Stop Selling to People Who Were Never Going to Buy

0:00John Jantsch:You know, most founders keep marketing to people who say they love the idea but won't buy. My guest today spent years figuring out why and his answer cuts, I guess, most of what's written about marketing and sales today.

0:24John Jantsch:Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Jansson. My guest today is Rob Snyder. He's a serial startup founder, fellow at Harvard Innovation Labs, and ex-McKinsey consultant who graduated from Harvard Business School. He's built multiple companies, serves as an operating partner at Grix VC, and coaches early stage founders through his Finding Pull program. We're going to talk about his new book, The Power of Poll, what you need to know about customer demand to build a successful startup and why most founders get it wrong. How did you get all of that on the book?

1:00John Jantsch:Rob, welcome to the show. Thank you. It is the longest title. They pay me by the word. Awesome. So you, at least from my reading of your materials, you kind of went through the whole playbook yourself, did everything the experts said, still couldn't get your customers to buy something that they told you that they thought was awesome. So how long did that go on and what kind of finally broke it open for you? it was two years of the worst day of my career happening and being beaten every every successive day where everything like made sense on paper seemed like they should buy it they would nod in sales calls and then they wouldn't buy and it only i just thought i was incompetent like uniquely incompetent until one day i got a phone call again two years in we're just you know the ego that one gets out of McKinsey and Harvard Business School, you know, had been crushed to smithereens at that point.

2:00And I got a phone call from a potential customer who I had tried to pitch to when he said, hey, yeah, I have no idea what you were trying to sell me. It wasn't relevant to me, but I'll pay you to do X for me. And I was like, all right. And that's when it started working.

2:14John Jantsch:Yeah. So how long, I mean, you know, like all good consultants, you have a framework. It has, you know, four conditions and all those good things. But how long did it take you to kind of, before we get into them, I mean, that was like a light bulb moment, but that's not like exactly where like all four things tumbled into place, right? So, I mean, how did you kind of unearth by trial and error, these elements that you then put together in your framework? Yeah. So it was, it was when that customer called me that something clicked in my head and I, that it wasn't really about my product. Like that was the first big aha moment.

2:53And it had nothing to do with my product at all. It was about something that was going on in their world that they were trying to do, but couldn't do. And that thing made my product relevant or not. And so that was the first big light bulb moment. And then we launched our second product, which also went zero to a million really fast. And so I was like, oh, wow, I've really got this now. And then a couple of my friends brought me into their startups to help them do the same thing. And so as I kept trying to apply what I had learned, it started developing from an artisanal, like, I don't know, I'll just let me try to copy paste exactly what worked for me into something where I was able to more understand the physics of it.

3:40And then the framework came way later.

3:43John Jantsch:So let's talk about the four conditions, project, unavoidable, list of options, and limitations. So put that together for us now that we have names for them. Yeah, so that creates the poll framework. The poll framework together defines a person who would be weird not to buy your product. Everybody else who does not have a poll would be weird to buy your product. And so the four characteristics are the project. They have some project. They have something they're trying to do. In marketing, you might think of this as a job to be done. Project on to-do list, kind of same thing. That project has to be something they can't delay.

4:21They can't do it, you know, in six months or a year, they're totally fine waiting or not doing it at all. So it has to be unavoidable. That's the second one. But just because they have something they have to do today doesn't mean they need you. So they have to be in a state where the list of options they have considered or tried are not good enough. They have limitations. And if all four of those things are true, they're trying to do something that they are unable to do with their existing options. Then you show up and they will rip the product out of your hands. And that's how the world works, I have found.

5:00Right.

5:00John Jantsch:So you intentionally, I think, mentioned product several times in that description. Would this same approach really apply to, say, a consultant who's selling a service of some sort? Totally. Totally. Yeah, I've accidentally developed a consultancy out of this. And it turns out it applies exactly the same to it. And what I found is that people selling products think that it's about the product. People who sell services think it's about our cool frameworks and all of those, and our expertise and all this stuff behind it. And it's still all about the customer's pull. So is the first step we have to stop caring about our product, caring about our service?

5:42John Jantsch:I mean, I don't mean that facetiously. I admit they don't care about what we do. They want the problem solved or whatever it is. I mean, does it take that leap first? Because I see it all the time. I mean, you look at any web page and 90 % of it's describing the product. So, I mean, is that the first leap or mindset change that has to happen? yes 100 the first step is to totally forget your product or service yeah totally ignore it for a second and focus exclusively on the customer and what is that situation they're in where they're trying to do something they consider different options and those options aren't good enough so they are stuck and you just focus on that without even thinking about your product because it for some reason or service, if you or I just start thinking about our product, what we're going to do is we're going to describe that situation that we would like them to be in, not the situation they are actually in.

6:43John Jantsch:So a lot of marketers, I wouldn't say this is an advanced case, but maybe to step forward, have realized that if they can point out pain points, that kind of sucks somebody the end to say, yeah, okay, you can fix that thing for me. How is this maybe a step beyond that? So pain points are a thing that, especially in startups, we are told to go looking for pain points. Because if you find pain points, then they're going to buy. I've just, my own startups, a bunch of friends' startups have found, we've done hundreds of customer interviews where we find everyone's nine out of 10 pain point. We have them rake it out of scale out of 10, And then nobody dies.

