Episode 35: David Kurkjian

David Kurkjian 00:00
As human beings, when we meet somebody for the first time, we're most comfortable when we're talking about something that we're passionate or knowledgeable about. And for sales professionals, that's their product or service that they represent. So you get somebody to raise their hand and they say, Yeah, David, I'm interested in learning more about your product or service.

Jack Hubbard 00:20
I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same banking to people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Raths with modern bankers. Welcome to Jack rants with modern bankers brought to you by rail Pro and vertical IQ. Each week I feature top voices in financial services from bankers and consultants, to best selling authors and many more. The goal of this program is simple to provide insights success practices, and to bring new ideas to the table that you can use to maximize your results. My guest today is David curmudgeon a found in master messaging in 2012. Year in a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Clemson University. But don't let that analytical major confuse you. Dave is a great sales trainer and a terrific storyteller. His new book 6x convert more prospects to customers is completely aligned with my belief in the importance of great questions within a framework of trust based selling, you will very much enjoy my session with Dave curmudgeon, my latest guest on Jack rants with modern bankers. Here we go. Dave and I were talking about getting into business. And he's been in business 11 years but and wrote this great book that we want to talk about today. But I always like to start Dave with with something around tell me something good. And the reason I do that is I work with a bank, that where the manager or a regional manager in business banking always says, For every pipeline meeting before anything else, all the numbers are talked about, tell me something good. I love to start out that way. So tell me something good. Well, something good in the world that we live in today, especially with what's what's going on with the world economies, the sales profession is going to continue to shine. And and the reason for that, you know, I hear a lot of

David Kurkjian 02:42
comments around artificial intelligence and chat GPT. And this is going to threaten the sales profession. But Jack, you and I both know, based on the number of years that we've been in the sales profession, that things don't get done in the business world, unless two human beings can agree on something. And so the good news is, is that the sales profession should and will continue to be held in high regard. Because it's going to take sales professionals to bring again, two organizations, two companies together, and and to solve problems inside of those organizations. And the other good thing about that is that a sales professionals will dare to be a little bit different, or unique, and really invest in their profession. Don't don't just show up every day and do the same thing that you did the day before. You know, read books on sales professionals read on how you can be creative in the way that you communicate the value of your product and service. So there's a lot of good around the sales profession, if you just look for it. And again, apply yourself in a way that, you know, it just really brings out the excellence and you're wrong. And I would add to that you you work in different industries than than I do. But I would add to that, that if you can do what you've just expressed, read more books practice, and use a lot of the tools that are in your book, you'll stand out because most salespeople are fairly mediocre at what they're doing. Yeah. And that's unfortunate, because the sales profession can be one of the most creative professions in the business world, if the sales professional will just see it that way. And then take the time to again be unique in the way that they carry out their role. That's true. Well, the fact that you got to execute and this is an interesting economy to execute and you work in a variety of different industries, from a from a salespersons perspective in this economy. What are you seeing what's happening out there? You know, certainly I'm seeing some companies hold on to their money, not not spending as much as they might in and again an economic upturn. But going back to what you heard We say, you know, just a few minutes ago, the sales professional is still going to continue to thrive and be unique. So I think the the things that sales professionals need to focus on is really the value that's represented in their product and service, they have to be really, really clear about the challenges that their prospects face, and their unique ability to solve those challenges. And the temptation is to talk a little too much about what their product isn't, does, and not so much about what it means to the person that they're having a conversation with. So in today's world, when the you know, Economic Times are tough, and companies are holding on to more of their money and budgets are tight, it really is on the sales professional, to be that much better in communicating their value. Because when value is communicated, you get the price point that you're asking for. And you also can create a sense of urgency for your prospect wanting to have that product or service in.

Jack Hubbard 06:05
And one of the ways to do that is to read your book 6x and convert more prospects to customers. It's an interesting title. And by the way, it's a great book, you know, it's all more I got it all marked up and stuff. It's very, very good. But I'm always curious of how people decided to write this book. But I want to combine that with another question. Yeah, it's an interesting title. And there must have, you must have a meaning for the 6x. Yeah, the 6x goes to one of the first clients that we worked with, where we did a custom training engagement. So the first three years again, Master messaging was founded about 11 years ago, the first three or four years, we did off the shelf training, just same for every company, bumped up against a CRO for a software company here in Atlanta, that had a big problem. And the problem was, they were only converting about 8% of the initial conversations into the next stage of the sales process, which by the way, you should be seeing somewhere between 40 to 50%, that that that would be more of the industry standard. And so what we did is we created a custom program using the principles that are in the book, and applied it specifically to their software, and the personas and individuals that they had to have a conversation with, after we train them around that custom program, the next quarter, their conversion rate went from 8% to 47%. So they saw a six time

