, Cap. If I have a product that can fulfill a customer's pains or remedy those pains in a certain use case, one, I need to understand the process of that use case step by step by step by step. It's almost as cold as the customer does so that you can do what I call leading the witness.

16:13You're basically asking questions that you already know the answers to. If you're just asking questions and you don't know what the potential outcome of those questions could be, you would never make a great lawyer, right? And number two, you also need to know who your target audience is. So have you targeted the right customer, the person that truly owns that use case and is measured on the performance of that use case? Because then you also know how they perform, how they are measured and how they're paid. And sometimes that's the link and between understanding the technical metrics, because you should know that use case cold and also trying to understand how your customers measured on the performance of that use case and tying that to that.

17:03Because typically that's tied to financial metrics. Exactly.

17:08John Kaplan: Yeah, there's so much here. Yeah. You started it with, John, you started it with a customer maybe knowing where you're going and not willing to go. I want to come back to that in just a second because I think that's a really, really good point. For me, these are all related. So when you're influencing decision criteria with your differentiation, you have to understand how that's going to be measured. So when I go into company, if you're a company and you're listening to this, I got to know, are we better? We got the Olympics. So are we better in the 100 yards or are we better in the 220? Are we better in the 440?

17:50John Kaplan: Are we better? So you have to take it to that level on the technical for sure. And then you have to influence that with discovery and say, Mr. Mrs. Customer, how are you going to measure that? And then you have to make sure everybody's going to be measured the same way. Because in technology today, everybody says they can do the same things. And based on the words, everybody can do the same things. But based on how that's executed is the detail that's incredible. It could take somebody three hours to do what another company does instantaneously. And because the rep isn't differentiating with language around how you're going to measure that, the customer never knows the difference.

18:33John Kaplan: So that's really critically important. John, I want to come back to your point. We're dealing with an educated buyer, let's say. They know that we're asking, and maybe we're not asking it very well. We're like, okay, Mr. McMahon, how are you going to measure that? And you think they're setting up kind of like a proof of value or whatever, and you're not ready yet. And so you're not going to give them how you're measuring that. you know exactly how you're going to measure that. What would cause a customer to hold back a little bit? I'm talking about how they would measure success because it does happen.

19:11A lot of times that's because you haven't built trust with the customer yet. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, and if they think that, I think the other thing is they think the metrics are going to be used against them. That's another thing they're going to hold back, right? It comes back to trust, though. If I trust you and respect you and we start to build a partnership here, then I can trust you with that because it won't be used against me. So good. I had somebody. We're both going to benefit from the purchase of this product.

19:45John Kaplan: That's right. That's right. So good. I had somebody holding back on me, somebody I knew that was an economic buyer. And they're holding back on me, and I was trying to set up these metrics. and they kept holding back, kept holding back. Now, I just, when this happens to me, I'm like old school, like pretty simple person. If a customer is resisting, I just call it out. And this guy's name was Neil. And I said, Neil, what's strange for me in this conversation is you seem like you're hesitating to tell me how you're going to measure the success of this. And he said, no, John, I'm not hesitating. but like, you don't have to, don't worry about it.

20:29John Kaplan: Like we're going to get proof points and we're going to do everything you said we're going to do. I just don't, I don't need you guys to manage us. Like I got enough management. And I said, whoa, like, what do you think I'm asking you? And he goes, well, I'm assuming you're, you want to set up an operating rhythm between the two of us on how we're going to measure success. And then you're going to hold me accountable because you're Kaplan. And I was like, whoa, that was such great feedback. And it was what you were talking about is like the customer was thinking that we were going to measure them.

21:04John Kaplan: Like we're going to measure them versus us, what John McMahon just said. Really good learning point for me. And then when I talked about, you know, today's metric is tomorrow's proof point. They were like, hey, John, you know, you're well known here in this company, blah, blah, blah. And I said, hey, this is a really good point. I said, hey, you and I on this project are not known. I might be known in the account. My firm might be known in the account. You're going to ask for a certain amount of money to solve a certain problem. We got to start putting deposits in the bank together. So we're going to say together that we're going to solve this point in this way.

21:42John Kaplan: And we're going to measure it that way. So the next time you want to ask for money, and I'm going to come and ask you for money to solve more problems, you have a really good performance, a track record. So I don't know if that makes sense to you guys. And maybe people listen and go, well, it's because Kaplan knew the person. Well, it might be, but I do that all the time. I stop and say, hey, I've asked you about metrics a couple of times, and you seem like you're hesitating a little bit. Can you share with me why? Well, the other thing, too, is, again, if you understand the customer's use case, and you're really pretty intimate with it.

22:20And maybe you're brand new. So go get the metrics from a lot of the other reps that are in the company. Sometimes instead of just asking questions, you can show the customer that you have knowledge of that use case. So you could basically say, you know, many of the customers that we've dealt with when they're in this part of the process have found that it takes X dollars and Y time to create this or produce this or run this or make this thing happen? How long does it typically take you on average? And then the customer says, well, because a lot of times they think they're the only ones with that problem.

22:58How many times has that happened to you? Like, well, we're the only ones that have that problem. No, you're not the only ones. I have a sales force that's like hundreds of guys and they're all calling on customers that have the same problem. So you let them know that you understand that there's these issues and have dealt with many other companies that have the same problem. And then a lot of times they're more open, what I've found, and willing to open up to the discussion. Well, that goes back to because you're gaining trust again, right? When you come in with, I've seen this problem before, and here's some ideas about how to measure it, then you're actually, well, not only trust, but you're delivering value to that person as well.

