Guest: Shawn Sease

Discovery calls are typically auditory-only affairs, but this episode of Market Dominance Guys reminds us that we are physical beings having a full-person experience. As Chris emphasizes, you don't converse with a brain in a jar, so why disconnect your body from the persuasive power of discovery? From micro-prancing, to miming props, to the hepatic value of gestures and pauses, your physical presence profoundly impacts connection, emphasis, and revelation. Body language not only expresses what pure words cannot, but it heightens the musicality and truth-emergence Chris describes as “letting the silence breathe.” So start envisioning your prospects, get your blood pumping, and bring your whole self into alignment with the call. It’s time to let your full-bodied discovery create breathing space for truth. What non-verbal techniques will you incorporate next call?
This is a continuation of last week's discussion with Henry Wojdyla and Shawn Sease. You can listen to the previous episode here.
EP206: Mastering the Art of Silence How Pauses Can Improve Discovery
Links from this episode:
Shawn Sease on LinkedInHenry Wojdyla on LinkedInCorey Frank on LinkedInChris Beall on LinkedIn
Branch49ConnectAndSell
 
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Below:
 
Corey Frank (00:00):
Chris, I know you and fetching Ms. Fanucci got back from a recent trip to the wine country in the south of France, and I think you told me a few stories about how certain wines need to breathe after they're open differently than others. And Henry, it sounds like what you're trying to teach us here is that there are certain questions that you can just let, is there a French term for that, Chris, that breathing? What's the wine? 
Chris Beall (00:24):
My French sucks, but it is ironic when you think about it, right? I think this actually is a pretty APTT analogy you've brought up. The wine is corked so that it almost doesn't breathe. It actually breathes a little bit. This why real corks are considered to be important in some kinds of wines because there's a little oxidation that needs to go on over a long period of time. There's a little breathing, but then you went a lot of breathing reasonably fast. I have no idea what that is called In French, my French got better after 21 tastings one morning before lunch, and then we climbed a mountain together that it was really quite fluent, I'm sure at that point. But I don't think I knew how to talk about this, but it is really something. I mean, this is true in music also. The silences are where the music has actually heard, so to speak, when you're learning to play. 
Chris Beall (01:13):
Henry is a musical person. He's been involved in this sort of stuff too. When you're learning to play as a little kid, the rest don't mean nothing to you. And when somebody's a virtuoso, the rests are everything. It's the timing of the silence and the precision of the silence that allows the listener to become part of the music. And that's what you're really looking for in discovery is you want the other person to become a producer of the music of these truths that are coming out and you're working together on them as shunts. I love that. We're going to do this together. We're not going to do it. I think that's not so much of a command, like I'm setting up a set of conditions. Either you do this with me or we're not going to do it. It's a statement of fact. Either we're going to do it together or we're not going to do it, as in we're not really going to get it done. 
Chris Beall (02:02):
We're just going to kind of sound like we're getting it done or act like we're getting it done. And getting to the bottom of stuff is quite difficult with folks. It takes pregnant pauses. I mean, pregnant pauses give birth at some point, and sometimes they give birth to stuff that's pretty magnificent to something new and it's the hardest thing we love to fill in. You imagine a podcast, say we ran the podcast like this, Corey, you ask a question. We all just sit here and look at the audience for, I don't know, 30 or 40 seconds. 
Corey Frank (02:34):
Yeah, yeah. Take off the glasses once in a while, right? We've talked about that here at branches is the world of hepatic and NLP, and I know we have to cut you loose here in a minute, Henry, for a seven or eight, nine or figure deal here that you're pursuing. But can you use those verbal disfluencies, the hepatic, the pregnant pauses to take off your glasses and lean forward as if we were together where there's a figurative me reaching out just slightly touching your knee as I take off my glasses and leaning forward a good doctor would like a good therapist would, and tell you what I think. And with the deep baritone with the late-night FM DJ voice that our friend Chris Vos talks about, there's a musicality of that glorious bastards, right? One of my favorite scenes is towards the end when they're trying to impersonate, they're an Italian film crew. 