David Kurkjian 07:41
conversion, if you will, in that conversion rate. And obviously, that's going to have a ripple effect as you go throughout the entire sales process. If you've got almost half of those initial conversations going into the next stage, again, it's just going to play out to more revenue. So that's where the title of the book came from. Well, that's interesting. Let's talk about that next stage and what you're seeing in

Jack Hubbard 08:06
bank, bankers, but other industries, tracking this whole process. You know, obviously, there are some very large CRM systems and score carding, and things like that. But I find in banking, that people many times still look at numbers of calls made and number of sales made, but in between, all of those are coaching moments and coaching opportunities. And when you talk about converting six acts, there's got to be a way for you to measure it, how are you and your clients measuring those kinds of things, so that coaching can take place to move this ball down the field? Yeah, yeah. So you know, it's interesting, you would, you would think that most CROs or VPs of sales would be very maniacal about knowing what their numbers are. But Jack, the client that we worked with, initially, that the again, the story that you just heard, there, they were so much a rarity. So what they did is they looked at the different stages of the buying process. And for again, an example with a software company, it's typically a discovery call. You're trying to communicate the value and your ability to solve a problem in the prospects world. But you're also trying to figure out, are they really a prospect? I mean, are they really a good fit for what we do? So that's all trying to happen in that initial 30 to 45 minute conversation. The next step is typically a proof source and in the software world, that would be a demonstration, a software demonstration. From there, you would go to the scope of work, okay, so you understand the value, you understand how the software works and what it would look like in your world. Alright, so how is that going to play out inside of your organization? What's the scope of that? So for sales leaders, they really need to be clear about what are the necessary

David Kurkjian 10:00
Every steps that the salesperson is going to have to walk through to consummate a sale. And if you're tracking inside of a CRM, you'll be able to see, hey, for X number of deals that were thrown into the funnel

Jack Hubbard 10:14
80% of them resulted in a first call of those 50% resulted in a software demo. And so as you track these things in a CRM, to your point, Jack, as a sales leader, you can see, wait, we just got we got 80% of our leads to a software demo, and then it just dropped, they just went away. Well, that would be an indication of an ineffective software demo. And so we need to look at what the salespeople are actually doing and saying, and more times than not, again, in the software world, here's what happens. The software engineer gets so excited about the fact that they have a prospect that's actually interested in their software, they show them everything. It's like, hey, we do this. And we do that and and all the prospect is really interested in is prove to me that the value that you communicate in our first conversation is actually real, just just prove it to me. And there's also ways to continue to build value the perception of value in a software demo. So if you're tracking the numbers, you can see where deals are falling off, where there's problem spots, and then you can provide specific coaching around. Okay, here's how we need to improve the stage of the sales process. So we can get more deals through the phone. And what you just talked about as metrics that matter if you've got some if people are making a software demo, and then everything drops off and you don't your close rate is very low. Is it the demo? Is it how it's demoed. But we will know that until a sales manager goes out on a joint call, and actually sees it for himself or herself. Well, let's talk about time. You talk in the book about a Gartner research study that basically said that, that buyers spend about 17% of their time with salespeople and the buying process. They're spending a lot of other time with other things like research, et cetera. What what does that mean for salespeople today? Well, it means they need to be more prepared. Again, going back to something that you heard me say at the outset of our conversation today, sales professionals do themselves a disservice if they just show up and go, Hey, I'm going to do exactly what I did in the last call. And so by being prepared, here's what I mean, you need to be very clear about the challenges and the problems that the person that you're going to have a conversation with is experiencing in their world. And you also need to be very clear about your unique ability to solve those problems. And in that first in that first conversation, since only about 17% of the time is going to be spent by the buyer actually interacting with salespeople, what they're trying to figure out is, what is your uniqueness? How are you different from the other companies that I'm talking to? So you have to be laser focused around communicating those challenges and communicating your unique ability to solve those challenges. And don't talk about other things, because in the volume of information, the most important things get lost.