23:37I think there's another tangent on this I'd like to go down. If they're not willing to share the metrics, is it possible that they're aligned with the competition? Or they don't know. Maybe you're dealing with a really low level coach that just doesn't understand. They're just one of the gears, a cog in the gear. They don't really know.

23:58John Kaplan: But the point is for both of you, it's a red flag. Yes. Somebody doesn't share the information with you. They either don't know, which is a problem, or they're unwilling to share it, which is a problem, or they don't trust you, what John is talking about, or they don't trust themselves because the numbers aren't great. I know exactly how we're measured and we suck right now. So they're not willing to share with you how they suck. And all of those have to be navigated. I think those are wonderful points you guys brought out. Well, let's go to the bottom line. And if you don't navigate them, what happens?

24:36The topic, we lose the deal, right? The deal won't close.

24:42John Kaplan: Yeah, and I like that point. Or it will close, but it'll close for a competitor. Yeah, or a significantly discounted price. Just to close out on this metrics one, for me, this is the oldest dirt. today's metrics are tomorrow's proof points and proof points rule the day. I mean, we built you, all three of us were part of an unbelievable growth company at PTC. And the number one reason why is because we could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what we did. We actually called those metrics. Internally, we call the metrics, which were basically proof points. And that was the growth of that company, which was, which was outstanding.

25:22John Kaplan: So if you don't have metrics, You don't know how you're, it's going to be a problem on a closed deal later because today's metrics become tomorrow's proof point. So that was a great discussion. And have you found any other issues in scoping or anything that you wanted to discuss? Well, I think, you know, you might create, we were talking about not creating a value proposition, right? You might actually create a great value proposition, but it's really not tied to the customer's business pains. So you're excited about, you know, your ROI or your BVA or your value proposition. It's just not connecting.

25:54I think that's a big one. And in this current, you talked about tough economic environment, John, in this tough one, the customer has other pains that may be more important for them to solve right now. So again, we're creating the value proposition, but it's really not solving what's critical for them. And I think we talked a little bit about this. All too often, we're selling in the midst of so many other players that are selling in the same spot. And so we're not getting above the noise. John McMahon, you've talked about this a lot, getting above the noise. And the more you swim down in that swim lane or in that pool, you're just going to look like everybody else.

26:39So it's critical that you get above the noise. And of course, that goes to getting higher and tying your solution back into the major initiatives of revenue, profitability, risk. Right now, something I'm really focused on is enterprise value. I mean, if you talk about driving revenue, it's all connected to driving enterprise value as well. So that's a big one in my mind right now in terms of the customers that we work with. So - We have to remember that, you know, everybody has, these companies have hundreds of pains, right? And to your point, you're not only competing against your competitors for dollars inside that account, you're competing against all salespeople that are trying to sell something in that account.

27:22So if you're down really low and you're mucking around with some pains that they could do a work around or they can wait, that's what they can do. They can wait or just not to ever solve that issue because, you know, it doesn't bother them that much. It's like if I, you know, cut my finger, I could put a Band-Aid on. If I fall down right now and crack three ribs and, you know, break my shoulder and get a concussion and I start bleeding out of my neck, like I need third-party help. You know, so are you dealing with... It's like your Viking incident, John. Yeah, well, yeah. A lot of that stuff.

27:53John Kaplan: That was 4th of July on his new boat in New Hampshire. That was real. He's feeling the pain on that. That was real. Exactly. Exactly. Well, then I require third-party help. And those are the types of pains that you have to really think about. Like, do you think that this is a pain that I'm working on that is above the noise that does require third-party support? Otherwise, the customer can't fix it on their own. John, you do such a good job. And for those who are listening, I'm sure you already know, but if you haven't, read the qualified sales leader. John's a five-time CRO. So Ann Gary, she trained me at PTC.

28:32John Kaplan: I went through a training class with her at PTC. We're just really, really lucky to have these experts. One thing I want to close out on this qualification is, I think we're all talking about it, but I want to name it. It's urgency. Today, when I talk to sellers and I talk to them about opportunities, I'm always looking for urgency. And you've got to be proactive about this. And a lot of times, if you just look back at like Medic or MedPic or whatever, and I look at that eye, that identification of pain, I like to say that eye is also the implication of pain. Because I'll see an eye, I'll see a pain, and then I'll look at an economic buyer and I'll go, I ain't buying it.

29:18John Kaplan: Like they'll say, okay, this is an economic buyer, a high level of the company, and they have a small technical pain. And I do triangulate those and I'm like, no, I'm not buying it. So the point I'd like to make here is like, it's not just, you know, maybe making sure we're matching our solutions to, you know, to problems. And we also have to figure out where the urgency is. And you have to create that urgency by really doing a great job in discovery. You have to connect it to business implications, technical implications. And basically, you got to say, you know, why now? Because there's a lot.

29:56John Kaplan: I just had a conversation with my wife. three things that we're looking at to do. And we had a conversation very specifically about timing and priority. That's going on every day for companies. Maybe last year we did all three. This year we're going to do one of the three. And that's exactly what's going on for companies right now. So if you're not tied into that conversation in this qualification piece on urgency, it's a problem. Yeah, because what you're trying to do is change the customer's priorities. And I also found that in my experience, when if you gain pain and you actually obtained all the metrics and now the sales process is going on, you call your customer.