7:24And what you learn from that experience is that most people who have pain points are okay continuing on with their pain points, even if they are big and important pain points. So what matters is when, not if it's a pain point, but if it's a priority, if it's something they're actually trying to do something about. If you conflate those two, you are in for a world of hurt.

7:48John Jantsch:yeah like that little hole in the ceiling that water forced through doesn't really bother me anymore i'm probably not going to fix that right exactly yeah i have i have it where the sun comes through from 10 a.m to 1 p.m every single day blast me in the eyes and it's just like not a problem like it's yes it's a problem yes it's a pain point but i just shift a little bit So, again, marketers have been very trained to build personas and understand buyer behavior. How do you actually take it that step of like somebody would be crazy not to buy your product? I mean, how do you find that? Most businesses that are not zero to one already have found them.

8:32You have a bunch of customers already. If you look across your customer base, you have some people who've bought really fast and are awesome. And some people who have not and are not. They're just not a good fit for you. And what we tend to do is we tend to design our marketing, our business around the average of all of them. Which is what a persona is, right? We're combining a bunch of different characteristics of different people. What I've found is instead of doing that, you focus on your best customer. And you think about that customer's case study, that customer's pull when they buy. And you just design for that case study rather than an abstract persona, a concrete case study.

9:23And you just think about your business as we're just going to repeat that case study a bunch of times and find people who look at that case study. We're going to use that to sell. We're going to use that forever.

9:33John Jantsch:So would you, if I'm going to bring you into my business, and admittedly, we have a lot of people that are not startups necessarily. There are businesses that have been going for a while, but quite frankly, they have that mix that you just described. I would venture to say 20, 30 % of most businesses have customers that they'd like, given the choice, they would punt, but they keep showing up and they keep serving them. would you if you walked into a business like that how would you sort of work backwards to find like here are your pull people yeah what i so what i mostly focus on are if you're doing sales calls that's really useful and especially if you record the sales calls so what i do is we say okay talk to me about your best customers and in fact send me their sales calls and then send me sales calls of people who have not been quite as good customers.

10:26And what you can do is you can actually listen to the sales call using the pull framework to say, okay, what was the project on their to-do list? They'll often tell you, we just don't listen to it. What was the project on their to-do list? Why was it unavoidable for them then? What options have they looked into? Why weren't those options good enough? And you start to compare and contrast those really good customers with the other ones. This is not like a Harvard PhD activity. It is really just look at these two different calls, compare and contrast with the poll framework. And then you start having some very interesting conversations on the back of that.

11:07John Jantsch:Would you even go as far as to say that you actually would use this as a filter to some degree? Because we have people who show up all the time. It's like, I need marketing. Can you do marketing? Well, yes, but here's how we do it. Here's who we serve. Here's who we can put value to. But I know a lot of people also just, you know, somebody shows up and says they want marketing. It's like, okay, I'll send you a proposal. Would you say that you would go as far as saying you should almost run some sort of poll exercise to qualify somebody? 100%. Just think of all of the pain that comes from working with someone who's not your best fit customer.

11:47Yeah. I've done this a bunch of times where I worked with a, you know, I worked with a PR firm that was not specifically for startups. They were for like certain kinds of business. And we just spoke past each other. And we were both frustrated with each other at the end. There are so many cases that this where by being ultra specific, you often think, well, I'm not going to have enough leads. I'm not going to have enough, you know, companies coming in. out. Well, actually, the more specific you are, the more people look at you and say, oh, wow, you are for me specifically. And then they come inbound.

12:21And so you actually get more lead rich and you disqualify people who won't be a fit, who won't appreciate what you do.

12:28John Jantsch:So a lot of interactions, especially initial interactions, can be very brief. You have a short discovery call or maybe they even fill out a form or something that that's all the information you get. Do you have some tools, scripts, techniques that actually help somebody? First off, I guess the work is they've got to actually be able to identify who those people are themselves so they know what they look like, right? But then do you have, once they start generating leads, do you have tools or techniques that really allow somebody to sift through that? Because a lot of times I have discovered sometimes you don't really know somebody's going to be a fit until you're kind of down the road a bit.

13:09Yeah, we're actually a lot of the companies that I work get to. Our goal is in the first five minutes of the discovery call to have 75 % certainty on that this person will buy and be a good fit. And so that's the goal to work towards. There are ways to get there. What I find is that, first of all, you have to have your pull framework filled out for what your best fit customer is. You just have to know that. If you don't, then it's just going to, you're just not going to know. Once you have that filled out, then the beginning of the call, of a discovery call, is asking them to fill out the poll framework for you.

13:46Now, not actually pulling it up and telling them to fill this out for me, but it's just saying, why'd you take this call? What are you hoping to get out of this? And they will often start to fill out the poll framework, and then you ask some clarifying questions there. And you don't ask it from the perspective of like, all right, I want to convince you that you should buy. You ask it leaned back saying, I'm not sure if you tell me. Yeah.