David Kurkjian 13:26
And so, yeah, I mean, it really comes down to preparation, you got to be prepared, you've got to take advantage of that little bit of time that you have with a prospect and make sure that you do your best in communicating the unique value that you represent to them. No doubt. And that leads to one of the things you talk about in the book, which is three behaviors, the challenge salespeople today, what are they? And what can be done about them? Yeah, you know, put that under the category of sales professionals behaving badly. And I love it when I when I'm when I'm doing workshops and facilitating workshops, I look at the room and I go, Hey, you all have been sold to give me some examples of sales professionals behaving badly. And they typically hit on all the three that are documented in the book. So the first one is, we have a tendency to share way too much information a product or service. And here's what happens as you start talking about the thing that you're passionate about the product or company that you represent, dopamine starts dripping on your brain. And the dopamine makes you feel good. So it can cause a dopamine or drug induced feature dome, where you just share a lot of information about what your product is and does. Now, it goes back to something you heard me say just a minute ago, in the volume of information, the most important thing is get lost. So one of the principles that comes out in some of the coaching that I do for executives, because every now and then I'll be getting be asked to coach an executive on a preparation for a really important speech, or presentation. And so I always ask the executive, what's the single most important thing you want the audience to walk away with? What do you want them to remember? And then I coach them around, hey, as you're building out the content, ask yourself this question is what I'm getting ready to include in the content is going to support that most important thing or take away from it. So mistake number one is just sharing way too much information, again, be laser focused on the problem that you can solve and your unique ability to do that. So the second challenge, again, this is sales professionals behaving alike. Put yourself in the position of a buyer. And think about the fact that they've probably reached out to three to four companies that can solve their problem. And so they show up on a zoom call, or the salesperson actually shows up in a conference room. And what what happens, they pull up a PowerPoint presentation, and they start going through this PowerPoint presentation in the way that they're communicating with the prospect. If I were a buyer, I would put a gun to my head, and just I would be so far, I mean, I'm like, I gotta do another one of these, where I'm sitting, and I'm being presented to. And so mistake number two is that sales professionals, they're not doing anything unique, or different, to stand out from the crowd. Or they're not really representing the uniqueness of their product or service. So here's one unique thing that almost no sales professionals do in today's world using zoom or Microsoft Teams, did you know there's there's an ability to whiteboard to actually use whiteboarding inside Yeah. And when I'm communicating with a sales leader around the value of partnering with Master messaging, I whiteboard, and at the end of the call, 95% of the time, that sales leader will look at me and go, can you teach my salespeople how to do what you just did? And the reason that they're asking that question is because it was unique, and different, and nobody else is doing. That's just one small example of how you can be unique in your ability to communicate value. The last mistake is actually the most damaging, and it's the one that causes people to look at the sales profession with you know, with an eye roll. You're one of those, you're in the sales world. And the reason for that is that we make the conversation all about us. We do this we've been in business this long, we've got world class, customer service, we and I and the person that you're having a conversation with, guess what they care about them. And so there's, there's one thing that you can do, to help yourself be more focused on the point of view of the person that you're having a conversation with, and not your own point of view. And that's to use you phrasing. So instead of saying, you know, Hey, Jack, I'm going to share with you the three mistakes that most salespeople make in their role. You would hear me say something else you would you would hear me say, Hey, Jack, what you're getting ready to hear. You're gonna hear how salespeople make mistakes, instead of I'm going to tell you how salespeople make mistakes. So this concept of you phrasing, it's very difficult to weave into your conversation, because we've been hardwired to look at the world that we live in from our point of view, which is why we say I and we, and the person that you're communicating with cares about them. And so when you say you, it triggers their brain to actually pay more attention to what's being said, because you started the sentence with you instead of iron wheat.

Jack Hubbard 19:22
Outstanding. The other thing we hear a lot is something around value propositions, but you've spun it a little bit. Dave, you talk about value positions. What's the difference?

David Kurkjian 19:37
Yeah, what? So this one, this happened about, Gosh, about six years ago, I'm in a workshop by halfway through the day and one of the salespeople raises their hand and says, Hey, our value proposition is and then they gave me their value proposition. And Jack, I looked at them and I asked them, I just asked this question. I said, Hey, why don't you know that there's value You associated with that. And they, they were puzzled there. What do you mean, we just I just told you the value proposition. I said, Yeah, but proposition is a suggestion, you're proposing something, you're not taking a position around your value. So if you're clear that your product represents value to the prospect that you're communicating with, plant your flag around that take a position around that make that the focal point of the conversation, as opposed to saying, our value proposition is or suggesting that we have any. So I could say something like, Hey, there's a barbecue restaurant down the street, I'd propose to you they got pretty good barbecue. That's a lot different than me saying, Jack, if you come to Atlanta, and you want the best barbecue, you need to go to that restaurant, that's taken a firm position. So that's, again, it's it's a little bit of a nuanced, but it's important, because salespeople need to be very, very clear, and, and very anchored around the unique value that they represent.

