John Asher is the CEO of Asher Strategies and a crazy interesting dude. He co-founded an engineering firm in 1986 and during his tenure as CEO, the company acquired seven other engineering and software development companies. His team sold the company in 1997 after growing annual revenue to $165m.
In his first career, John was the captain of two nuclear submarines like the Dallas in the movie “Hunt for Red October”. He completed his Navy career in the Pentagon as the Program Manager (buyer) of the $2B nuclear submarine combat systems program.
On this episode of The Salesman Podcast, John shares how we can hack the sales process and close more deals, faster.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- AsherStrategies.com
- John on Linkedin
- Book: Close Deals Faster: The 15 Shortcuts of the Asher Sales Method
- @ASHERSTRATEGIES
Transcript
John Asher:
Just to give you the data in the US. There’s about three million companies selling B2B. For most of those companies, is their main competition, their competitors, or the status quo? So for most, it’s actually the status quo. And so the great sales people understand that and they understand what it takes to overcome the status quo in buyers minds and the average sales people don’t. They just keep on plugging away.
Will Barron:
Hello, sales nation. I’m Will Barron host of the Salesman.org Podcast. The world’s biggest B2B sales show, where we will help you not just hit your sales target, but really thrive in sales. Let’s meet today’s guest.
John Asher:
Hello gang I’m John Asher, author of Close Deals Faster. And for us, time is money, close deals faster.
The One Thing That Lengthens All B2B Sales Cycles · [ [01:10]
Will Barron:
In this episode with John, we’re diving into how we can close deals faster. Clearly, if we can close deals faster, we can close more in the same amount of time and smash our sales targets. And importantly, importantly, sales nation, we’re diving into the science behind all of this, what we need to do to light up when we’re doing experiments on our potential customers, how do you light up their brains, get their serotonin going, their dopamine going, and how to really make them make a decision essentially far quicker than we otherwise will be able to. And so let’s jump right in. What is the most common thing that perhaps most of us would do and the B2B sales professionals that listen to this show, what’s the most common thing that needlessly lengthens sales cycles in the B2B world?
“There’s about three million companies selling B2B. For most of those companies, is their main competition their competitors or the status quo? For most, it’s actually the status quo. And so the great salespeople understand that and they understand what it takes to overcome the status quo in buyers minds and the average salespeople don’t. They just keep on plugging away.” – John Asher · [01:30]
John Asher:
Most companies have, what’s called a clog pipeline, and there are many reasons for it. One of the biggest one is, just to give you the data in the US. There’s about three million companies selling B2B. For most of those companies, is their main competition, their competitors, or the status quo? So for most, it’s actually the status quo. And so the great sales people understand that and they understand what it takes to overcome the status quo in buyers minds and the average sales people don’t. They just keep on plugging away.
What Does It Really Mean to Overcome the Status Quo in B2B Sales · [02:00]
Will Barron:
What does it mean, John, and this is going to sound like a ridiculous question, but I’m going to ask it for perhaps someone who’s new to sales. What does it mean that we’ve got to overcome the status quo?
John Asher:
So, in other words, in many buyers minds, it’s trying to get them to make the decision. And if we’re after an opportunity where the buyer is unhappy with their current provider, vendor, or supplier, then we have a real chance. But if the buyer is happy or okay with their current provider, very difficult to get them to change their mind. And when you go back to look at all these latest neuroscience studies, the stimuli that wake up the buyer’s brain, the cognitive biases, one of the main biases is called the status quo bias.
“There’s three main reasons why it’s difficult to get buyers to shift. One, there’s switching costs. Two, all buyers know that change is difficult, even good change hurts. And three, buyers just won’t shift for a 4% improvement. And so you’ve got to have a significant ROI for the buyer.” – John Asher · [02:50]
John Asher:
So all of us are conditioned to stick with what we’ve got. And there’s three main reasons it’s difficult to get buyers to shift. One, there’s switching costs. They may have an inventory of the current provider’s products. Two, all buyers know that change is difficult, even good change hurts. And three, buyers just won’t shift for a 4% improvement. And so you’ve got to have a significant ROI for the buyer and in today’s world, look at the data from the big technology and outsourcing companies, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, et cetera. It doesn’t matter what financial metric you’re talking about; higher revenue, higher cash flow, higher gross margin, lower costs. You must have at least a 15% improvement or buyers just won’t shift. So it’s those three issues you’ve got to address to get most of the buyers to change to you.