Corey Frank (03:25):
We all remember it. Christophe Waltz knows that they're not Italian, but he has them introduce themselves name by name, and he says, what's your name? And is his Antonio Margarita or whatever his name is? Well, say it again. Let the music flow. He says, let the music of your name flow. And I just thought that was incredible that there's certain words that you can enunciate and Henry's got a great tone. I could listen to Henry read the phone book Vincent Price, and you have Christopher Lee and there's one that will post to this that I tagged Yuan, a LinkedIn post from a gentleman who I thought had, what an incredible novel way to introduce himself. His name is Andrea Kliman. Chris, I don't know if you saw that. Ronan a good friend, Ronan Ssar, but his intro, the gentleman, and you remember this call Shawn. It was all pushed forward by his tone. 
Corey Frank (04:19):
It was very novel, it was very serendipitous and it wreaked of authenticity because of that and the trust he had me, and I've never heard an intro like this before. We'll link it to this podcast here so people can hear of it. Then I did while you were talking, Henry and Chris, I think my French sucks too, but the appropriate term is eon, I guess to aeration. And so I think we said Eon de latia. So the Wtia method is to ask a question and to just let it breathe and let it aate. Let ruminate. 
Henry Wojdyla (04:56):
You're making it sound far more eloquent than it probably really is since you've mentioned a few names. Someone for me is a more recent discovery. I'm sure you're been aware of him for some time. And Corey, he's in your neck of the woods there in Scottsdale that really I think has some good thinking and training around this is Jeremy Minor. I'm assuming you're familiar with Jeremy. Don't know what your thoughts are there. Not really tremendously get into it, but I've just found some of his thinking around it. Helpful. At least for me. 
Corey Frank (05:20):
He uses hepatic a lot where he'll use the props, right? Henry of take it off his sunglasses and emphasizing, and we have Chris and Shawn Miller. We have a lot of standup desks and I'm Sicilian, so I have to talk with my hands and I have to have a prop in my hands at all times. And so I think maybe the last thought, Chris and Shawn and Henry for you, certainly as you're dealing with high stakes deals is things and props and pacing mechanisms. You do the micro prancing, Chris, which I'm sure keeps you on pace for your phone calls, but maybe we'll put a bow in it and go around the horn between Henry and Chris and Shawn here on your go-to techniques. If I'm a new sales rep and I don't employ just fluencies or tonality or I'm not aware of my tonality or I don't use props or micro, give me your one go-to that I should have in my arsenal as a new sales rep when I'm doing discovery. So Shawn, let's start with you. 
Shawn Sease (06:12):
I got here. I'm afraid if I say something, I'm going to steal Chris's thunder because I've been mentoring under him for so long that I might say something that I learned from him. 
Chris Beall (06:21):
Don't worry, Shawn, I ain't going to run out of thunder anytime soon. 
Shawn Sease (06:24):
Yeah, yeah, go ahead Chris. 
Chris Beall (06:28):
Well, I was on somebody else's podcast yesterday and we're talking about language thinking and speaking. What happens when we speak and we tend to be very abstract about these concepts. We act as though we might be chat GPT, and it's just one word after another coming out. We add the disfluencies, we add the tonality, we start to sing, and we think that we're doing that with our brain and maybe some little part of our voice box or something like that. I truly believe that we think with our whole body and we've never walked into a room none of us have, and there's a brain and a jar and we have a conversation with it, right? The person is a whole person. When I'm micro prancing, I'm a whole person in motion. I realize not everybody in our vast audience will know what micro prancing is. Just so you know. It's a technique I accidentally developed to train for a very difficult marathon, the Mount Lemon Marathon in Tucson in a room in India, that in which I had 10 meters in which to train, and I'm getting ready to run 23 miles uphill, one mile flat, one mile super uphill, one mile, very down. So that's what micro prancing is. For those of you who want to learn more about it, there is no place you can go to learn about micro prancing. It just is what it is. Well, 
Corey Frank (07:47):
Actually, sorry, Chris. There is a place you can go see the old Monty Python Ministry of silly walks. I think that's probably the closest that people will get to your microprancing. But go ahead. 