Jack Hubbard 21:00
And it also allows you to customize the value proposition for that particular situation. Which leads me to another point that I loved in the book, you talk about s, sales, conversation, roadmap, S, C. R, I just love that. Dave, talk about that a little bit. Yeah, so

David Kurkjian 21:19
the sales conversation roadmap came out of realizing that the first conversation that a sales professional has with the prospect is the most important. Because if you don't communicate value in that first conversation, there is no second, third or fourth, right. And so the it led me on this journey of what needs to happen in this first conversation. And what's a simple tool or framework that salespeople can use to customize what they say, but still have it result in communicating very high value. So the first step is understanding how human beings perceive value. And this actually comes out of the work of Daniel Kahneman, who's one of the most brilliant behavioral psychologists in the world today. So he won a Nobel Prize back in 2003. I think it was in economics as a behavioral psychologist, which is unheard of. So the simplified explanation of how human beings perceive value looks like this. It shows up in a contrasting worldview. So it's literally Mr. Mrs. Prospect. This is what your world looks like today without my product or service. contrasted against this is what your world could look like with my product and service. And it's in the side by side comparison of those two things that people perceive value. Now, in 11 years working with over 250 companies, I asked the question in every workshop, how do human beings perceive value? Because value is so important in the role of a sales professional and what they need to communicate? Jack? I've never gotten the right answer. So I wanted to build a simple framework that would allow salespeople to create a custom conversation for each prospect that would accomplish this contrasting worldview. By the way, I'll give you a quick example of contrast leading to value. I participate in a 50 mile bike ride to raise money for children with autism every year. We do it in July, it's up in Delaware with my brother and sister in law live. And they drop us in the middle of Delaware on a rural road, and we ride 50 miles to the beach. Last year, the part of the road that they dropped us on unbeknownst to the organizers of the race, they had just recently stripped it of its top top code. And if you know anything about riding a street bike, that's a recipe for disaster, we had five miles of stripped road that we're having to avoid rocks and pebbles and not blow up our tires. And after five miles, we hit the newly paved section of the road. And every one of the riders immediately exclaimed, oh my goodness, this is the smoothest road that I've ever written a bike on. They wouldn't have said that if we had started the race on the smooth road, because there would not have been any contrast. So the sales conversation roadmap, here's how it works. In order to build contrast in the mind of the person that you're communicating with, you need to start with the known challenges that exist in their world. And again, as a sales professional, you have conversation with prospects that have the same challenges every day. So please, Mr. or Mrs. Sales Professional, don't show up in an initial conversation in the first few minutes. Look at the prospect and go, Hey, what keeps you awake at night? Because you just telegraph to them. I don't understand your world. I don't know anything about you. And that's not what you want to do if you're building credibility and trust. So go ahead and hold out to them. And by the way, don't say Hey Jack, you've got a problem. You could say Hey, Jack in talking with other bankers, here's What I'm hearing that they're challenged with, they're challenged with this in the economy, they're challenged this with a finite product or service. And they're challenged with this, and the impact of that. And now you can telegraph. Here's how it's impacting your world. So you introduce the challenges, you introduce the impact, and then you ask a very important question, Jack, what does that look like in your world? And let them talk. Now, the other part of the sales conversation roadmap on the other side of the equation, after they've answered some questions for you. Now you can paint a picture of what their world could look like with your product or service. And you start that with just the simple statement of hey, what if you could, and then fill out the sentence of what they can do differently. After you've painted this picture, they're going to want proof that it's actually real. So you need to provide some proof and a customer testimonial, or maybe a software demo. Now they're going to be interested in what the product isn't does. So I'll give you a silly example of how this could play out. Let's say, I show up at a cellular store one day, and I tell the salesperson, hey, I'm one of those weird people that never wanted to have anything to do with a smartphone. I thought they were evil from the beginning. But I woke up today. And I'm kind of curious, Hey, what are smart smartphones all about? Here's what most of the salespeople would do. They go grab the latest iPhone off of off the shelf, and they go but you've never seen one of these. They're amazing Gorilla Glass aluminum backing, it's got 128 gigabyte hard drive, it's got an eight megabit eight megapixel camera, and it all was in a form factor that's less than a pound. Don't you want one? Give me everything that it isn't does. And I have no understanding of the value of meaning for me. Now let's say I walk into a competing, so your store that understands the sales conversation roadmap, understands how to build that, that story arc and create value. And they just asked me Well, David, tell me a little bit about you and your world. Okay, well, I'm married. I have four adult children. And my oldest daughter just got married, moved out to Portland, Oregon. We live in Atlanta, and she just gave birth to our very first granddaughter named Charlotte. And the salespersons listened to that and goes, well, how's that working out for you? Oh, it's horrible. It's horrible. My wife is an emotional mess. She wants to get on a, you know, a five hour flight every two weeks. It's expensive. She's gone. I'm upset. It's horrible. And so he looks at me and he says, Okay, I understand that. So what if you could see your granddaughter every day, just like she was standing right next to you? What if you could see her first steps? Or maybe more importantly for you, David? What if you could see the expression on her face? The first time she says granddaddy, you can? It's called a smartphone. Do you want one? At that point, I would just say, hey, prove to me that's real. They pull up FaceTime, they'd show me how it works. And then I would ask the really important question, well, how much do they cost? If he said, $10,000, I'd say I'd take two. Because of the perceived value for me in the way that he created the contrast around, you're frustrated, you can't see your, your granddaughter, your wife can't be there to support her. And then all of a sudden, he paints a better picture of what my world could look like with a smartphone. And you know what Jack never said anything about the smartphone, just painted this picture. So that's how you use the sales conversation roadmap. And again, it's such a simple formula, but the the impact of it in communicating unique value to, again, the prospects and customers that you serve. That I mean, it's priceless in being able to do that so easily.