30:39Hey, Joe, it's John McMahon from XYZ Corporation. How are you doing? John, like, dude, you caught me in a really busy day. I don't really have time for this right now. Well, wait a second, Joe, last time that we spoke, you told me that if you didn't fix this pain or these issues by, you know, October 31st, here were the implications of that. And then I find that they're like, yeah, okay, I got five minutes. What do you got? And next thing, you know, five minutes turns into a half an hour, an hour. because these people are running around. But if you haven't created urgency and understand the implication of not solving that issue, they can just keep going on with their daily issues, right?

31:23Because it's not a priority yet. Urgency drives priority. And you have to also understand, again, the implication of not solving this on time. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think we talk a lot about this because going back to metrics and quantifying things, We talked about quantifying the financial aspect of it, but we call it negative consequences. If you don't actually quantify the negative consequences of not moving forward, then you're just going to sit there because it's like you don't recognize it. And frankly, we all get distracted. We all get distracted a lot. And so to your point, we'll get distracted by the next shiny object, right, that we're supposed to be working on.

32:02And we don't think about the negative consequences of leaving the other one behind.

32:05John Kaplan: Well, I think that's your job as a seller. You're constantly linking that customer to the so what. The great sellers I've seen are the ones that ask themselves, so what and says who? Like when they're listening to themselves and the customer, they're saying in their mind, they're saying, so what? And you have to make that implication. And most of the time, it's an implication to a business outcome. And so like you said, John, that person that said they were going to solve something by the 31st and they're all scattered when you call them, it's probably because it's past the 31st, you're calling and they still haven't solved it and they're still standing in that moment of pain.

32:46John Kaplan: Sometimes you bring people right back to that conversation that you've had with them. That's it. They create their own urgency. Yes, exactly. Good. All right, let's go to not a stage of the sales process, but something that we think is all really critical is finding a champion. So let's say you haven't found a champion. Most B2B enterprise deals involve multiple stakeholders. We talked about how a lot of people don't get wide and high. And they haven't uncovered all the decision makers or key decision makers through getting wide and high. So they haven't found a champion. And I'll pick an easy one.

33:23Your deal won't close because you're calling on one person in the account. You know, you've jeopardized your sale because you're hoping and praying that the one person you're calling on has the authority and the influence to buy your product. Good luck. You know, hope you can sleep well at night. Yeah. Well, it's so funny how we get attached to that. And if you think about, you know, we all thought a lot about this. We talked a lot about this when we were in sales campaigns that, you know, you get attached to one person. There's no way to triangulate the data. Right. You're just getting data from one individual, and they're going to see the world completely different than other people.

34:01It's like that. We talk a lot about this, the collective yes. There are a lot of folks and companies. And think about when you and I, when I was a salesperson, there wasn't even a CISO. They didn't even exist, right? So now when you think about these organizations and how large they are and the political landscape in there, it's all about the collective yes. And to your point, going high and wide throughout the organization, right? And making sure that you don't find one champion, you're finding multiple champions through the process as well. So it kind of goes back to, we were talking about calling too low, right, in the account.

34:33Again, I don't like to say calling too low necessarily. I like to say we're calling at a lower level where maybe there's more technical and user buyers and we're not expanding ourselves out into wider in the organization with multiple technical buyers and user buyers, but also elevating to the economic buyer. So on that, Ann, that's a really great point. So in many accounts, you can have, especially in technical software sales, you can have a technical buyer that could be a technical champion. You can have a political champion that might be higher in the organization, but they definitely have political power in the organization.

35:16And then there's the economic buyer. And a lot of times I've seen where the political champion needs a technical champion. Just like you said, the political champion might understand the financial metrics of the implications of not solving this pain. And they a lot of times rely on a technical champion to help them when they go to meet with the economic buyer to sell this deal. And they also want the technical champion to understand if your technology truly can solve their pains. Right. Right, because they're not, these economic buyers aren't responsible for the delivery, right? They're not responsible for the implementation.

35:53And so they have to have those people surrounding them to make sure the implementation goes well. And they're going to always rely on them. You talked about this in, I have to, I'm going to deviate a little bit, but you talked about this in one of the podcasts. It's so connected to the champion. Avoid the Ninas and the Nias. I think you call it the Ninas and the Nias, right? And I don't know. Nina, no influence, no authority. That's Nina. And Nina. Authority, no influence. Authority, no influence. Because you see somebody that might be on the org chart. So they're a leader in the organization.

36:28So they have authority, but they may not have the influence on this particular purchase for this particular use case to solve these particular pains. Exactly. So it's easier for me to say Nia and Nia because they sell a lot. It almost sounds like you're stumbling over there, Ann.

36:50John Kaplan: Let's go back to the first question. The first comment, though, was on single-threaded. And I'm sorry. I'm just telling you where we're at right now in this economy. I don't care what you're selling. It got more threaded this year. It got more threaded. it. Your deals are going to more people. There's more scrutiny. So let's talk about this. So first of all, if you have a single-threaded deal, which means you've got one person that you're connected to in the account, and don't even get me started on the argument, can an economic buyer and a champion be a sane person? That's a whole podcast that we could do.