How the High-Performing Salespeople Overcome the Status Quo · [03:46]
Will Barron:
And is this, because I guess there’s two ways we could play this. We could go, right? These individuals are going to be difficult to change their minds, change their perceptions, we’ll put them on the back burn and we’ll just go after the low hanging fruit. Is that the moral of the story here, or is the moral of the story, I guess, forget the moral of the story. What do high-performing sales people do? Do they triage perfectly the sales leads and only spend time with people that are more likely to close, or do the high performing sales people have the ability to change minds on switching costs, the difficultness of it, the big ROIs? Are they able to break through those barriers?
John Asher:
Well, it’s going to sound a little trite, but, but both. And so one of the things that will really separate elite from average sales people is, average sales people go after a lot of prospects and give them a few touches, like a shotgun where the elite sales people will focus like a laser beam and really qualify the buyers. And of course, one of the few questions that you really got to know is are they happy with their current provider?
John Asher:
That’s number one. So if they’re unhappy, we got a real chance. This is easy. If they’re happy or okay, this is going to be difficult. The second thing that almost all elite salespeople want to know is, do we have an insight coach? And that comes from the Miller Heiman training, a famous training class in the US, based on the book, Strategic Selling, and the coaches, that person inside the company to which you’re trying to sell, who knows you, like you, trusts you, wants to help you get the business. So they’re coaching you on how to get the business like a football coach would. So when you’ve got opportunities where you have the insight coach who can quickly tell you whether the opportunity’s valid or not, and if they can tell you it is valid, then you’re on the right path. So it’s that qualification, having the insight coach and understanding how to upset the status quo.
How to Use Qualifying Questions to Tackle Cognitive Biases · [05:51]
Will Barron:
And there seems like there’s a gap here between asking someone on the phone you cold call, are you happy with your… And this is what a cheesy salesperson in the 80s who’s selling utilities would probably ask. But are you happy with your current provider? Clearly in a B2B context where the deal size might be 100 grand, it might be multiple millions. In my background in medical device sales, I’d be doing deals from one camera system for 50 grand to full operate theatres for multiple millions, and contracts go along that side, that of millions a year. It’s very unlikely I’m going to get on the phone with a surgeon and go, are you happy? And they’re going to give me some kind of response. So is there a element of before we can do this deep qualification, that has to be some lighter qualification. So again, stop this sticky or clogged pipeline that you alluded to at the top of the show.
John Asher:
Yes. And there’s a couple of other of these cognitive biases that apply to this. One’s called the negativity bias. So we all remember negative things that happened to us five times more than we remember positive things. So negative things that happen to us really stick in our mind. Another one of these biases is called the confirmation bias. Once we make a decision, we like to stick with it. And sometimes you’ll hear this in sales training classes called the staircase to yes. So if you can get the buyer to say yes to a few small things, when it gets time to ask for the real deal you want, the probability of getting that deal goes up significantly.
“If you ask most buyers, are you happy with your current provider? They’ll say something like this. “Yeah, things are going okay.” But if you ask the buyer, on the other hand, what do you like about your current provider? They’ll tell you a few things they like and then immediately shift to the negative. And now we get to know what we need to know.” – John Asher · [07:24]
John Asher:
So let’s apply this to asking the buyer how happy they are. If you ask most buyers, are you happy with your current provider? They’ll say something, because of the confirmation bias, they’ll say something like this. Yeah, things are going okay. But if you ask the buyer, on the other hand, what do you like about your current provider? They’ll tell you a few things they like, and then immediately shift to the negative. And now we get to know what we need to know. So it’s all about knowing how to ask because of those two biases.
Will Barron:
And are there any specific questions we should be asking? Any more intelligent questions than perhaps what do you like about your current provider? Because again, that sounds not very consultative and a little bit false and off a script, right?