Jack Hubbard 28:41
And for bankers, one of the things we talked about is, is something around our friends and vertical IQ sponsor, this podcast. And one of the things they talk about is 300 different profiles of 300 different industries, and the challenges they face. If I'm a young banker, or a branch manager, and I don't have a lot of experience, so I can tell the stories that you've told, I can go in there. And I can say, you know, based on some of the research that I've done, I found these three things about your industry, they're kind of challenging. How does that relate to and goes right back into your sales conversation roadmap? That's outstanding. Well, people remember somewhere between 70 to 80%. When they hear something in a story, and 5% and facts and numbers, you just told two stories that I think people can really relate to. What about anybody that has grandchildren knows that 10 grand is nothing compared to being able to see your grandchildren? And number two, the bike story. So people will go back to this podcast and they'll say, Oh, I remember Dave, he's got that bike story. But Dave, a lot of salespeople aren't very good at this. And in the book, you talk about stories and hooks. I'm curious about hooks and talk to me about Why don't people do a better job telling stories?

David Kurkjian 30:04
Yeah, you know, it is interesting. And by the way, at the end of a workshop or an engagement with a client, of course, Master messaging, we're going to be asking them, hey, what, what did you like? What didn't you like? And overwhelmingly, the feedback that we get is that because the facilitator More times than not me, incorporated so many stories into the day, they felt like it wasn't an eight to nine hour workshop, they felt like it was more like two to three hours. And they said, we, we can remember and apply everything that you taught, because you encapsulated into a story. So here's how you can do that. So again, it's a very simple process. But obviously, it's going to take a little bit of practice and a little, little bit of time to get good at it. So the one of the most impactful stories that you can tell is a personal story. And the reason for that is it, it opens up the relationship with the person that you're trying to build trust and credibility by sharing something about yourself. Now, in the business world, the important thing is that you have to tie that personal story to something that's relevant to the world of the person that you're having a conversation with. Okay? And so see if I can think of a good example real quick. So give me I tell you what, let's, let's make this interactive, give me a problem that bankers face in their role from from a sales professional standpoint,

Jack Hubbard 31:35
the customer extends the sales process, because they're looking at not only bank alternatives, but fintechs.