37:28But if you're single-threaded,

37:31John Kaplan: I just think it's a threat. It's a threat to you. And so let's say that you've identified a pain and a problem that has implications that are higher level or more business implications. I just want to give some advice here. I see so many people that get so excited when they ask a customer a question that they don't have the answer to. That's one of my first things. Like, How do you move up inside of Macau? You ask somebody a question that they don't have an answer to. That's like Egypt old. Now, the problem is most people get so excited about going around that individual. The person says, well, I can't answer that.

38:13John Kaplan: It's Aunt Gary can answer that. And you need to talk to her. And you're like, ah, thank God. I've got a hall pass to go call Aunt Gary. I don't think you have anything without that person. I always used to love to turn back to that person and say, hey, I think you need to, This is a way to build champions. I think you need to have the answer to that as well. I don't just need the answer to that, but we need the answer to that. Can you make the call, like set up the call, tell the person I'm going to be calling them? That's the difference between a cold call and a warm call. So a couple of points I wanted to make there.

38:48John Kaplan: Number one, single threaded, you're at risk. Number two, don't be so quick to scurry out of somebody's office. You miss an opportunity to build a great relationship there. When you've seen an opportunity to go higher inside an organization, bring them with you. The last thing I want to point out is like on this single thread, I like this concept of M and W. You guys have heard me talk about this before. I can listen to an account review or an opportunity review, and I write an M or a W on my piece of paper as somebody who's qualifying the opportunity. If it's an M, it means we started lower, we worked our way higher, then we worked ourselves back down lower with all good hall passes, we engaged the economic buyer again.

39:39John Kaplan: That's awesome. And I look for a W because W is awesome too. We started with an economic buyer. We got the hall pass. We moved down in the organization. We came back to the economic buyer and did some qualification. We went back down through the organization. I'm looking for M and Ws on these deals. What I'm finding a lot is Ls, like a big L on your forehead. They went high. They got delegated low, and it looks like a flat line, and they stay low because they missed their opportunity. Does that make sense to you guys? Yeah, plus I didn't know you were so creative. Yeah, that's unbelievable. I thought you and I were, we've been talking about M &W before.

40:22I know, but the visuals, the way you explained it this time was just so well done. I think he added the L in the flatlining, too. I'm seeing a lot of L's right now.

40:33John Kaplan: Started high and wound up low. Well done, Ken. I think, too, John, you said you're at risk with single-threaded. I think you can assume you have lost the deal if you're single threaded. It's over, done, if you're just calling on one person. So, and as far as developing the champion too, we talked about this in our last champion discussion, is it goes back to if you're not attaching to that biggest business problem, champions, they're all about making sure that, first of all, they need to sell on your behalf. They're not going to sell on your behalf if they don't know how to connect to the financial business, you know, the outcomes of that.

41:13So I think it's important to find those champions that actually understand not just the technical ramifications, but the business ramifications, because they're more prepared to be able to sell on your behalf within the company. And, you know, we talked about champions as well. You know, what's their personal win? Well, a personal win is to make sure that the company is successful so that they're successful. I mean, think about it. We're all in this to make sure that we're driving things. That goes back to connecting to enterprise value, right? If I'm finding a champion who cares about enterprise value, that's also their personal win at the same time.

41:49So I think those are the characteristics that we've talked about a lot on some of these discussions.

41:54John Kaplan: Johnny, before we jump off of champion and go to like EB stage, just real quick, you talked about trust. I want to just bring this back because I think it, one of the number one reasons why when I'm dealing with people, okay, they don't have power and influence. Okay. They're a coach versus champion. Everybody's read that. They understand that. But a lot of times they have power and influence. They're not actively selling on our behalf. And one of the reasons why they might not be selling our behalf is because they don't trust yet. Can we just top this off a little bit? We talked about a little bit earlier, but But what are some of the reasons why somebody wouldn't trust us?

42:36John Kaplan: They're a great potential champion, but they don't trust us. Why don't they trust us? Well, can we start with what, in my experience, what champions are is they're cagey. They're smart. They're politically savvy. And they have a reputation in the account. That's why they could be a potential champion. And they have this reputation. The reason we want to get a champion is we want to have them help us get to the economic buyer. So they have, as you would call it, a hall pass to the economic buyer. But they're not going to blow their reputation and their career on an unprepared salesperson. So to me, it comes down to simply, have you prepared yourself well enough to have a discussion with this person that you can draw them in because you're so knowledgeable about the use case, their pain points, you know the as-is and the 2B process, and you've built a preliminary cost justification.

43:40That's when you can start to draw these people towards you and actually start to create trust because they're like, this is the different type of salesperson than the normal salespeople that come into this account. I'm willing to now go test this person and see whether or not I can trust them and then engage with them to go into the economic buyer's office.

44:04John Kaplan: That's a really good one. How about you, man? Yeah, it's really about education. I mean, it really is. How well can you actually help them educate? Because you think about how much we know being in the industry we're in and And to your point before, all the companies that we're calling on, we know a lot, right, about what's going on in a particular industry. And it's about providing that insight, education, trends so that they actually are more educated, right, with regards to what's going outside on outside of their company as well. And again, it goes back to when they know that you can actually provide that kind of value, they're also going to be more interested in going someplace with you.