“When you watch great salespeople at work when they’re meeting with the customer or talking on the phone, there’s really a three-step process. One is to build rapport. So get the buyer’s cards off the chest so they will share their stuff with you. Two, do a needs analysis to figure out what the buyer needs. And then three, of course, as appropriate, offer a solution that fits.” – John Asher · [08:09]
John Asher:
Well, you wouldn’t necessarily ask that as the opening question. So, when you watch great salespeople at work, there’s really, for them, now they’re meeting with the customer or talking on the phone, there’s really a three step process. One, is build rapport. So get the buyer’s cards off the chest. So they will share their stuff with you. Two, do a needs analysis. So you can figure out what the buyer needs. And then three, of course, as appropriate, offer a solution that fits. So if you really have taken advantage of some of these cognitive biases, they’re all about rapport building and the buyer feels great about the salesperson. Then I’ll answer those questions.
Uncover the Real Opportunities When Talking to a Prospective Buyer · [08:50]
Will Barron:
And, it seems, tell me if I’m wrong here, but it seems a lot of this psychology is perhaps working against a salesperson if the person that we’re speaking to, if their incumbent supplier is doing okay, if they’re plotting along. Does this then double down the emphasis on jumping on change with an organisation. So obviously, someone can’t have confirmation bias on a previous supplier if they’re brand new to the job, does this double down on the fact that we should be looking out for things like trigger events?
John Asher:
Of course, absolutely right. Because those are real opportunities when you can find those trigger events. And in many cases, that’s what marketing companies are all about. Doing research, watching press releases, what company bought another company. All those things that change in the marketplace. Those are those trigger events that alert salespeople that there’s a potential opportunity here.
Some of The Things That Might Sabotage Your Chances of Closing a Deal · [09:42]
Will Barron:
Perfect. And John, what are we doing every day? What are we doing that’s perhaps not as obvious as what we’re talking about here, what are subtle things we’re doing that perhaps are sabotaging our attempts to not just close the deal, perhaps the deal’s going to close, but we’re needlessly lengthening it without having to… What extra steps are we adding into the process that we don’t need to have in there perhaps?
John Asher:
Well, lets draw back for a second and I’ll give you a little bit of a bigger picture to answer that question. And then, that is, sales for decades, maybe even a century, have been based on, for sales guys, like you and me, and the audience, have been on stuff we’ve learned, advice for our boss, books we’ve read, maybe motivational speakers we’ve listened to. And there’s always been an art and a science to sales. The science is, well, have a sales process, and follow it. The art is all of us are different, different personalities, how we achieve each step in the process, we could do differently because we’re different personalities, which is okay, as long as you follow the process, that’s the best process for closing a deal. Now, things have changed. We now know the science behind how to be a much better salesperson and the new science upsets what many of us have thought was the right thing to do in sales.
John Asher:
So to give you an example, there’s been in the last five years, a worldwide forum of neuroscientists sharing their studies, their research with all others in this worldwide forum. And if you ask these neuroscientists, and by the way, in the last three years or so, many of these studies are done with what are called functional MRI machines. So imagine somebody sitting in a chair with a helmet, with a MRI machine built in. So as you try various techniques on them, you can see what areas of the brain light up, what don’t, when two different, like the dopamine and serotonin circuits both light up at the same time and that sort of thing. And if you ask these neuroscientists, why are you guys doing this? They’ll say, other than academic reasons, we’re really looking for insight into human communications, human relationships, rapport-building, decision-making.
John Asher:
And if he has these neuroscientists, well, how’s this apply to sales or marketing? They’ll say, well, what do you mean by sales and marketing? We’ll get a blank stare. So our company’s job in the last three years been to… So there’s seven of us. We’re all partners, we’re all engineers. So the seven of us have in the last three years taken a look at all these studies, we’ve catalogued 100 cognitive biases, 50 of which apply to sales. We’ve discovered the… We haven’t discovered anything. We’ve integrated from the studies, the six stimuli that will wake up the buyer’s old brain. And so if you’re with a suspect, prospect, or current customer, and you’re not using one of the six stimuli to wake up, the buyer’s old brain, closing rates would be zero.
John Asher:
And so many of these cognitive biases apply to all aspects of the sales cycle, including maybe the most important rapport building, because I’m sure you’ve heard many of the motivational speakers, maybe the late great Ziglar used to say it, maybe the best and that is, “They may buy you and not your product, but they ain’t buying the product without buying you first.”