David Kurkjian 31:46
Okay, so they're extending the decision making process. And for the banker, that can be frustrating, because they're hoping to close that relationship sooner than later. But it keeps getting put off. Okay, so if I were having a conversation with a banker, I might say something like this. You know, I was thinking about some of the challenges that you face, as I was preparing for our conversation today. And it reminded me of an experience I had not that long ago. For years, I've had an arthritic right knee, and I had been putting off treating it because I have a love for running. And I had an assumption that if I had a knee replacement, I wouldn't be able to run anymore. And so my initial conversation with a surgeon and the surgeon was like 10 years ago, and they looked at my my arthritic right knee, and they said you need, you need to get a knee replacement. I'm like, No, I'm not going to do it. So I exposed myself to more pain and suffering, I could continue to run. And that's a whole different story. Because I shifted to barefoot running, where I didn't have anything on my feet, again, whole nother story. But I was able to extend my running career. But I couldn't, I couldn't go on a walk with my wife, I couldn't mow the yard, I couldn't do things throughout the normal course of day, because of my arthritic right knee. So I made the decision two years ago to get in mind to get my knee repair. And what I found is that the technology today is so much better than what I thought it was that it's not impacting my ability to run or do other exercises. So that's kind of like the challenges that you're facing in your world where your your prospects are putting off this decision, what they're putting off is the realization of the value that you can bring to them. And just like I didn't get to experience the value of a brand new knee, I could have experienced that a years ago, but I put it off and waited when I shouldn't have. And that's that's a lot like the problem that you're seeing in your world where, again, your prospects are putting off this decision. Now, if you and I have an opportunity to work together, there are things that you can do in the conversation to create more of a sense of urgency. And in the same way that my physician created a sense of urgency for me to go ahead and get that and he replaced. So again, to unpack that you have to understand what's the problem that you're going to be addressing for the person that you're going to have a conversation with? And then look into your own life and find where did you experience a similar problem like that? And then tell the story around that. And and

Jack Hubbard 34:23
you and I could do this because we've done it for a long, long time. But if there's a younger salesperson who has never done this, they need some coaching around this. So I always say to Baker's when you're going on a sales call two things, number one image, what might happen, what might that buyer say? And then how would you tell a story around that? Because if you're 29 years old, 35 years old and haven't had many sales opportunities, and somebody says, a particular issue, the only way to address it is by what you know. And that's back to your products again. But if you can image this and kind of see, okay, well, I would tell this story. What happens if you don't have a story? I think it goes right back to coaching. A good coach will have sales meetings, and they'll say, okay, you don't have these stories. But here are a couple of stories the bank has, or a couple of stories that Bell South has, that you can tell. Now, it sounds all good, but let's put it into your voice. Let's roleplay it, let's say it, talk about it to each other. We don't do enough of that with Dave, we don't invest enough time in ourselves, to be able to when the rubber meets the road when we're out with a buyer to make that atom. And you never get a second chance to make a first impression. You already talked about

David Kurkjian 35:45
that. Yeah, yeah. Well, and again, that goes back to some of the things that we've touched on earlier. And that's, you know, preparation, be unique and different. Invest the time, in preparation for every conversation that you're having. And part of that is just out of respect for the person that you're going to be meeting with. You know, I, we experienced this sometimes when we go into see doctors, they're just so wrote in what they're doing is this, this, this, this, I found a doctor that that is so personable, and so involved in my life, that actually look forward to going to see him because he's so different from a lot of the physicians that I've experienced in my past.

Jack Hubbard 36:22
Yeah, that's really true. And you talk about discovery call. But one of the things that you and I both know, it no matter what the industry, unless it's a quick transactional thing. It's discovery calls. And that sales conversation roadmap for the first call that earns you the right to the second one very likely has to change. And so as you get deeper into discovery calls, what's your thinking is Jack got an opportunity here to earn this earn in this business? So you go in and you make a solution presentation, and now's when the negotiation starts to happen. Right and eloquent chapter on negotiation, what's going on there?

David Kurkjian 37:04
Yeah, you know, for salespeople, then you need to recognize that there's, there's three different functions to move a prospect from a where awareness of your product to the sales part to negotiation. Okay, so negotiation is not selling. And that's the first thing that a sales person needs to understand your focus on negotiation is for the two of you to walk away satisfied, the two of you to walk away going, Okay, I got I got the financial transaction that is really, that really, again, puts the value to the product or service that I represent. And the person that you're communicating with the prospect feels like they got a good deal. That's the goal. So you shouldn't be selling anymore. And some of the common mistakes that salespeople make is they're they're so focused on the sale, they know the margins that they can offer, or the discounts that they can offer. And they're like, I'll just give Jack, the biggest discount, and let's get this deal done. Right, they just go right to the bottom line. Well, there's a couple problems with that. If the prospect comes back to you and says, Okay, what more can you do? You got nowhere to go, right. So you're at the bottom. The other thing that can happen is that can communicate to the prospect, you don't really have the conviction around the value of what it is that you're selling, because you just dropped the price dramatically. So what you want to do is, understand whatever that discount amount is, let's say it's 15%. So the first negotiation should maybe drop at 5%. Okay, and if they come back and go, now, I still need a little bit more, then go maybe 3%, then maybe 2%. Guess what you're communicating to the prospect. Hey, I'm about to hit that bottom level of where I can go and discounting because it keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And that actually feels okay, on the other side of the equation because they feel like okay, this is working well. The other thing that you want to pay attention to is if a prospect ever asks you for something, you can ask them for something in return.