Chris Beall (07:57):
Yeah, that was Michael Prancing too, which is a special thing. But to me it's like when you're bringing your whole person to be helpful to somebody else, you are a whole person. You're actually a physical person. You're not just a bunch of words streaming out. You're not a recording of something. It's not a trick. You're there to be authentic. You have to also be in your physical self, and it's fun to play with people like that. I do it on calls all the time. I'll do a thing where I do this. It's like we're talking about cold calling us. I hold up the flight school shirts. I see flight school, right? Because it's real. And that's how we think about others too. We think about what we're hearing from other people with their bodies also, and that's why you have to be highly respectful of the late great Stephen Hawkin. 
Chris Beall (08:47):
Can you imagine having that little control of your body and being able to think and express thoughts that big? It's one of the most amazing bridging of a gap that's fundamental that we take for granted. However, he had a wonderful physical struggle, which was actually physically communicating. So without that, the game can't be played at all, so to speak. So anyway, my advice to folks about this is you and the other person are both real people. Zoom didn't make us into anything else. We're still physical bodies and references to that. My story about my first conversation with Helen of substance where I said, use the word blood. There are words that invoke physical reactions in us or evoke them that allow us to get closer to the truth with each other, that break down some barriers that offer opportunities for silence that's productive, and it's smart to learn how to use those words fluently so we can use them fluently when appropriate. You cannot be disfluent on any words that you can't emit fluently. It just doesn't work. It just doesn't. Your body has to be capable of executing the language in a way that works for the other person all the way through if you want to execute the language in a way that works for them even better. 
Corey Frank (10:09):
It's not mere words that matter. It's not just belief. As we've talked about right now, you have the triumvirate of your words, your belief and your body, it sounds like. That's great, Henry, thoughts on that? 
Henry Wojdyla (10:21):
My answer is going to be a little bit different. In fact, in some ways it's not necessarily contradictory, but I think you use the term hepatic. Is that correct, Cory? Just to show how little I know about this. 
Corey Frank (10:30):
Yes, it's part of this. When your aunt grabs your cheek, when people touch your elbow, they touch your knee just naturally at the base of conversation. 
Henry Wojdyla (10:37):
I think when it comes in the context of discovery call, and if I'm really getting into a deep, I almost might go to the other direction, meaning I will often close my eyes, sometimes I'll even rest my head on my hands, whatever. Again, these are telephone-based, so I'm not mostly on a Zoom. I'd probably conduct a little bit differently if I was in that format, but somewhat like I was saying, shut up to allow them to speak. I'm also shutting up in blocking out all of their sensory perceptions. So I'm really truly listening, very simple, not necessarily the most elegant answer, but it's the truth, and I'm finding that it's actually really helping. Nothing else that's going on through my mind. I'm not looking at all the multiple screens that are in front of me, any distractions. It is 1000% focus on that prospect. The words that are coming out of the mouth, the what they're saying, the way they're saying it, what they might not be saying. It allows me to really, really just drill down, distill things, and I kind of get that mental image of the confessional that Chris and you talk about. So that's probably the mental imagery that's going on, but that's how I try to physically manifest it. 
Corey Frank (11:38):
Yeah, I can see that. I'm sure, Shawn, when you close your eyes, you still see and feel and hear the drill instructor from when you were 17 years old. But what other advice would you have for somebody jumping onto a discovery call in this world? What's the one technique you would give to them as we round out this version of the market Dominus, guys, 
Shawn Sease (11:58):
Earlier today, I shared another phrase with you that I believe, I think it's universal truth and it's kind of self-evident that the truth is curative, right? The truth is curative. And I mean, if we're going to actually be able to share secrets with each other and have real confessional-type conversations that it has to be genuine. And then you bring up the concept of how to listen, right? How do you listen? And just one technique that I have found, I picked it up along the way from other psychologists people before me again, is to say things back to people, to say back to somebody what they said to you, right? It requires that you listen. And I think another important add-on to that is to say it back to them. If you can have the acumen and experience and so on, to say it back to them in a way that maybe fortifies or even improves what they said. 