“If you meet somebody in person now, we now know they look at our face and they give a yes or no decision in 0.07 seconds. So the whole idea of the first impression is as important as you’ve always heard it.” – John Asher · [13:19]
John Asher:
So that’s why rapport building has always been so important. And we now know it’s even more important from all these studies. So if you meet somebody in person now, we now know they look at our face and they give a yes or no decision in 0.07 seconds. So the whole idea of the first impression is as important as you’ve always heard it. And it happens faster than we ever had imagined that it happened. So there’s a bunch of these cognitive biases and old brain stimuli that apply to the rapport building that’ll get the buyer to like fast.
Will Barron:
So John, other than-
John Asher:
If you can get that step done, then the other steps are pretty easy.
Ways To Create a Great First Impression Instantly · [13:50]
Will Barron:
Other than an ugly bastard like myself, having some kind of surgery to increase that initial rapport building by getting my nose probably shortened and some cheek plants on there. What are the one, two free top stimuli that we need to be, I guess, conscious of, and then we can work down from the science to the practical application of it and how we can implement some of this as well?
John Asher:
Let’s take the first old brain stimuli. And it’s called me, me, me focused. And this comes from, mainly, from the reptilian brain part of the old brain. So the old brain is reptilian brain and emotional brain. And so, in other words, if a salesperson is giving a presentation and the presentation architecture sounds like this, here’s the vision of our company. Here’s the picture of the executive team and our facilities. Here’s the list of our seven integrated cybersecurity solutions. Let’s start with the details of cybersecurity solution number one. How about the buyer’s old brain? Will, is that awake yet?
Will Barron:
Because, I can visualise that and I’ve probably done it myself in the past, but I can visualise that’s the standard layout for a presentation.
John Asher:
Yes. So to give you a little bit of an idea on the sales people in the US. There’s about 25 million B2B, and B2G, B to government; business to government sales people in the US. The latest Harvard study shows that five million are elite and 20 million are not very good. And the turnover rate for sales people in our country is 37% per year, mainly because the lack of talent for sales or lack of training. So when you watch a great salesperson give a presentation, the first, now think me, me, me, focused. The buyer’s only concerned about itself. Their first slide, the title of it will be here is our understanding of your needs. And these latest functional MRI studies from Harvard show that in 95% of the cases, it causes a big conversation. And after that conversation is over, how many slides in our slide deck of 21 slides do we have to show? Not too many. So that’s a practical application of the new latest neuroscience studies and an example of the first old brain stimuli.
How to Use Neuroscience to Give More Meaningful Sales Presentations · [16:28]
Will Barron:
It seems like this is ridiculous, but as we’re talking about it, I feel like me and you could go deeper into this subject and it might be a conversation for another time, John, but it seems like we should invite people into our offices. Each of the seats should have some kind of movement recorder on it. And as people lean forward in their seats, the salesperson, I don’t know, just carries on going. Every time the audience leans back or starts fidgeting, the salesperson gets electrocuted. It seems like there’s an opportunity for real, and obviously that’s a ludicrous example. But there seems like some kind of opportunity with technology in the future to give realtime feedback, or maybe I’m over complicating this because people’s faces are realtime feedback.
Will Barron:
But for people who are less adapt at reading faces, for whatever reason, it seems like there should be a way to process some of this and give the salesperson, not even a leg up, just an opportunity to shine, right? Can we do a FMRI on an audience? I guess, it’s so invasive right now that that would be totally impossible, right?
John Asher:
Well, we do a lot of training in China and the Chinese are crazy with social media. So while I’m giving a presentation in China, I’m getting real time feedback from all of their WeChat messages that are shown on a big ass screen that I’m seeing.
Will Barron:
Oh, wow.
“We now know the science behind it. If you can get another person talking about their background, their issues, their passion, how they started their company, how they got their job, more dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin are released in their brain than during love-making or a great meal.” – John Asher · [18:28]
John Asher:
So the Chinese are way ahead of us in this regard. So you’re spot on there. Now, let me give you one other example of me, me, me focus. All salespeople that know anything have heard how important the listing skill is, agree? We’ve all heard this, and the late Zig Ziglar, again, used to say, “Use your mouth and ears in the proportion you’ve been given them.” That is, listened twice as much as you talk. So we’ve all learned this. We now know the science behind it. If you can get another person talking about their background, their issues, their passion, how they started their company, how they got their job, more dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin are released in their brain than during love-making or a great meal. So we now actually know the science behind why you should be a great listener. And, of course, this means great sales people need to be great researchers, great preparers. In other words, totally research the buyer before they interact with them.
