1559 – How and Why with Sell Nothing’s Joe Pallo

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0:58with us right now it's joe palo joe you are an author coach speaker consultant trainer you are the founder of sell nothing and the author of the imminently published book how to sell nothing uh which should come out later this summer joe thank you so much for joining us Sure. Appreciate it. I'm glad to be here. All right. So why are you telling people to sell nothing? That seems counterintuitive to how money works. Well, I'm really good at selling nothing. So that's why I wrote the book. But sell nothing is based on the idea that the products don't matter. It's a relationship. And you sell the relationships.

1:40That's why people buy. It's the emotional engagement. You need to have them emotionally engaged before they act. Yeah. What's the difference? Like, how might selling sound in your brain that you're like, yeah, that's not working real well today? I look at it this way. In sales, there's two sales need to happen. There's a logical sale. There's an emotional sale. There are two buckets, let's say it that way. Both of them have to be filled in order to get to the next step. A logical sale and the emotional. I have to ask you, which one would you say is more important? Yeah, urban. Urban is way more powerful than Lurban.

2:19Emotional reasons for buying now, logical reasons for buying now. Agreed. It's all emotion. Okay, because emotion causes us to act. The logic confirms it. Again, I'm not diminishing the importance of it. You need to have both. Well, we have great meetings. We've all had these great sales calls. On a scale of 1 to 10, it's a 10. He's laughing at your jokes. He's asking questions. And he's saying, can you come back in two weeks? And I want to see your proposal. And we come back in two weeks. and we remember the meeting and we think this is gonna be an awesome meeting. But that second meeting in two weeks or two months is different.

2:50It's where like the warm and fuzzy, cozy atmosphere at that first meeting, now you're in a kind of block of ice and maybe their arms are crossed or they're looking at the computer or they're looking at their watch and they're not laughing at your jokes and you walk out with, I need to think about it. Ooh. And call me next month. And it never goes away. That didn't sound like it was a good sales call. Correct. And we think, and that second meeting, what's wrong with that second meeting? Let's go back to that first meeting and figure out what happened. The logical sale or the logical bucket is filled with my voice.

3:24I'm the expert. I've got a marketing department behind me. We have tons of information to fill up that bucket. The emotional sale, the emotional bucket, is filled with their voice. That's what they want and why they want it. They're not going to engage until they tell me that. And we have both buckets filled. We get the next step. Now, let's talk about the buckets. The logical bucket's finite. It's like if you have a bucket of water and you put more water in it, it's a waste. If you have a client who's logically sold and you try to sell logic, it's a waste. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't do any good.

3:56Logically, they're there. They're there. The emotional bucket, again, it's filled with their voice. It has holes in it. When I come back in two weeks or two months, that emotional bucket is empty. My job as a salesperson, when I recognize there's something going wrong, is I need to go back and say, what we talked about last time, why is that important? And be quiet because I'm letting their voice fill up their emotional bucket. And that's how I get them engaged. So biggest thing I worry about is people coming in and you sell logic. It's a relationship. It's what they want, why they want it. and again emotions are weird and fickle things they change all the time it's the essence of selling nothing um what would be some examples of like really great questions again you can just completely spitball this in any kind of scenario but i i probably don't do like i ask here here's what i do wrong i think i ask a lot of questions so that i know what i need to know so that I can figure out if I can help them.

4:57And then I kind of explain, you know, how I can help them. But I don't think I'm asking questions that evoke their emotional reasons for wanting to move forward. I feel, I don't know, I feel awkward doing it, maybe. Help me out. There's two ways, or two answers, I guess. Actually, there's three, but I'll give you the first two. I'll give you all three. First, if someone asks me a question, Joe, do you do executive level coaching? Most people say, yep, I do it all the time. It's what I did yesterday. It's what I specialize in. I actually train people not to answer that way. If someone says, Joe, do you do executive level coaching?

5:38I'll say, well, yeah, I've done it before, but just curious. Why did you ask that? Right. Oh, yeah. In other words, when they ask a question, what they ask is important. I want to know why they asked it. Something happened in their past that caused them to ask that question. I want to know what that is before I answer it because my answers are so much better. That's the first piece. I want to know why they asked that question. The second is to answer your question, how do you get them emotionally engaged? It's like the premise against a tenant I coach on. Doctors can't fix you until you tell them how and why.

6:14I can't sell anyone until I get them to tell me how and why. It's the same principle. So it's done with what I call dig-in questions. Dig in. They give me an answer. I got to dig in and get more out of it. A dig-in question is basically whatever they're saying, I'm thinking, well, why is that? Well, why is that? Well, why is that? Well, why is that? And you can't say it like that because that's creepy and weird. So I'll say, well, give me an example. That's a dig-in question. If I'm talking to an insurance or an advisor, or if they're talking to someone, I just want to be comfortable. Okay, well, what does that look like?