Shawn Sease (12:41):
And from a discovery and sales perspective, if you want to build, truly build trust, say it back to, even if you disagree, if it doesn't fit with where you need them to go, which would be persuasion and convincing and things like that, which I am just not a fan of, I'd rather have a conversation with somebody, say it back to them and they say, you know what? That's interesting. Or say it back to them in a way that fortifies their argument, especially if you disagree. And then when you hand that baton back to 'em, my experience and what I've learned from trying it is that they'll continue to talk or they'll say, that's right, the gvo thing. Right? Negotiation. That's right. Great. Okay. Next, let's move on to the next thing. So that was a lot in there, authenticity, listening. The truth is curative all outside of the scope of very popular things like persuasion and bending people to your will and being crafty and things like that. It's just simply not my way. I prefer to go that other route that is genuine and authentic, and those are some of the tools I use to get there. 
Corey Frank (13:34):
Beautiful, beautiful. I love that. Especially that word you do it effortlessly is certain words that resonates in the language for me. And I have a list of 'em, but the one that you just mentioned, you said fortify. That's a very underutilized word, wouldn't you say? Think Chris and Henry. That's a good word to use earlier. Chris Henry, I think you and I peaked up when Chris used the word longitudinal qualities. Things have longitudinal clients. It's that's a good one. But the last question, lightning quick here, Henry. And I know you've been very gracious with your time, but I'm curious, do you screenplay and script out your discovery calls? Do you have the first X amount of questions? Do you have a goal in mind? You've done this so many times, the hundreds of millions of dollars in worth of properties and assets that you've sold and helped a broker through. But for your discovery calls in this new era over the last few years or so, do you screenplay them or script them out, or how do you structure them to make sure that they're replicable? 
Henry Wojdyla (14:32):
I do have the euphemistic playbook I talk about, which is literal. I've got the copyright here in my desk in front of me. The discovery call is structured and scripted and thought through. I will tell you I'm using it less and less, and it's partly for the reasons of the topics that we're discussing here. Some of it's perhaps just having gotten the reps now so many times that some of it's just getting ingrained. But I'm finding that if I'm truly discovering and truly letting the prospect, more importantly, it becomes less and less reliant upon scripts. There's still a basic framework in place. Obviously, you have to have a certain objective, and we have a little bit of benefit perhaps because we're in a very narrow niche. It's very well defined. We know who we're speaking with. There's not really much in the way of qualification that needs to go on. 
Henry Wojdyla (15:16):
They're definitionally qualified if they're in our tam. So that's a separate topic. So there's certain freight that doesn't need to be carried in our particular discovery context that might be in others. So with all those caveats in place, I'm finding that I am moving further away from a kind of regimented discovery call. If I had to guess, just take the long view here, I'm going to probably cycle back. But when I get back to the more structured approach, it'll be a re-engineered, reconstituted approach that's going to be much more heavily reliant upon tonality and sub-concepts we've been discussing here. 
Corey Frank (15:48):
I get it. I am more of an advocate myself, Chris, and I'll give you the last word as we round up this episode on screenplay Out, every pause and in the Discovery, the Cohen Brothers from Big Lebowski. Every “dude” was screenplay, was scripted, was written in there on purpose. David Fincher from, I think, Fight Club. Every nuance is written in there. And there are certain directors that are just adamant that what they write, they want the actor a pause, an “er” alike to be in there. And I find that helps replicate because we have a larger team, Henry, obviously with your team there as a contributor with your practice. But we're trying to scale it up, and I'm trying to look for the factors that would diminish the opportunity in that discovery call. And so every nuance or word matters, but Chris, give the last word to you on this episode of discovery and tonality in the world of discovery calls. 
Chris Beall (16:50):
Well, I love the point you just made. I mean, we practice as professionals at anything so that we can improvise based on what's happening without the practice. We have no foundation for improvising, without being willing to improvise. We can't adapt to reality. So reality, that's where the truth, the truth is out there somewhere and everybody has a plan, as they say, until X, Y, or Z happens. But you better practice your plan, so to speak, so that your speech can be ballistic, so to speak, right? It's like you can't throw a ball or you can't do anything that's athletic, a little tiny piece at a time. You've got to get to the point where you can do it smoothly. And then having learned that you can do it in reality, where there's going to be things that interrupt the smoothness, you can riff safely 
Corey Frank (17:41):
For sure, or right. When in doubt, just let it aerate. Just let it breathe. 
Henry Wojdyla (17:46):
Let it simmer. Let it simmer. 