The How and Why of Asking Great Questions · [18:55]
Will Barron:
Does the science translate from a high level of sticking, imagine on someone’s head measuring when the brain lights up with dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, as you mentioned, then, John. Is the science trickled down from there as to then how to build good questions or structures of that? Or is that unmeasurable, if that makes sense?
John Asher:
Yes, there’s been studies on that as well. What are the right questions? And how do you ask questions? I’ll give you just a silly one. We’ve all heard that you should take notes as a salesperson. For example, if you look at the great sales people, they’ll do three things when they’re doing a needs analysis. One, they’ll totally focus 100% on the buyer’s point of view before they’ll start talking about their stuff. Difficult. Two, they’ll ask permission to take notes and take notes. And three, they’ll summarise and repeat it back until they’ve got it right. Now, let’s just take, ask permission to take notes, which would be better; do you mind if I take a couple of notes or is it okay if I take a couple of notes? Well, if you ask, do you mind? The answer, and they want you to take notes, the answer is no. And now, yay, we get this first, no. And then, down-balance our downside to no. So the answer is, is it okay? Because the answer is yes. And now we get our first yes, in the staircase to yes.
Improve Your Sales Skill: Read Books or Consult Other Sales Experts · [20:27]
Will Barron:
And are the elite salespeople doing that purposefully, or are they doing that via habits from perhaps good feedback from previous conversations? This is something that I find a little bit squirrely of, how much of this is being super conscious of everything that comes out of your mouth and how much of it is, for the elite sales people, just look and happen chance that they say the right thing? They get a smile and a yes. And positive feedback, and then it loops from there.
John Asher:
Well, it’s another great example of, there’s always been an art to this. So we’ve tried various things. We’ve heard various things. We’ve listened to tapes. We’ve watched motivational speakers, been to sales training, and got advice from our sales manager. And most of it’s pretty good, but now we know the science behind it. And so it isn’t just happenstance anymore. We know exactly how to ask that question on getting permission to take notes because we want a yes.
Will Barron:
So I think you’ve brought up perhaps an interesting training point here. How important is it to, perhaps read a book on sales, clearly we’ll plug your book at the end of the show here, John, but how important is it to read books versus how important is it to spend time with great sales people and just try and absorb what they’re doing day-to-day?
John Asher:
Well, let’s draw back and look at books for a second. Now, if we go to the six old brain stimuli, it’s all about excitement, engagement, emotion. And we now know from these latest Harvard MRI studies, functional MRI studies, that the best way to wake up the buyer’s old brain is with a customer story. And I’m sure you’ve heard this, the best sales people, and actually the best executives too, are the best storytellers. And that is because we humans remember stories much more than we remember anything else. And so the great sales people are the great storytellers. And therefore, if you read a book and it’s all about the story of how sales people have done stuff, that’s what you remember. You don’t actually remember the technique, but the story helps you remember the technique. Does that help?
John’s Go-to Resources to Get Better at Storytelling · [22:41]
Will Barron:
That makes total sense. And just on this, because we’ve covered storytelling before on the show, but I’m always intrigued. I want to improve it myself from both a comedic standpoint for other entertainment avenues that we’re going on with different podcasts, but also to be able to better serve the audience. Are there any resources you can recommend to learn to get better at storytelling?
John Asher:
Well, the latest studies from Harvard. So, imagine a buyer in a chair with this functional MRI machine and the researchers tell a story, a customer story, 10 different ways, 10 different architectures to the story so they can see exactly what’s the right architecture, the best wake up the buyer’s old brain. Would you like to hear an example?
Will Barron:
Sure.