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David Kurkjian 39:39
This happened with a cybersecurity software company based out of Tel Aviv, a recent client of ours in the negotiation stage, the CRO said, I really need to get to this number. This is where our budget I really need to get to this number. And I said okay, I would be willing to do that, if you would mind Get three introductions on the on the tail end of our engagement. If you walk away more than satisfied, not just satisfied, but more than satisfied, you make an introduction to three qualified opportunities that you believe would benefit from our services. We got to the end of the engagement, of course, I looked him in the I and I said, Were you satisfied? He got a, you blew away my expectations. I said, Okay, be looking forward to the three introductions. Guess who he introduced me to one of them was the venture capital firm that invested in their company in like their third round. It's a very large firm based out of Australia called Macquarie capital. And in that introduction, I now have three of the Macquarie capital portfolio companies that they've now introduced me into, to do some work for. So again, I felt good about that I got value from it. I didn't get the, you know, the price point that I was looking at, but I got something of equal or greater value as a result of that negotiations.

Jack Hubbard 41:03
Absolutely. And I've always said, in the absence of value, price is always the issue. And you talked about that very early on. And there's a there's a great example of a win win negotiation, your client got tremendous value, because you were there, and you got tremendous client value, because you were there and you got some referrals. Well, let's talk about referrals. Before we before we end, because I've got a couple more questions. So one of the things that I find that some folks are still a little reluctant to use or don't use as well, is LinkedIn. And you talk about it in the book, and I wanted to frame it around referrals and finding opportunities and providing value. How are you using LinkedIn? And what are you talking about in the book around LinkedIn?

David Kurkjian 41:52
Yeah, you know, LinkedIn, it's, it's interesting, because it's changed a lot in the last three to five years. We started being very intentional about the use of LinkedIn five years ago, when a lot of sales professionals weren't really leveraging LinkedIn. And LinkedIn, for the most part, historically has been viewed as an online resume. Right. It's a place where you can build your here's all the things that I've done in my career, and, and if you're interested in hiring me, you can go and see all of that. Well, from a prospecting standpoint, or from a referral standpoint, there's a problem with that. Because a prospective client of master messaging doesn't care that I've worked for Bell, south and CareerBuilder. And you know, all these different courts, they don't care about that. They care about what I can do for them, or the value that they can get from a relationship with me. So one of the first things that we did is we changed the profile of our employees to read more like a landing page or marketing page for sales leaders. So Jack, if you go and read anything about my profile, you're going to hear you're going to see content specific to the sales world, or the sales leader, it's all about them. The other, the other thing that's happened is, business development reps or sales reps, will reach out to you and want to connect with you. And as soon as they connect with you guess what they do? Pitch, right? Hey, Jack, I got something I want to tell you. We have a meeting. Right. And you know what that feels like in a social network, which LinkedIn is, even though it's more geared towards business professionals, here's what that feels like. It'd be like me being invited to a dinner party at your house. I don't know anybody in the room other than you. And I quickly find out that one of your guests is the president of a software company that has a sales team of about 50 people. And 10 seconds into the conversation when I first learned that I look at them and go, Oh, my goodness, I've got a sales consulting company, I need to come train your salespeople, hey, let's talk about how that would work and what the pricing would be in a social setting. That president would look at me and probably slap me in the face and like, what are you doing? We're here to have dinner with Jack and his wife and you know, have fun. That's what it feels like when salespeople do that inside of LinkedIn, because they haven't done the most important thing. And that is communicate some value. In other words, hold out something of value in that relationship. And so if again, going back to the social setting, I've had a conversation with the President of a software company. And you know, I might ask a question around, you know, hey, I'm curious. For your software engineers. Yeah. You know, so what are some of the challenges that they're bumping up against, in rightly communicating their value? They're doing this, this and this. Hey, well, here's a suggestion. Have them try this instead, before they ever show something in a software demonstration. Have them ask the prospect how they're doing it today. Oh, oh, yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. That's great. And then What did I just do there? I wasn't expecting anything in return. I didn't say I got a sales consultancy. I didn't say anything about doing work for them. I just gave them something of value. Now what may happen in a social setting like that is they may turn around and go. Well, that's very interesting. How did you come? How did you come across that? Oh, well, I did you know, all this research and payroll psychology is, as it impacts sales. And actually, I've got a consulting company that helps sales organizations like yours, oh, well, you need to come in and talk to our salespeople. That's a lot different than what's happening inside of LinkedIn today. So for anybody that's listening to your podcast, here's what you should be doing. If you make a connection with somebody like Jack, you need to find out what's important to Jack. And you need to maybe research an article about top three trends in the banking world for 2023. And then share that with Jack. Hey, Jack, I know we just recently connected I ran across this article, I thought there might be some value for you in it. Just let me know what you think. Do that a couple of times, and then circle back and go, Hey, I think there's an opportunity for you to be able to do something like this in your world. Let's have a conversation as to how that can happen. And if your listeners are paying attention to what what they just heard me say, I didn't say anything about what I do. What I would say is, Hey, Jack, I think there's an opportunity for you to to increase the number of people that you move through your buying process by about 20%. Think here's an opportunity for you to do that. Let's have a conversation about what how that would look. Again, I wouldn't say hey, I think there's an opportunity for me to train your salespeople, because that's about me. That's not about you. So for your listeners, you have to come up with these value position statements of what your prospects can do differently because of access to your unique product or service. And you need to hold those things out in the communication that you're creating.