14:12John Jantsch:Yeah. So when you kind of went from struggling to, you know, thinking, Hey, I got this figured out. Did it change? How do you sell sold from that point on? Oh, a hundred percent. Describe how that change happened. So I had the wrong theory of sales. I didn't even, I was totally backwards on sales. I had a physics upside down, which I thought when I was just starting out that, okay, you build a good product that offers really a ton of value, solves big problems. And then what sales is, sales is a way to convince people to want your product and buy your product. But the core physics, if we use those terms, are I convince you to buy.

14:58And what I realized through lots of pain was that I will never convince you to buy. If you don't have pull, it would be weird if you buy. You just you have other priorities or your existing options are good enough. Nothing I do is going to change. And so what I've realized is that sales is about basically them convincing me to let them buy. Or said differently, them trying to do something and being stuck. That's what causes them to buy. And they will buy my product if I just get them unstuck.

15:39John Jantsch:So the unavoidable step probably does some of the heaviest lifting, right? In the process, it seems like. what does that trigger actually look like? How do you find it? Are there ways to find it even before a sales call? Somebody's actually given the signal on LinkedIn? Oh, totally, totally. It's going to be different for each company. I'll give an example. There's a company that sells to nonprofits that I know that sells them a reporting tool that they can use to raise money from donors. Well, when is that? When do they have an unavoidable project around needing to improve their fundraising? Well, it's often when they've been trying to fundraise.

16:25Maybe they've hired somebody and they are struggling to fundraise. And so all of the startups content that goes out is about that situation. Everything they post is about. So they attract people who are in that situation. So that's the goal is I don't want to talk to people who don't have you. So everything I'm putting out into the universe is to bring those people in.

16:51John Jantsch:So let's say I'm in a halfway through a sales call and I really like they don't have pull yet. Do I try to change that in somehow or is it literally like, hey, come back when you got it? one of the most liberating things that founders and business owners tell me when they apply pull is that when somebody doesn't have pull, they stop having to think about them. They do stop having, because think about you, you have to convince them to change their priorities. That's really hard to do. And then you have to convince them when they have a new priority to choose you over other options that they haven't looked into.

17:33And it's like, okay, that could happen. But then you're going to have to convince them to use your product or service. And you're going to have to convince them to value it. You're going to have to convince them of all of these things. I would much rather let reality do the convincing than me. And so, yeah, you just say, okay, cool. It seems like you're totally fine. One thing you might look for is XYZ happening. When one of those things happens, that might be when you're a better fit.

18:04John Jantsch:So if someone's listened to this and they've got a sales call like this week or right after they listen to this, what's one question they should add to that call to test whether a prospect has real pull? I would say, can I give you two? Is it okay? Yeah, you bet. The most important question to ask in a sales call is at the very beginning. Thanks so much for taking the conversation. why did you take the call today? That question will almost always fill out the poll framework for you. Then once you have some of the poll framework filled out, my favorite question to go to is, so maybe help me understand.

18:45I'm hearing that you're trying to do this. You basically recap poll, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you help me understand. Is this something you actually need to do right now and you can't use your other options on maybe help me understand that and people say when they first do that it's like i feel like i'm convincing them not to buy right and what you're really doing is you're just testing if pull is actually there if it's actually real

19:11John Jantsch:you know though i suspect there is also a little psychological i don't know what the right word is pull behind that idea of maybe you're not ready so wait a minute i'm ready to solve this problem I mean, isn't there a little bit of that? That pushing away kind of makes it more attractive. So that is not the intention or the cause of it. It may be an unintended benefit of it. But what you do is what you don't want. One of the things I always have in my mind in a sales call is imagine two people who are out to dinner where one of them thinks it's a date and the other doesn't. Yeah. Yeah, like how poorly that can go.

19:56And that's not, you don't want that in your sales call where you think they're likely to buy and you're going to convince them to buy and they don't. And so that's the purpose of this is just for us to understand, do they actually need help or not?

20:12John Jantsch:Yeah, it really, you know, all the sales training and techniques and questions in the world are great. But again, it's that work ahead of time, isn't it? that, you know, going into that conversation, knowing what you're looking for to the point where, you know, I've been doing this 30 years. I mean, I can have a conversation with somebody for about 30 seconds and I have a pretty good sense of whether or not, you know, it's going to be a great fit. And I think people, you know, you do get better at that, obviously, but I think there's a lot of work to be done to get to that point, isn't it? Yeah.

20:43And hopefully the book helps people not have to take 30 years to get to that intuition like you've developed. That's the hope. But yeah, it took me way too long as well.

20:53John Jantsch:So Rob, again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. Is there someplace you'd have people connect with you? Obviously find out about the book, but I'm guessing you have a whole series of tools and workbooks and sheets that can help them master the pull framework. Totally. Yeah. robsnyder.org is where you can find everything. Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we're running to you one of these days out there on the road. Absolutely. Great to meet you, John.

21:26We'll see you next time.