John Asher:
Okay. So, Will, let’s say you’re the running mechanical contractor and I’m the sales guy. And I can say, Will, last year we worked for a company just like yours, right outside of London. And Walt, the sales manager told me that sales have been stagnant for two or three years. So I asked Walt, how many sales people do you have? He said, “21.” I said, well, where’d they come from? He said, “Well, we’ve never really actually hired a salesperson. Most of our sales people have come up through the customer service route. They’ve been field technicians. Three of them are actually sheet metal benders who want to get into sales.”
John Asher:
So I said, so, Walt, what’s the aptitude, sales aptitude of your sales force? He said, “Well, what do you mean by aptitude? What do you mean by aptitude?” So we gave all of his sales guys an aptitude assessment. Few were high for aptitude, and few were low, most in the middle. In other words, his sales group has the sales aptitude of the general population, which of course, is not what you want. You would like to have most of your salespeople high or medium-high. So we helped Walt restructure the sales force over nine months, he ended up with nine high aptitudes, seven with high moderate. Sales went up by 30%, and since he was getting more sales with less sales people, gross margins went up by 70%. So now, if you really were a running a mechanical contractor about halfway through that story, your old brain is feeling like it’s in the story and near the end, your old brain’s going, wow. I wonder if I could get those same results. So that’s an example of the ultimate optimum story architecture from Harvard.
Sales is Simple: Just Make Your Buyer Envision Using Your Product and Make Them Feel Good About It · [25:10]
Will Barron:
Because that ties back into the me, me, me element of this and even to confirmation bias, if you want to change that. And this is a ridiculous question, should everything we do be focused on getting the customer’s mind to literally visualise them, using us and feeling better for it. Can we dumb sales down into a sentence as simple as that?
John Asher:
Pretty much, pretty much. Not like that’s the only sentence.
Will Barron:
We’re done here, John. We’re finished, that’s the end of the podcast. That’s the end of the show, no more podcast episodes.
John Asher:
Is it happy hour time yet?
Here’s How the Foundation of All Sales Training Should Look Like · [26:30]
Will Barron:
Because I don’t think most salespeople perhaps think like that. I don’t think that’s a mindset. That was off the top of my head there as I’m filtering and processing this, but that changes, that whole sentence changes most sales training as well. Most of the feedback I get from the audience, 20 to 30,000 people listen to this episode and more will listen over the years to come. Most of the feedback I get is, we get too much product training, not enough speaking to people, communication, “Sales training.” But when we shift it into this element, I don’t think there’s many training companies, a new amount of data, and this you might know otherwise. But I’ve never had sales training where it teaches us how to build a story, build imagination in someone’s mind, build enough rapport that they’ll sit with you for 10 minutes as you go through this. So is that what we should be focusing on? Should that be the top level of sales training and then everything else comes underneath that?
“One of the other main stimuli in our old brain is clear contrast. So for the old brain to make a decision, it needs to see a difference. And so if you only offer the buyer one option, and this is multiple studies across the 33 industries in the US, the closing rate is 10%. But if you offer the buyer two similar options, the closing rate goes to 64%. That’s a difference in closing rate of 640%. So the bottom line is never only offer the buyer a single option. And even if you only sell one thing, you can still offer two versions.” – John Asher · [27:24]
John Asher:
I mean, I totally agree. And as I mentioned earlier, the great thing about understanding all this science, neuroscience, is in many cases, it totally upsets what sales people have thought was the right thing to do. So we’ve covered one already. And that is, try to jam products down people’s throat, as opposed to tell a story about one of your customers. Another one we covered was always start presentations with the customer needs. Now here’s our understanding of your needs. So there’s two right there that upset what salespeople think. Here’s another couple of interesting ones. One is called a single option aversion bias. So one of the other main stimuli in our old brain is clear contrast. So for the old brain to make a decision, it needs to see a difference. And so if you only offer the buyer one option, the buyer, and this is multiple studies across the 33 industries in the US, the closing rate is 10%.
John Asher:
But if you offer the buyer two similar options, the closing rate goes to 64%. That’s a difference in closing rate of 640%. So the bottom line is never only offer the buyer a single option. And even if you only sell one thing, you can still offer two versions. Now, there’s a second bias that goes into this called the choice paradox bias. So the choice part of the choice paradox bias means many sales people think if I can just get the customer to listen to all seven of my solutions, one is bound a stick. The paradox part of the choice paradox bias goes back to the second little brain stimuli, keep it simple. If you give the buyer more than three options, their old brain becomes confused and will a confused brain make a decision? We know, no. So if you take the single option aversion bias and the choice paradox bias and combine them, never offer a single option or more than three.
