Jeb Blount on Why You're Losing Deals to Customer Service Fires (Ask Jeb)

0:00Hot flashes. Rage crying. Forgetting words mid-sentence. Yeah, we know. Menopause is a lot. Midi Health gets it. That's why Midi offers virtual healthcare specially tailored to women's needs. Built for women by women. Every symptom, every stage, every question. Visit joinmidi.com to get started today. That's joinmidi.com. Individual results and coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage. This is the Sales Gravy Podcast. Hi, I'm Jeb Blunt, best-selling author, fanatical prospecting, objections, sales EQ, and inked, and I'm here to help you open more doors, close bigger deals, and rock your commission check.

0:44All right, next up on the show is Stephen Ward from Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas. Stephen, what's going on in your world? Actually having a great year, but when I saw that question come across and I answered it, I had just lost two deals. I was kicking myself because I shouldn't have lost those deals. And as I went back and kind of debriefed through the process, what I felt the issue was I was spending so much time on servicing existing customers and making sure my current revenue was growing that I lost two really good deals. You know, sometimes I think when you're in a good role, all of a sudden you're losing good customers because you're in a good role.

1:22And if there's something I could do to change it, I want to change it. But it may just be the cost of doing business. I don't know. It's a legitimate question. I just had this conversation with my son. My son, JBJ, fabulous month last month. He filled up his pipeline and then he closed some deals and he sent me a note and said, I'm starting to try to figure out how do I take care of the customers I just sold and keep the deals I've got in the pipeline going? What do I do? And I said, let's add a third thing to it. You've got to replace what you had in your pipeline with new opportunities, like those deals that you lost.

1:54And so he's like, well, I feel like I'm schizophrenic. And I go, welcome to the sales world. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. And so the issue is you have to be able to do all three of those things. It's not a cost of doing business. It's a cost of priorities. So if you choose to prioritize serving existing customers over prospecting, then you're going to serve existing customers and you're going to have an empty pipeline. If you choose to allow balls to drop because you're taking care of customer fires that are coming at you. So you miss a meeting or you miss getting a proposal in or you miss doing follow-up or you didn't prep as well as you could for a presentation or do enough discovery because you weren't existing customers.

2:35That's just a choice, right? It's not a symptom of selling or some other issue. All it is is a choice of priorities. The question is how do you balance that? Let's go back to those two deals that you lost because you had existing customers to service. Legit. And I appreciate the transparency on it. You know, I just dropped the ball. Like, that's fair. Like, at least you can look in the mirror and go, I did this. The next thing I want you to think about is what were the servicing issues that created the situation where you couldn't put all your focus in closing those new deals? Well, from my perspective, it was not enough customer service support on the back end and having to get involved in some of the minutia and recreating things I had already done, but having to recreate it for other people.

3:23When the information was available, the information was there, but people just, instead of looking for the information, they were calling me to deal with it. Probably should have taken ownership and say, the information's in there. You need to go find it. Have a nice day. Trying to be the team guy and the team player and not tick off everybody that's taking care of my customers. You know, I dealt with it. You had the classic problem of, and if you want it done right, might as well just do it yourself. 100%. Versus taking the time to coach the support team so that they knew what to do and how to fix it.

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4:28Go to plod.ai forward slash jeb. That's plod.ai forward slash jeb and use code JEB to get 10 % off your purchase. This is a classic issue for selling. So we have a tendency to own the customer and own the problem. And I say this with all sincerity and humility. I have been in your shoes and done exactly what you've done. I mean, so I've been there where there's someone else who's responsible for fixing this customer problem, but who's doing it? Me, because it's just faster for me to handle it. You learned this lesson the hard way. I don't know how much commission you lost for losing those deals.

5:02Now stop and think, okay, instead of being the chief problem solver, you have to be the quarterback. Your job is the quarterback of the situation. So I want you to separate owning the customer from owning the problem. You own the customer. The customers are your referrals. They're your future income. They're your residuals. They're important to you. And as a salesperson, you can never let go of that customer relationship. It means something. I see Texas Tech behind you. So being in Texas, we know that Texas is a highly relational state. Like the relations you have with people there matter as much as I'm in Georgia.

5:34They matter here. But I think Texas, I spent a lot of time in Texas. Your character matters and how you show up matters. So you have to own the relationship, but you don't have to own the problem. That's someone else's job. So the key is when you're in those situations and there's a customer problem and you've already created the system, the person who's calling you for the problem, you call them and you coach. Where could you find the information? How could you find the information? What could you do there? So then that person goes and finds it. And all you say is, when are you going to help this customer?

6:03And then you follow up. Yeah. I have this mantra. And God, we trust everybody else we follow up on. Right. My support staff, I'm going to give them an opportunity to help the customer. But here's the thing. You have to follow up before the deadline for helping the customer because I don't want to let them fail my customer. I want to hold them accountable. But that requires you as a salesperson to have a follow-up system so that you can manage all of this. And that's frustrating because you know that it's tedious. Like you could just go solve the problem, fix the customer. It's all taken care of.

6:32But that didn't help you sell any more business. And it certainly doesn't allow you to scale yourself. If you're the help desk and you're the salesperson. Right. I know this is a concept that a lot of people like. Sometimes it gets sticky, but you own the customer, not the problem. Someone else owns the problem. And your job is to hold them accountable. And the thing that I will congratulate you on, because most salespeople don't have this, you actually created the system and put the information in there so it's available to them. I mean, so many salespeople don't even do that. And if you do that, then you'll be able to build this balance because that's the thing.

7:05What happened there was you simply prioritized problem solving over selling. Yes. But you can also make the choice to prioritize coaching and holding your support team accountable while still keeping a relationship with them. And I hear what you're saying. I've got to maintain a relationship with these people because they look out for me. But that as the quarterback, when they take care of your customer, take them to lunch, bring donuts in, give them pizza. I used to buy flowers for my support team. Like I made sure that they were happy. But when it was time for me to hold them accountable, my expectation was you take care of my customer because my job is to go make revenue so that you can stay employed.

7:39I mean, really, that is it. I took a problem that I didn't need to take. And you're right. It's my nature. I solve my customer's problem. That's all I do. It's also your nature to own the relationship. I mean, I can tell that you genuinely care about your customers. I mean, that's in your heart. So that's why I say don't let go of owning the customer. Just let go of owning the problem. And you just follow up. And then when it gets solved, you call your customer. How are you doing? They go, great. Jenny solved my problem. Fantastic. That's all you got to do. And you still get to take the victory lap.

8:07That's exactly right. Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. All right. Thank you, sir. Thanks, everyone, for listening to this episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast. I'm Jeff Blunt, Jr. and the lesson is simple but hard to execute. You cannot be the chief problem-solving officer for every one of your customers. Your job in a sales role is to build pipeline, to advance the pipeline, or close the pipeline. Anything outside of those activities is noise. And if you got something from this episode, give us a five-star review on Apple, on Spotify, or iHeartMedia, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It helps us help more salespeople sell more.

8:43You can also watch all of these episodes on youtube.com forward slash sales gravy. We'll catch you next time on the Sales Gravy Podcast.

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