6:49I'm quietly asking them to fill up their emotional bucket. It's just why are they saying that? A digging question just gets to the why behind whatever they're saying. Also, can you give me an example? What else? Tell me more. You can ask digging question after digging question after digging question. let their voice fill up that bucket because that's when I'm going to close on in five minutes or five days or five months. I need to have that emotional bucket filled. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes, it is. I like that. Yeah. So it's obviously, you know, the why behind it. Would you go so far then is to, you know, maybe ask them questions to identify, like, what's the emotion?

7:33like, oh, let's say for example, like, so we help people with sales introductions. And so, you know, I, I find I don't, like, I asked them, you know, is there a gap? Like, you know, do you, do you have the capacity to handle more introductions right now? I want to know that, you know, and I've thought about, you know, should I ask them, you know, how does that feel when you have those inconsistent months or you have those dead months, but I feel, I don't know, I feel uncomfortable doing that because if I don't want to, you know, I don't want to, you know, be too obtuse in how, you know, if I'm asking that question, they're going to know why I'm asking that question, I think.

8:12But I don't know. Like, I still want to know what you see where I'm going with this. Like, I don't want to be too fake. It's I think it's a little bit of the timing of the question. A process I do is it's an acronym when I'm in sales. We want sales to go in a plan. Yeah. like a battle plan, but it never happens. The battle starts, throw the plan out of the window. When the sales start, throw the plan out of the window. But one of the first things I'll have people do, and it's a sequence, is evaluate their current reality. That's your day to gather, right? We need to do that. Most salespeople do that when they're used to that.

8:49And it's like, I need to know, if I'm making an apples-to-apples comparison, I need to ask enough questions so I know what type of apples they have. So that's the E, it's an earnings system. It's E stands for evaluate the current reality. The A is I ask, what are their advantages? What do you like about your current vendor or your current advisor or your current person? And I get pushback saying, Joe, I don't know if I want to ask that because I'm talking them into staying where they're at. And I want to ask that for three reasons. One, no one else does that. I get different results because I do things differently.

9:22Two, me asking what they like about their current advisor screams confidence. I'm not going to the kitchen. I'm going right where it's hot. the fourth they're literally telling me their hot buttons whatever they like back in my mind I'm thinking I gotta have some of that too when I close and then the next part is I would say revise what do they want to change what's what what do you have right now that's not working and I do it deliberately in that order because I don't want to jump in with that piece I don't want to lead off with it because that's where I feel awkward with it yeah yeah yeah okay so So number one, you know, just try to get an assessment for where they're at currently.

10:02And I love that. I actually really love this. Tell me what tell me what's working really well. And, you know, kind of like what you like about your current, you know, business development, you know, sales sourcing. That's like what's working. You know, I feel like if someone asked me that, I would feel much safer in telling them, you know, the negatives. like I would feel like you know you asked me in such a degree of confidence like I feel safer rather than if you were to just ask me tell me about how your current system sucks you know I mean like well okay but I would feel a little defensive you know on that second one it's it's it's putting them at ease but really I'm trying to get them to say what they want and why they want it that's they're filling up their emotional bucket I'm not going to close I never teach train, sell, or speak until I've created space to have that environment, that emotional engagement is there.

10:58This is a process. There's a couple other steps that are really keying into that that makes it more comfortable. The E stands for evaluate their current reality. A is what are the advantages? What do they like? R is what do they revise? What do they want to change? The N is who can say no. I want to know all the decision makers if they're right there in the room. Sometimes I'll try to back out of the presentation if I don't have them there, but sometimes you can't. This is the big step. I stands for interpret back what they just said. There's one takeaway that people should listen. That's it. You say, hey, just for clarity, I'm going to take two minutes and just repeat back what you just said.

11:37Talk about what, evaluate the current reality. Talk about what they like. Talk about what they want to change. Puts me in a great spot because they'll say, well, heck, Paolo, you said it better than I did. I just repeated back what they said. Or it's like mentally, I'm on the same side of the table as I am. And like, I get this guy and I have not even started selling. It's a great space to be in. And then the next one, which will probably deal with feeling uncomfortable, I would ask them for the second. And what if nothing changes? I need to ask that question because that's the sense of urgency.

12:12And they'll give me a fluff answer. I'm going to ask a digging question. Well, what else? Tell me more about that. Because I need that sense of urgency. So if you ask for the, and then the G is the gain. That's the earning. There's a ConvertSalesFaster.com. It's a free download to have that be spelled out for you. But the G is what is the gain. But the biggest thing, if you want to know what I'm finding is when I simply take the time to interpret back what they just said, that's gold. Yeah, this is really good. Do you have this outlined in your website, Joe? Yeah, it actually, ConvertSalesFaster.com.