John Asher:
So the right answer is always offer the buyer two or three options. And you see it play out in real life, I mean, a lot. If you go to an upscale restaurant with your spouse or partner, anniversary dinner, and the restaurant has specials, they almost always have two or three. It used to be, if you were my age, buying a car 30 years ago, there was all these options to consider. Now, only two or three packages. So there’s something that totally upsets what salespeople think. One, if I can just show them everything we got, something’s bound to stick, and we’ve only got one product I just have, that’s the only choice.
Why You Need to Always be the First to Present When Trying to Win a Deal Against Your Competitors · [29:40]
Will Barron:
That’s the bottom level of, or the end result of, if you are a true consultant, you’re going to narrow down your product offering naturally, because you’re going to have had that conversation. You’re going to have done that discovery. So again, we know we should be doing that, but then if we’re only offering one product, perhaps we’ve not done enough discovery. And we know we’re not appreciating that the customer wants some flexibility in there as well. So the science is almost proving what we know we should be doing, but aren’t doing anyway, right?
John Asher:
Totally agree. Totally agree. Here’s another interesting one. Your company poses question to the audience, your company and two others are after a hot, hot opportunity. And you’ve all got to give a presentation in the same day to either a buyer or a group of buyers. And you have an insight coach, and she says, “I can influence whether you present first, second, or a third.” So imagine which one you would like to be; first, second or third. Now, if you ask, when you do surveys of salespeople in the US, 80% will say third, but because of the anchor bias, always go first. And the reason is, when the buyers hear the first presentation, I mean, unless it’s all hosed up, you’re the first presentation, their old brain anchors on it. And when they hear the second and third, they don’t try to do all this difficult complex thinking to change their minds.
John Asher:
They look for anything negative, remember the negativity bias, to get rid of it. So always present, if you can, always be the first to present. Now, there is an exception, and that is if the buying process is spread over months. Let’s just say, Will, you’re looking for a wealth advisor. You haven’t had one yet and you want one and you’re going to talk to three others. You’re in no hurry. You’re going to talk to three of them over the next several months. In that case, you want to be the last person to present to you. And the reason of this, it has been too long. So, your old brain would have forgotten the anchor from the first one. So if it’s all in the same timeframe, always be the first to present. It totally upsets what most salespeople think.
Will Barron:
John, if you read the books, either, I think one’s called Positioning or the other one’s called, I think, it’s The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. I think, it’s Eric Reese or something like that. Have you read those, or even one of those?
John Asher:
I’ve read a crazy, I’ve read 800 books. I know that sounds crazy. And most of them are sales and marketing.
Why John Believes Marketing Has Always Been Ahead of Sales · [32:57]
Will Barron:
Because I love what you described there, are essentially principles from the book of essentially positioning yourself against the competition. It’s better to be in your own subcategory rather than trying to chase the number one or number two. And the reason I’ve got this stuff in my mind is we’re launching a sales video product in a few weeks time called The Sales Score, Relaunching It. And I’m doing everything I possibly can to position it against the mainstream of sales training. And we’re coining it as self-development for sales people rather than sales training for the corporate world. And I don’t want to pitch it to the audience now in the show, but everything that we’re describing here, all the psychological principles seem to be well covered in these books, marketing books, that were written 20 years ago. Are marketers ahead of us in this game? And do we have something to learn from them, or did they assume some of this, and only now the science is catching up to prove the hypothesis?
John Asher:
I think marketing’s been ahead of sales probably 10 to 15 years. I’m guessing. I mean, remember Neuromarketing, when that came out. That was a huge, huge impact on the market. And a lot of that, not all of it, but a lot of this stuff, is in Neuromarketing. So yes, I think marketing’s way ahead of sales in this area.
The Overlap Between Sales and Leadership Skills · [33:30]
Will Barron:
I’ll ask you one final question before the final question, John, and that is, is there anything that we can learn from, it could be marketing, it could be HR, whoever outside of the world of sales? Is there any standout thing that’s a high leverage point for sales people that we’re perhaps haven’t considered, but other parts of a business have?
