1903 – P3 Selling with Greg Nutter of Soloquent Inc.

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you.

1:06With us right now, it's Greg Nutter. Greg, you are the founder of Soluquent, and you're the author of the book, P3 Selling, The Essentials of B2B Sales Success. One of my favorite topics, Greg. Thank you so much for joining us. Great to be here, Josh. Appreciate it. Absolutely. Julie, will share with us just a bit about what you do, the work you do, who you serve? Sure. I'm a management consultant. I work a lot with owners, senior business leaders, help them scale their revenue performance. Most of my work is in the small and medium-sized business space where you've got a founder or a leader who's really good at their craft, a lot of expertise, and maybe not an expert in selling.

1:51And even some people who are experts in selling, we work with to help them scale their business. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm so excited. What is P3 Selling? P3 Selling is, well, it's a book. But at the heart of it, it's a methodology that provides people and companies a framework, as I mentioned earlier, on how to scale their business, on how to scale their revenue. It's a combination of strategies, best practices, processes, and tools that individuals can use to improve their business, to be more successful, and companies can use to better manage their sales pipelines and their salespeople. Yeah, well, please share with us kind of those tentpole, like, what are the fundamentals of P3 selling?

2:45You first ask yourself, what does P3 stand for? And I would like to go back and say, well, what do salespeople do, particularly in the B2B arena? They do three things. They ask questions to understand the client's environment, their situation, their problems, their opportunities you're looking for. The second thing is they do, they try to influence. Influence perspectives, influence behaviors, influence people to change. And then the third thing they do is they message. So based on their understanding and what they've influenced, they message back in such a way that it aligns to that prospect perspective.

3:25So you say, OK, we understand, we influence, we message. Where do we do those things? We do those things in three areas, which just happen to start with the letter P. We do it in problems. So we want to understand what problems people have, their sense of urgency and importance around it, the impact of them. And if they don't see certain things as important, we try to influence them so that they see them as more important and more urgent. And then when we come up with a proposal, we want a message back. Second P is people. So it's which people have those problems, which people have our interest in those opportunities.

4:04What's their perspectives, not just on the problem, but on how they might want to solve it. And the third P is process. Now, a lot of people will think process is around selling process. And I'll say, no, it's not. It's around buying decision processes. A mistake a lot of companies make, sellers make, is that they have an ingrained sales process. This is how we sell. We prospect, and then we investigate, and then we step, step, step. But instead, we want to follow a buying decision process. So that's the third piece. So we have, again, tools, concepts, best practices around those three Ps. I'm certain that there are things that you have seen in B2B sales that make you do one of these kind of, and maybe just things that you see being done.

4:56You're like, I wish I could convince the world to stop doing this. And anything come to mind? Well, two things, I think. One is just what I said, is that following a sales process, not following a buying decision process. but probably the most egregious thing that sellers do is they act as if they're selling business to consumer you know bdb sale b2c sale um it has a different uh process you give information normally about your product and your features and then you ask for the order and if you don't get the order then you go back you give more information and more details and they ask for the order so it's that they call it the b2c two-step And we still have a whole lot of sellers that sell in that manner, going back and forth between giving information and then asking for the order.

5:48So if there's anything that people should do differently, it's really focusing on problems that they solve or opportunities that they enable rather than talking about their product. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's so easy. And I think it's, you know, I don't fault anyone. I mean, we are excited about how it works, right? And we understand it. And especially, I think, for those of us that have that kind of that teaching persona, it's like, I know all the facts. So let me tell you all of them. And I think we end up just overwhelming our, you know, our guest who just wants to know if we can fix their problem.

6:26Absolutely. I have a saying that I often use, which is, I don't know what I'm selling until I know what you're buying. so you know at the heart of that that's what you said we drone on around our products and our features and our companies but in the absence of a problem that somebody wants to solve or an opportunity somebody wants to capture that makes no sense who cares right so you're excited but the prospect doesn't care it's like talk to me about me not not about you and that's and we see that in email messages. We see that in prospecting calls. We see it in people trying to link up with you on LinkedIn.

7:07Hey, can I tell you about my offering? And it just doesn't make sense. Yeah. You know, lead gen for me in the B2B world is probably the area that I get most, I don't know, perturbed is the right word. Annoyed is the right word. Some word in that territory because I see a lot of it done very badly. And to me, I'll just share from my perspective, to me, I feel really ripped off when people treat me like a lead rather than a human, right? And unfortunately, I think a lot of the lead gen language is, it just feels very transactional. And again, it could just be my personality, but yeah, like I said, I think when it comes to two people, especially if they're two leaders that we're both pretty good at what we do, So, you know, let's find a better way to start that conversation.

7:59I'm sure you've got some thoughts on that. Yeah. In P3 Selling, we talk a lot about prospecting. And the mistake that a lot of people make is they think prospecting is selling. And it's not selling, it's marketing, right? So all you're trying to do in prospecting is get someone to say, hmm, that's an interesting idea. Can I learn more about it, right? so you're just throwing something out there you're suggesting a problem or an opportunity that this prospect might be interested in solving and then all you're asking for is hey would you like to learn more about how people are solving it and that's it right uh and someone says no i don't have that problem then stop throwing it on find another problem right yeah yeah don't waste your breath or you know don't don't you're just making things uncomfortable yeah yeah so the message The message is really important.