44:44John Kaplan: I like that, Ann. I like that so much. So for me, trust is like everybody loves to be led. Even the three of us, we're kind of A personalities or whatever you call it. You know, we're type A personalities. Everybody loves to be led. However, provided you can take me to a place I can't get to on my own. And I always like to ask people, like, when I make that statement to you, how do you think this person, this potential champion views you? And how do you get that? Like they'll say, well, can you take them to a place they can't get to on their own? And then I'm looking for evidence. Just some notes that I made on this.

45:23John Kaplan: Johnny, you talked about show up prepared. You ask great discovery questions. You don't ask questions that you could have got the answer to from somebody else. If it's been in print, if it's been in print, you should have read it. When you speak about your product, talk about it in ways that solves problems that that person just shared with you because it shows that you're a great listener. I think also being self-aware. I like people that have the ability to say, hey, I'm getting the feeling like I'm not resonating with you on this. Can you give me some feedback? I think authenticity and self-awareness also builds trust.

46:03John Kaplan: And then for me, like relevant proof points. I'm willing to be led, provided you could take me to a place i can't get to on my own but i also want to know that it's not the first time that you've ever done this and those are some just some things that i wrote down about you know and then the basics be on time follow up like old school stuff that's like really really important can being trustworthy means people can rely on you did i miss anything there well it's pretty good summary cap those are good ones okay yeah should we go to the eb stage economic buyer stage Yeah. Okay, I'm going to say your deal won't close because your coach doesn't have the power or the budget to justify the cost of your purchase.

46:49Pretty simple, straightforward. We've seen that a million times. Yep. Where people think they have a champion, they have a coach. Yeah, I'm going to add in on that one. Let's go to the champion. So the champion, the biggest concern is you never locked in on the decision criteria, right that the economic buyer has with regards to really answering the questions on why buy now right on gaining commitment to the budget I mean I don't know about you all but I don't walk into I walk into very few situations where there is already budget set aside so we actually haven't connected the champion and educated the champion on how to actually go pursue that budget that's

47:30John Kaplan: another one I think that uh and I love that so much I have so many people tell me I'm like hey why are you struggling in this opportunity? They're like, they don't have budget. And I'm like, if you're selling anything that's worth anything, they don't have budget for it. They're never going to have budget for it. So what do you say to a customer when they tell you, hey, I'm sorry, I don't have budget. Nobody has budget for the stuff that we're talking about. That's why this is such an urgent conversation. But I find that people are getting stuck right there this year. And by the way, they might've had budget for it at the beginning.

48:01John Kaplan: They don't budget now i mean that's just part of the economy what company doesn't have budget if they think it can substantially increase their revenue or cut their costs i mean come on or increase it is different from access to funds johnny right yeah right right they all that's the point they all don't have budget but one if if you can tie it to certain high level things revenue profitability risk or time to market or productivity or cost of engineering or cost of revenue or cost of sales, of course they can find the money. If we're honest, how many people - They can change priority. Yeah. If we're honest, how many people are listening to this right now that are having conversations with your managers about, I'm not sure they can get the budget for this.

48:47John Kaplan: I don't know budget. And budget, budget, budget is the main conversation. That should be a red flag to you. It's like, do they have the problem? The budget will, somebody else's budget will solve that problem, if that makes sense. Well, you just said it. Do they have access to funds? Yes. It's different than do they have budget? And I think that's the primary indicator right there is, are we working with a champion or someone who has the largest business problem that has access to funds to be able to get something done. And that's why you got to get to the EB. Right. You guys, the point I was going to make on this EB one, we've kind of already talked about it before, but I love the way you said it.

49:30John Kaplan: Both of you kind of commented on it. It's like economic buyers need their own champions inside the account. And it's a really wonderful point because I remember selling to an economic buyer back in my PTC days and the economic buyer looked at me And he said, hey, John, just so you know, I'm not going to make the decision for this software. I want you to know that. Now, I'll tell you how you guys operate, how you prove the value is unbelievable. I wish our people could sell like you, your folks. But I'm telling you, I'm not going to tell that engineering department which software to choose. I will ask them why they didn't choose you.

50:09John Kaplan: And so I started to have a different conversation about, wow, what he's really telling me is you need that technical champion in that department to lay his backside on the line and say, I'm choosing this software because of this. That's basically the feedback that he gave me. And I'm so thankful for it because I remember him saying to me, I'm not going to use that software. Therefore, I'm not going to make them choose it. Really powerful. And the other thing is sometimes when that happens, Cap, that economic buyer can act as like a stealth champion. They can almost find another champion below them by asking the right questions and steering it.

50:52But in my experience, they're like stealth champions. They're never going to show their cards to anybody that they really would like to have that software purchased. but they can influence people underneath them to to say come you know come on to the table like i'm

51:06John Kaplan: willing to to buy the stuff and it's one of the few times that i agree that economic buyers can actually be champ they can be the same person but it's very rare it's very rare mostly people are making an argument trying to convince me this is a single-threatened opportunity right yeah they can't sell champions but i still think to your point like they have to have somebody below them that's going to be in charge of the implementation and successful implementation. Otherwise, it won't fly. I've actually had economic buyers, Johnny, remove people out of the process because they were going to be a problem for our deal.