Jack Hubbard 47:03
That's that's spot on Dave and I and I, my business partner, Brent Tillman always says, connect and pitch is a bait and switch. And that's, that's what you just talked about? Well, this has been your your point earlier about your training, going from eight hours to two and feeling like this went really fast. This time went really fast. And I really appreciate it. And I hope that everybody gets out and reads this book, six times convert more prospects to customers. It's really outstanding, but they view your reader look behind you. I mean, you read who else influences you? Who else are you reading or hearing on podcasts that maybe our listeners would benefit

David Kurkjian 47:49
from? Yeah, Dan Pink would would easily be my favorite author. There's a couple of books that I would recommend recommend to sell as human, especially in the banking world. I don't know if you've run across this. But when I end up working for attorneys, or CPAs, they don't like to have somebody come in and teach them how to sell. Because they hear the word sell. And they're thinking, Well, I'm not a sales guy. I'm a lawyer. Right. And what Dan does so brilliant, brilliant, brilliantly in his book to sell as human is the identifies that doesn't matter what profession you're in, inside of corporate America, 40% of your time is going to be spent convincing or communicating with another human being around an idea or topic that you want them to agree on. Guess what that's called, it's called selling. So to sell as human. The other book that I liked from damping is called Drive. So it's all about motivation. What motivates people? Again, these are things that go into, obviously, the sales profession, you got to understand what's motivating the person that I'm having a conversation with. Another one, John Medina, a molecular biologist that wrote an amazing book called Brain Rules. So he, he breaks down the function of the human brain into 10 basic principles 10 basic functions of the human brain. And one of the things that shows up in there is this whole topic of whiteboarding. So in the research that he did, if you have a verbal conversation with somebody, best case scenario, two days later, they'll remember about 20% of what you said, if you can anchor that same conversation around a visual image, they'll remember over 70% of what you said. So there's some very important principles in that book Brain Rules that sales professionals need to pay attention to. Wow,

Jack Hubbard 49:48
well, Dave Kerching this this time went by like nobody's business, and, boy, I hope people do a lot of business with you. And to in that regard, how can people get a hold? Have you if they're interested in working with you?

David Kurkjian 50:03
Yeah, the simplest thing to do would be to go to our website. And that's Master messaging.com. On the website, you can also buy the book 6x convert more prospects to customers. We also have an online course that was recently developed for individual contributors that may not be a part of a sales organization that we would come in and work work with. But all of that can be found on Master messaging.com. And if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, it's David Curtin. Again, one of the only David corrections inside of LinkedIn. And that's due to my Armenian heritage. And again, obviously a very, very unique last night.

Jack Hubbard 50:43
Well, Dave, thanks so much for your time. And good luck to the Atlanta Braves. I you know, they're a fine team and just far in a way better than most most teams in baseball, and the city of Atlanta certainly deserves that. It's a great town. And thanks so much for being with us today.

David Kurkjian 50:59
Hey, thanks for having me, Jack. I really appreciate it.

Jack Hubbard 51:02
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