12:47It's a free download. and I explain, it spells it all out there. It's the earning process, but convertsalesfaster.com. Okay, cool. Pulling that up right now. Yeah, there you go. And there's the book, How to Sell Nothing, The Logical Way to Make the Emotional Sale. Help me connect the dots on the concept of how to sell nothing. Because in my mind, I mean, we're still, I mean, maybe it's because, you know, I mean, I feel like I understand sales is not about convincing somebody something, But, you know, this idea, again, of how to sell nothing. Help me make sure I understand that in light of what you just shared.

13:27Because this does sound pretty intentional. Oh, it definitely is. It is a process. And as you've been going through this earning piece, that's where the digging questions come in. Well, what do you mean? How so? Give me an example. What else? Tell me more. I'll say it like this. in sales, whoever's talking is buying. In a selling situation, I'm talking more than you are. I'm buying your objections. If I get you talking more than me, you're buying whatever's in my bag. And what it is, it comes out to the point where I'm not that good of a salesperson. People just buy from me. And if I go through this process, the earning piece, and I marry it with the dig in questions, they're literally telling me what they want, why they want it, what's important, what objections they have.

14:16My job is just to sell that. The product doesn't matter. That kind of helped flesh it out what you're asking. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Joe, how do you work with folks? I usually do. I started off primarily one-on-one coaching, usually at the executive level. I've just about a year ago started up the level of lead up where I do group coaching, where I'm coaching the leader and then their entire team. And then I'm doing a lot of work with some grant work out of UW, Washington with entrepreneurs and startups. Yeah, and at your website, sellnothing.co, and then there was also your other website. Boy, I started going down the rabbit hole a little bit.

14:59What was the, oh, it was, let me see here. I got to convert sales faster. Well, I opted in. So I think I got something coming in my email here shortly because what you went through that list was pretty helpful. Like that would be a good guide, I think, for someone to kind of print out or note down, you know, while they're on sales calls to remind them of, you know, a pretty effective flow. You know, if we're, you know, and again, I think the goal here is to be far more focused on the needs, desires, wants, fears of our client. And hey, maybe we can help them. Maybe our solution is the solution for them.

15:43Maybe it's not. What's your opinion on that? Do you have to be convinced that if you sell Timeshare, that Timeshare is saving lives?

15:58Where do you fall on that? First, it's a core tenant. I've got to believe what I'm selling. Otherwise, I'm not. I've sold bookstore, the door, educational books. I had a strong belief in education. I can do that. If I don't believe in the product, I'm not going to sell it. That's the first thing. Another thing that I've run into is that I coach on it, is I strive to create a buying atmosphere. When I say buying atmosphere, well, I'll ask you, when you say buying atmosphere, what does that mean to you? You say buying atmosphere, what does that mean to you? oh me uh buying it well i mean you know obviously we're here to you know help you know kind of build a relationship and network and see you know see what we're going to do but but again i think it's that intention right where like let's figure out maybe this makes sense let's figure that out i love what we do and what we do you know truly is valuable for the right audience let's see if this can solve your needs.

16:59That's kind of where my brain goes. It's that you're spot on. I pick it add to that or piggyback onto that. When I say create a buying atmosphere, I want to give you the permission to say no. I suck all the pressure out of them. If you like it, great. If you don't, it's not a big deal. It's that simple of a statement. And it lowers the pressure. And literally, it's like a doctor trying to diagnose you to see how they fix you. That's what I'm doing on a sales call. I need to diagnose or you need to tell me why. And you verbally need to get those reasons out before you take my prescription, my recommendation.

17:34That's the essence of selling nothing. It's having them tell me what they want and why I just do that. And by me hearing that with their words, my confidence in closing goes through the roof. My closing rate goes through the roof because I'm just selling what they want to buy. I love it. Joe Palo, your website's sellnothing.co and convertsalesfaster.com. I'm looking at the earning system right now. It is. It's a great PDF and kind of takes you through everything, Joe, that you just went through. So I appreciate that. It's a good six-page PDF here that has some pretty good information. It links to a 30-minute video too.

18:16Anything else that you'd recommend? Obviously, the book's coming out later this summer, How to Sell Nothing. It's just, I think the negativity that people have perceived around sales is something I kind of fight against. And sales is me trying to sell a product. Most people focus on trying to sell what they want to sell. It's easier to sell what they want to buy than sell what I want to sell. Selling nothing is figuring that piece out. It's easier to sell what they want to buy than sell what I want to sell. Love it. All right, Joe Paolo, again, founder of Sell Nothing. Thank you so much for joining us, Joe.

18:51It's been a great conversation. Appreciate it. A lot of fun. Thank you.

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