51:41The economic buyer wanted us in there, but they didn't want to be the ones to say that

51:45John Kaplan: we were going to be in there because they didn't want people saying, well, it was your decision. That's very common. Very common. Well, I think what we're referring to, too, is long ago, you could have had an economic buyer who's a champion when you could be more single-threaded. But again, go back to, I have not seen any single-threaded deals in years, right? So it kind of goes back to that. I think another thing too, if we go back to the economic buyer, this is so dangerous. You get access to the economic buyer, the champion takes you there, right? And you start speaking in language that they don't understand.

52:21I don't know if you've been sitting in situations that you could just see their eyes glazing over. They don't understand. And frankly, they just lose interest. I mean, it's pretty quick, pretty quick losing interest. So we always talk about you get delegated to who you sound like. Don't make the mistake when you get to the economic buyer that you're not speaking their language. And by the way, you can go talk to Joe because he understands what you're talking about. No, it's true. I'm not going to take the audience back to like our PTC days when we were selling CAD, computer-aided design software.

52:53Well, when you got to the economic buyer, I can remember going into meetings with salespeople saying, if I even hear you peep the terminology CAD, I'm going to take you outside and beat the hell out of you after this meeting, right? You only wanted to talk at the level of the economic buyer, engineering productivity, time to market, market share, those types of things. You didn't want to talk technical. If you did, you're going to get sent back down to the CAD manager. You didn't want to be there.

53:24John Kaplan: And so the economic buyers, Johnny, were so aware back in those days. Were you a company that was going to set up camp in my office and try to run your campaign from my office? It ain't going to happen. If you want to utilize my office, keep me informed about what's going on with all those positive business outcomes that I'm trying to achieve. Tell me how the team is doing against those that I'm willing to participate. But if you're trying to set your tent up in my office, it's not going to work. And I think that's a really, really good point. well we did hear on a previous episode of the revenue builders podcast when we had carl who was a cso from citibank yeah talk about the fact that so many times reps finally get into his office and then they just talk about features and functions and he's like okay meeting's over you know nothing about my business you think i'm gonna do homework on your product because you spoke about some features and functions and i'm gonna connect the dots to what it's gonna do for me and create value for my company, you're wrong.

54:31Goodbye. That's it. And then he said he tells his assistant, don't ever let these people back in the office again. Said that on the podcast. Amazing.

54:41John Kaplan: We'll put that one in the show notes. That was a great one. Yeah. Okay. Proof of value stage.

54:51So I say I'll start with you. deal won't close because you never locked down, you know, in writing the decision criteria in your favor during the scoping process or quantification process, and then confirm that decision criteria with the economic buyer. So now if you do a POV, it's open hunting season for your competitor because you have never locked down the decision criteria in favor of your product differentiators. Yeah. And it goes further than that too, John, is locking down the decision criteria, making sure that the decision criteria, we had a podcast on this as well, making sure the decision criteria is aligned with your differentiation, right?

55:39And influencing that criteria. I think another one is timing and the collective yes. Let's talk about this one. So get into a, you know, a proof of value and we don't understand the timeframe. We think we understand it, but we don't, and we don't have the right people involved. And so all of a sudden, oh, you know, Sally needs to be involved as well. And then how many times have people said, well, let's just extend this timing. Let's just extend the proof of value because we have to have all these other people involved. So it goes back to understand the people who have to be involved. That goes back to that collective.

56:13Yes. Understanding that before you walk into the proof of value. Well, you're going to do the best that you can. Sometimes there's, you know, things that pop up. The timeframe, the scoring in terms of how will they score this relative to competition. And they're going to use the same scoring, right, that they're using with the competition. Boy, did I get burned on that one one time in terms of - Yeah. Scoring and weighting is huge. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to score you this way, but our competition, we're going to score them that way. And they get away with it. I mean, you have to make sure that you understand the scoring, the waiting, et cetera.

56:46So there's five things I think about in terms of going into a proof of value. People, where are the people? The process, what are they going to go through, right? What technology are they actually going to measure? We talked about metrics and look at the timing and then those metrics. So people, process, technology, timing, and metrics. Don't walk into a proof of value if you don't have those five things nailed. I'm just going to go on and tell you what I've lived through in terms of when I didn't have that done. So didn't include the necessary people. And so the proof of value was non-ending, infinity symbol, just kept going, right?

57:21How about this one? Oh, let's use two different teams to look at the technology. That team will look at this one, this team will look at you, and how in the world are they going to be able to compare, you know, the two, the two. How about this one? Demonstrated the wrong products, right? in terms of connecting to the economic buyer business problem. What do you mean by that one? Demonstrated the wrong product. So we went in and we're actually talking about products that we think the technical buyers are most interested in, but those products don't actually align with the biggest business problem that they're trying to actually take.

57:57So we're showing the wrong stuff, right? Well, that goes back almost to discovery that you did a bad job in discovery. Now it's affecting the POV. Bingo. You got it. Exactly.

58:10John Kaplan: So I love your points, Anna. I got this. I don't know what the rap song is. You guys are going to laugh at me. But it's like POV, I'm talking KTT, because what I always used to think of, kick the tires. So we're either doing a proof of value or we're doing a kick the tires. And there's a difference between the two. And everything that we've talked about, proof of value can be so powerful. you have the economic buyer's commitment that you're going to make a decision after choosing this, which means why are you not demonstrating on something that's critical for the company? Like this, I never understood.