John Asher:
Do you mean outside the whole realm of neuroscience or anything?
Will Barron:
Anything, I guess, just as broad and as wide and as someone as well read as you, is there anything that salespeople should be considering that they don’t were as marketing, for example, do consider it?
John Asher:
So I’ll give you one idea. When you read a lot of books about leadership in sales and look at the skills needed, they’ll overlap, in my opinion, 80%. An example is the storytelling. The great sales people are the great storytellers. The great leaders are the great storytellers. So if you’re going to be a great salesperson and you aspire to go up the ladder, sales manager, perhaps, CEO, then all those skills apply. And this neuroscience, I’ve got a whole section on how it applies to decision-making in the corporate world. And a lot of it’s the same as in sales. That’s one great thing about a sales career. The possibilities are endless if you do well in sales.
John’s Advice to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [34:48]
Will Barron:
For sure. I think it was Matt Cameron we had come on to describe the quickest way from going from, I don’t want to say zero and piss off the whole audience. But from salesperson to where basically the show was from zero to CEO, and he reckoned sales and leadership from that perspective was one of the quickest pathways to get there in the corporate world. So that ties in nicely, which is awesome. And I appreciate that, John. And with that, mate, I’ve got one final question. I ask this to everyone that comes on the show, and that is, if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, the young John, what would you tell him that would help him become better at sales?
John Asher:
OMG. If I’d have known what I know now, when I first started in sales, I’d have to sold so much more. So my main advice is there’s really five factors for success in sales, and you got to have all five. One is strong product knowledge, lobbyists. Two, is a natural talent for sales, easily measured by assessments. Three is the selling skills, which we’ve really been talking about. Four is self-motivated. And five, working for a company that has best practise sales and marketing processes to support the salesperson. When you see all five of those, now we’re talking.
Will Barron:
And if you could, if you were in a computer game and you could add so many points to one of those attributes, say, they’re all five out of 10, and you could have another three or four attributes to one specific one, which one would be the one that you’d work on?
John Asher:
Well, aptitude. So, big picture, based on big studies, they call them meta-analysis of large studies; the summary of studies of HR and sales institutes, aptitude accounts for 50% of the sales results. And a combination of the other four factors are the other 50%. So aptitude ain’t everything. But if we’re hiring sales people without it, we’re really tying one arm behind our back. And so if you’re a salesperson and know your aptitude, let’s just say it’s moderately high. And you know your aptitude, you know your basic personality traits, and you learn to stretch when you need to; you can have a higher virtual aptitude than you’ve actually got.
John Asher:
So that’s the first thing to work on, is who am I? How am I a fit for sales? Where am I not quite the best fit? And how can I stretch in those areas? And I’d say the second one to work on is product knowledge. Because if any of us deal with the salesperson, it’s pretty obvious after a few questions from us that they really don’t know what they’re talking about. We’re not talking to them much longer. So product knowledge is pretty much binary, right? You’ve got to have it to be successful. And if you don’t have that, it’s pretty tough.
Parting Thoughts · [37:34]
Will Barron:
I love the description of it being binary. I am going to steal that for future use, John, and with that mate, to wrap up, tell us about the book, Close Deals Faster and where we can find out more about you as well, sir.
John Asher:
Well, you can go to our website, asherstrategies.com and we train 70,000 salespeople in 22 countries, including the UK, and the book is called Closed Deals Faster, came out about six months ago. The day it was available, it sold out on Amazon. Now, maybe, there is only three copies available. Just won an international book award as The Best Sales Book of The Year. And of all the books ever sold on Amazon, it’s in the top 3%. So doing pretty well.
Will Barron:
It’s amazing stuff. We will link to the book, we’ll link to your website, a few other things as well in the show notes of this episode over at Salesman.org. With that, John, I want to thank you for your time, mate. I really enjoyed this conversation. I always, I don’t know if you know this, the audience do, my background is in chemistry. I’ve got a degree there. So I love talking about all this stuff and nerding out and we probably could have gone a whole lot deeper if we had another four hours to chat. So I appreciate that, mate. And I want to thank you for joining us on the Salesman Podcast.
John Asher:
You’re welcome. And I’m a physicist. So yeah, we could have a great time.