8:54There's two other aspects to it, which is the delivery and the cadence. So it's how do you deliver that message? And secondly, how often do you do it? What's your weekly, monthly process or prospecting to have it be effective? But the key, the most important thing is the message. And it needs to be short to the point. One analogy I like to use is take a billboard on the highway. You're driving down. You see a billboard. That billboard in about five to 10 seconds needs to say four things. Who are we? What do we want? Why should you care? What should you do? And a prospecting message has to do exactly the same thing in about the same amount of time.

9:42One short message. And if it goes on and on about how you create, you know, you've probably seen it. You get an email and you scroll and scroll and you go, oh, delete, right? Yeah. It's got to be got to catch your attention right away. And the catch is a problem or an opportunity, but particularly why it's important. It's that importance piece that really catches people's attention. Yeah. Yeah. So your book, by the way, congratulations. I mean, you got about 100 five-star reviews on it. So evidently what you're talking about is resonating with folks. That's available, by the way, P3 Selling, The Essentials of B2B Sales Success.

10:23It's on Amazon. But you can also go to your website, Greg, and you can get that book through there. Do you mind maybe just sharing it again? The website is p3selling.com. would you mind maybe just sharing a little bit more about who you work with and what that looks like? Yeah, great question. Are you speaking? Are you consulting? So over the course of my consulting career, which is coming up to 20 years, I work with some very large companies, both in direct sales and in channel sales. I've worked with Microsoft, SAP, Hewlett-Packard, ncr to name a few discover card michelin but these days i work more with small and medium sized businesses and actually enjoy it more because the interesting thing about small and medium-sized businesses you can move the needle you can have a conversation you can work with a small number of people and if they do it you're suggesting it has real impact if i run a workshop for a big Fortune 100 company.

11:26You know, it's, hey, Greg, thanks for coming in. Really good information. And now we're going to get back to doing what we normally do. So a lot of my companies, some are highly technical. I've worked with a company that provides services, making robotic equipment or assembling robotic equipment for the automotive industry. Really interesting one. You know, you think, do these people have to sell? I ran a workshop in the summer for a law firm. Owner of a law firm reached out to me, said he read the book, wanted his attorneys to understand the more about selling. You think about that. Attorneys don't have to sell, right?

12:06But the reality is that whether you've got the word sales in your title or even your job description. If you have to influence people on decisions, compare, contrast, points of view, differentiate between you and another service, or even get a client to think, hey, you know, this is the right approach, then you need B2B influencing skills, which I call B2B science skills. So most of my work is with startup startups from one salesperson up to 10. I love it. I love it. So your website, and by the way, your company is, when you go to p3selling.com, it's going to redirect you to a page on soloquent.com.

12:54And is that where you do more of the consulting approach? approach. Yeah. Wonderful. Solar Current describes our consulting services. We used to do and have done a lot in fractional sales leadership for companies internationally. Doing a little less of that now, mainly because I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I care too much. And it's hard to be to run a sales team uh part-time yeah and uh and i get passionate i get drawn on it and i'm and i'm working full-time on it rather than a couple days a week so uh but there we uh we do um certainly sales training i do leadership mentoring i've had a number of clients where we've just met with the leaders and talked about sales management processes which are really critical.

13:47It's not just how do people sell, but how do sales managers manage? And that's actually an area that's woefully under-resourced, right, is first-line sales managers. Yeah, agreed. This is fantastic. Again, p3selling.com, the book, The Essentials of B2B Sales Success. I'm a huge fan. I mean, anyone that's doing great work and humanizing the process, I'm a big fan of Greg. Someone that's been listening to us, what would you recommend that they do now having listened to our conversation? Well, you have to ask yourself where you are from a business standpoint. If you stand back a bit and you say, what are the ingredients of building a scalable revenue-generating capability, which is probably a lot of your listeners, right?

14:44Small businesses, entrepreneurs. How do I get my business up and going? A lot of entrepreneurial businesses are started by a few people who really know their trade. They've got some good relationships and they get a few deals going. But how do you scale that? So there's three ingredients. One is, we talked about earlier, you need very sound sales processes. So what does a seller do from prospecting to deal management, to pipeline management? What do they call management? The second ingredient is sales management processes. I could talk to it. So how do you do a quarterly business review, a opportunity review, a one-on-one, all those kinds of things?

15:28How do you screen good sellers? And then the last thing, which is kind of less than obvious, but you can hit an execution of number one and number two. right so to go back to your your question leaders should look at themselves and say do i have a sound sales manage sales management process in place a sound selling process in place that everyone's using and do we consistently do it and if you don't whether you use p3 selling or another methodology i'd encourage you to to try and put one in place and follow it religiously because without those three things, you just can't scale. Yeah, yeah. Again, p3selling.com, the book, P3 Selling, The Essentials of B2B Sales Success.

16:16Greg Nutter, thank you so much for the conversation. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate the opportunity. Thank you again.

16:27Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, Please visit upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders, asking them where their best business comes from.

17:09I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required, where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed.

17:50I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.