58:49John Kaplan: Like that's what I loved about PTC back in the day. What is the most difficult thing that they're struggling with? And we would go in and do proof of value on that. And we didn't shy away from it. I think that's one of the reasons why we grew so well. But Cap, how many times, let's for the audience, if you basically have, if you have a champion and you got to the economic buyer and you discuss the criteria for the POV, then there really should never be a kick the tires. Never. Right? Okay. Never. But what you just said also never happens. When I look at people's sales process, I look at it and they'll have proof of value or proof of concept.

59:31John Kaplan: And I'm like, wait, where's the economic buyer? Have you even met the economic buyer? No, that's way too early. We're going to, and Johnny, this is a question, right? Consumption models, subscription models, show the product, product-led growth. I'm like, okay, but if you're going to something that needs an economic buyer from an enterprise decision, when are you doing that? And it's been a big, you know, people argue with me like, oh, we can't, we'll never get to the economic buyer before we do a proof of value. Well, it's probably not a proof of value though. You're showing a proof of interest potentially.

1:00:10John Kaplan: Very good. So I have to continue on in a few because this is just so fun. Sorry about that. Go for it, Annie. This is good. I mean, no, it is good. How about, okay. And we were at a benchmark one time and the prospect gave us four hours to go through the benchmark. And benchmark is kind of an outdated term, I think, in terms of value, but it is. And they gave the competition 10 hours to do the same thing. So do we have the timing right on that? And here's the bottom line. Who is holding them accountable, right? If you're allowing the competition to do something in 10 hours and it takes us four hours, are they really looking at the best interest of the company?

1:00:54No, they're not. They're already aligned with trying to have the competition win.

1:00:58John Kaplan: How many times did you do proof of value, Ann, where they had to explain that because we were the roost of the day, man, and if you didn't have PTC in that process, then people would be asking questions. How did we do this decision without looking at PTC? And many times reps would get fooled. Oh, they're looking at PTC, but that's all they're doing. They're looking at PTC. 10 hours versus one hour. Are you kidding me? Metrics was never discussed before we went in and did a proof of value there. And that happens a lot. It does. It does. Well, and it kind of goes back to, you know, the proof points, right?

1:01:39If you aren't using the same objectives and measuring the same things, how are you going to develop the proof of the proof points to be able to connect to the business outcomes. So the other one too, that I love is you score the differentiators, but they're a lower weight for you and higher weight for the competition. There's another one. How in the world do we get in these situations? Well, we get into -

1:02:05John Kaplan: Basically all the ones you just listed there means that the champion is somebody else's champion. That's right. That's exactly right. That would never happen to you if you had a champion. Never. Or take it even further. It wouldn't happen if you have a champion. And or it wouldn't happen if the committee that was doing this was really interested in the best interest of the company. That's right. Right? So. I got some stars on these. Bringing back some painful memories, Cap. Painful memories. Holy smokes. All of us. So let's move on to closing. So I'm going to say after the POV, how many times have you seen this?

1:02:46your customer is being unresponsive or slow to respond. And I'm going to say your deal won't close because you lost. And for many reasons that we've already discussed, I mean, that's why you lost. You did bad in discovery, bad in quantification, didn't get a champion. And now the customer's avoiding your call.

1:03:04So I'll jump in on that one.

1:03:06John Kaplan: For me, like this is, this is big. Like so many people are calling me about ghosting. They're like, I've sent in the proposal. We did the demo. We did the proof of value. And like the customer went dark. Well, let's talk about that for just a second. If it's so critical that another day that goes by would massively impact the company for some reason, how could they go dark? So we start thinking about why people go dark. Many times it's people that we identified as a champion. they actually identified themselves as a champion they went up the ladder a little bit and they got smacked around a little bit and they don't know how to explain to you that they didn't have the real power and influence and they're just afraid to call you back because they don't want to admit to it and it's right it's it's like but ghosting is a problem if nobody's if somebody's not calling you back it's a problem there's a million reasons why or or they do call you back i love these they call you back and they say bad timing yeah bad timing or the competition had a better price right or the competition actually fit the criteria better uh i mean i love john mcmahon talking about this you can interpret this as you have lost and they don't want to talk to you anymore so you might as well just you know accept that that's where you are or the one that i hear all the time is you know they decided not to make a decision really no decision yeah that's such BS.

1:04:41You know where that got created, Josh? Go away. Don't come back for a number of months because we're going to buy the competition. Or you've done such a terrible job. We really are not buying anything. I'm too low in the account. No, I'm really not a champion. I can't get the money. So we've decided to not make a decision. That's what it really means. There's no such thing as companies going through all of this stuff and they're not making the decision.

1:05:08John Kaplan: That's the greatest button ever created in salesforce.com. No decision. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Isn't it? It's a sad thing though. There are companies who actually have large committees of people and they get to no decision. Yeah. They do because we're not helping them. I'll do all the things we talked about and align to the business value. We're not giving them metrics, et cetera. So it's all connected to the same thing. I, and then we go back to the one we talked about before. We can't justify the budget or we have no budget. I mean, you went through all this work. I mean, think about this. This isn't just the work that we're doing.

1:05:47It's the work that they're doing and the time that they're spending on it. And they couldn't justify the budget.

1:05:52John Kaplan: Well, the other thing, Ann, is they're not, we haven't equipped them with the story of, so let's say it gets to the economic buyer. Let's say, this happens to me. My team comes to me. I'm distracted that day and I don't want to make a decision. And they've got this big presentation and they don't do it in a way that makes me participate in my own rescue. They don't talk about how much time they took. They don't talk about all the information. They said, I just want to go spend money to go do this. Like, one of the reasons why we fail and we don't close is because we haven't prepared our champions and the people that we're calling on, on how to do that close.