Corey Frank (17:48):
That's beautiful. Well, excellent. Well, thank you gentlemen. Thank you, Henry, for jumping on this episode of Market Thomas. Guys and Shawn, thank you for having, it was a pleasure, the professor, professor of Prospecting, stop on by the studio. 
Henry Wojdyla (18:03):
I'm glad we could. So it's good to see everybody, Shawn and Snake to make your acquaintance been a fan of yours on LinkedIn for a while, so it's nice to thank you very much. Yeah, absolutely. 
Corey Frank (18:12):
That's beautiful, 
Chris Beall (18:12):
Guys. That was really cool. I love it 
Corey Frank (18:16):
So far. Chris Beal from Connected Cell. This is Corey Frank. Until next time.
 

What's the secret sauce to nailing discovery calls? Is it your intricate questioning strategy? Your ability to build quick rapport? We're exploring an underappreciated element today - the power of tonality. 
From a Marine drill sergeant's verbal shock and awe to real estate power players commanding eight-figure deals, our esteemed guests get vocal about vocal dynamics. 
Join Chris, Corey, and their guests, Henry Wojdyla and Shawn Sease as they battle assumptions, pregnant pauses, and the occasional restraining order. You'll hear straight from the horse's mouth why tonality eclipses terminology and how losing your cool in discovery can cost you deals. If your team overlooks today's vocal victory tips, you'll condemn them to tone-deaf discovery call defeats. Listen to this episode: Mastering the Art of Silence: How Pauses Can Improve Discovery
Links from this episode:
Shawn Sease on LinkedInHenry Wojdyla on LinkedInCorey Frank on LinkedInChris Beall on LinkedIn
Branch49ConnectAndSell
 
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Below:
 
Corey Frank (01:14):
Welcome to another episode of the Market Dominance Guys, with Corey Frank, and of course, always at my virtual side is Chris Beall, the stage of sales, the prophet of profit and the hawking of caulking. But we also have two other extra special guests. We happen to be graced in our in-house home Phoenix GCU-based studios with the professor of prospecting, Shawn Sease himself. Good afternoon, Shawn.
Shawn Sease (01:42):
Good afternoon. Thanks for having me.
Corey Frank (01:43):
And we have one of our eight registered listeners, Chris, of our podcast, the most gracious and esteemed Henry Wojdyla from RealSource. Henry, it's great to have you on the podcast, back on the podcast. I think you're one of our earlier guests, I believe so, Chris. So good to have you, gentlemen. We have a first here at Market Dominance Guys. We actually have four talking heads, three brains amongst four talking heads, so we'll see what we can do here.
(02:12):
What we wanted to talk about is something we were talking about before we jumped on air. And Chris, I want to have you have the opportunity to tee up Henry, because I thought it was a compelling topic about tonality, but not just in cold calls, which we often talk about the surfboard and the surfer. But Henry brought up a very compelling point. Shawn, I'd like to get your take on this too, about the importance of tonality and when and how you use it in discovery calls. Chris, so I'll leave it to you to tee up our good friend Henry here and let's dive into this topic.
Chris Beall (02:42):
Sure. I mean, the conversation we were just having was about how much of the, well, we were talking a little bit about Branch 49 and how much of the waterfront makes sense to cover or the funnel or whatever. The big question is always, where's the bottleneck? We always talk about theory of constraints on this show, and we also know if you ever address the bottleneck, you got to stand back. You have to stand back when you've done something about the constraint and see if it moves and if so, where it moves because it's actually not easy to predict. It could move up or it could move down, so to speak, in the processes. Doesn't move sideways too often.
(03:16):
And Henry was talking about how when we were just chatting out there, not where you're sitting, not where he's sitting or he's sitting or I'm sitting, but where somebody else's or you're sitting, Corey. He was talking about how the tonality and disfluency is also the whole tonality package I call it, has actually become as important or more important to him as he's evolved in the way that he does discovery. And what I thought was so cool about what he hit on is we call it the confessional. And the question is, well, what are you confessing to? And while you're doing that confessing, are you learning? Are you getting self-knowledge, knowledge of your situation as a result that's facilitated by the conversation? And I think that was a point that Henry was making. So at that, Henry, what was the point you were making? Because frankly, I was just eating tacos and listening in.