1:06:30John Kaplan: Do you guys agree with that? That's definitely true. I think another thing too, though, that fits into this is, and I'm going to say this one, I think economic buyers have to look in a mirror themselves and also say, okay, have we prepared the team that's doing this to understand what the business problem is that we're trying to solve and give, you know, giving them the resources to be able to connect those dots as well. So it's one thing for us to connect the dots. Economic buyers, also have to help the people internally connect the dots. Some economic buyers avoid risk. I've seen it. And they'll be like, I'm just uncomfortable making that decision.

1:07:06John Kaplan: And because the people that are prepared the presentation are not adamant about like putting their backsides on the line, if I don't get that type of resistance, then I'm just going to push it off. It happens, especially now. It's happening a lot where good economic buyers are just a little bit more risk averse and they are just sending people back, do more work, get more tired, turn over more rocks. But I think it goes back again that they're probably not attaching to major pain points. Right. You haven't put it in real good quantifiable customer value that ties to something major in the organization.

1:07:44If you did a good job doing that, they're going to buy. They're going to find a way. It means you're on the margins or below the noise like I talk about. I just don't believe if you've done a great job that they're just going to, you know, completely push back.

1:07:59John Kaplan: Yeah, the close is easy. It's basically if you've done everything we're talking about, then it should close. If you haven't, you're going to have problems in close. Go back and listen to the rest of this podcast. All right. So let's flip this. Let's flip this and summarize quickly, you know, the key points to ensuring that your deal does close. Cap, why don't you pick one? I'll just, I made some notes here. I'd say, you know, we're performing discovery until you've uncovered pain points that align with your products in a highly differentiated way. That's a great place to start. Essentially, you're saying slow down.

1:08:33John Kaplan: Yeah. Don't rush. Yeah. Yeah. It's being curious early in the sales process. It goes back to curiosity early in the sales process, really understanding their as a state, right, where the 2B is and helping to influence what the 2B could be because you actually are out there. You're seeing what other people can accomplish. And then, you know, gain the customer use case metrics. We've talked a lot about metrics here, right, so that they can go about creating a powerful cost justification. I'm just going to leave you with this. Attach to the biggest problem. Yeah, right. That's what I was going to say, you know, tie your products and your solutions to initiatives above the noise, meaning tie it to revenue profitability risk, like we talked about before, or issues just below that, that affect revenue profitability risk, like time to market, market share, increased sales productivity, development costs, manufacturing costs, those types of things.

1:09:30Otherwise you're below the noise. You know?

1:09:33John Kaplan: Yeah. Like high, wide, deep. Also, we talked about high, wide, deep, move in these accounts, move around M and W go back and listen to that. I think it's really, M &W, no L's, no L's. No L's, that's right. All right. I feel like I should have branding after going through the M &W and L. I love that one. That's such a good visual. So the next one would be during the economic buyer meeting. Make sure you're speaking their language, right? Make sure you're actually talking about the things that they care about. And John McMahon just went through all the things they care about. I also think that we need to be focused on, I love where we went on the budget and having access to funds, right?

1:10:15If you hear we don't have budget, they have access to funding, though, if it's important enough. So having those kinds of conversations. And then just, I think the other thing is, is making sure there's a commitment to move forward, right? What does it take for you to move forward, Mr. and Mrs. Economic Buyer? Having that understanding is critical in that meeting as well.

1:10:36John Kaplan: I love that. We talked about the POV plan, I think. And for me, it's the POV versus KTT. I'm going to find that. I'm going to find that rap song. Kicking the tires versus a real proof of value. And like, go back and listen to that part, making sure you've got it set up with the economic buyer. You have differentiated decision criteria that's agreed upon. Everybody's going to be measured the same way. Just the hygiene around doing that is critical.

1:11:06so i have any things yeah is that okay and you got anything else i always have more right i always have more i think the big thing is you mentioned it earlier is just slowing down yes if we don't do the discovery properly we don't do the scoping properly we're going to end up in these situations that we've really you know spent a lot of time on so i think uh you know for me it's It's as is to be, attaching to the biggest problem, influencing the decision criteria in a way that connects the differentiation to the positive business outcomes they're looking for. Build a preliminary cost justification to help them basically justify the value of what you're doing.

1:11:49Get wide and hide. Develop a champion. Understand the conversation that you need to have with the economic buyer. But I mean, those are all things that I think about every day. But it's slow down so you can move faster. Because if you don't, you know, frankly, the moral of the story is you're going to lose the deal. Yeah. So much happens in the first one to one and a half stages of the sales process that determines whether or not you're going to be successful. Yeah. That was a good discussion. Unless you have more to add. A lot there. All good?

1:12:23John Kaplan: We kicked that horse pretty good, man. Thank you, John Kaplan. Thanks to our special guest, Ann Gary. And thanks to everyone for listening to another episode of the Revenue Builders podcast. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you enjoy the content, please subscribe, rate, and review the show to help us reach more people. This show is brought to you by Force Management, where we help companies improve sales performance, executing the growth strategy at the point of sale. Check out forcemanagement.com for more information.

1:12:58We'll be right back.