Henry Wojdyla (04:09):
Well, it was probably the ride-on piece to the opening comment I made about some recent conversations, Chris, you and I have had, and I'll keep it brief to get back to your question. But the fact that the top of funnel has been improved so much by the good thinking here from Market Dominance Guys, the facilitation from ConnectAndSell, it gets back to the wood-turning analogy that you had so wisely laid out probably at least a couple of years ago on this podcast. But the idea that I can get enough reps in that I'm beginning to pattern match and seeing ghosts in the machine, so to speak, as it relates to discovery. And a lot of what I've been discovering about my own discovery process has been effectively getting out of the way. And a lot of getting out of the way is facilitating the prospect to do more and more self-discovery.
(04:54):
I will tell you that I'm not quite, I don't have a fully baked theory on this yet or the framework has not been completely fleshed out. So this is definitely a work in progress and I'd say some of my insights are only really becoming to manifest in the last couple of months, but tonality has been a huge piece of that. So getting back more to the core of what Corey and you are asking me. The tonality piece, not just open-ended questions, but the framing of those questions in a way that elicits, I think hopefully a sign of genuine concern and a search for meaning from the prospect so that they can effectively self-discover by being more open, not necessarily just from a trust perspective, but I think almost more open in their own thinking, what they are willing to put out there. I know I'm speaking in very broad strokes, but nonetheless, it's like I said, it's a work in progress, but I'm realizing just how crucial tonality is in the discovery call.
(05:50):
I was thinking it was primarily in the domain of a cold call. It very much is too. But I've been slowly peeling back the layers of my own self-limiting beliefs on this topic. And in fact, Corey, as I think I mentioned to you a little bit before, I was frankly a bit skeptical when I was an early listener of just the importance of phrasing, tonality, voice. I thought, "Oh, that's just huckster salesmanship type stuff," and I'm a convert. So I've come a long way in that and I'm just realizing that not only is it important, but it's important across a broader range of the sales cycle.
Corey Frank (06:26):
Well, it still may be huckster sales-type stuff, but it works. It's the laws of gravity. I may not believe in gravity, but gravity believes in me. Shawn, from your perspective, especially being a DISC connoisseur, what do you say to what Henry is confessing to us here about tonality and with the four different types of personalities perhaps are some personalities more susceptible, more open to that verbal disfluency, the ahs and the ums and generating that authenticity where it doesn't sound like a TED Talk, it doesn't sound like the 150th time I've done this?
Shawn Sease (07:06):
I think that the research on the personality stuff, especially the DISC, the four different personality types, that data is pretty conclusive that it does matter how you speak to people. But it's probably not, it's one of many, many different data points. But to answer your question directly, to get in the weeds a little bit, the I, the influence type in DISC are the kind of people that will eat up a whole entire discovery call talking about their fishing trip if you forget to get them on task. And in contrast, example to that is if you're talking to somebody calculative like a CFO, an engineer or something like that, you may want to dispense with pleasantries. But on the other hand, I think it's still very effective to just be mindful of the words that we use, like genuine transparency or being transparent, being genuine, being authentic, empathetic, things like this.
(07:57):
If you're not being true to those definitions, I mean, in even a maybe religious way or something like that, if it's not true, then it comes across as disingenuous and that just reeks. It reeks of sales and commerce and things like this. And so yeah, there's no doubt about it, tone, pace, pitch, all very important. And if you're listening pretty well, people will tell you everything and people are just dying to tell you their stories. And that's what I always find weird about people who have trouble with discovery. And I would trace it right back to your inability to not only create a rapport with somebody so that you have a longstanding rapport, but at the very moment that you start a conversation that you can enter a rapport.
(08:36):
And let me give you an example. Frequently, I send Chris weird messages maybe at 8:00 or 9:00 or 10:00 at night or something like this when I have an idea. And Chris will come back and tell me, "Hey, it's a bad time. I'm walking. I'm getting on a plane to go to Europe," or Australia or something like this. So Chris and I have a rapport, but sometimes when I call him up, it's the wrong time and we have an inability to begin a rapport, to have a conversation about what I wanted to talk to you. Timing's not right. And just pay attention to what someone's telling you and they'll tell you everything you need to know.
Corey Frank (09:04):
Do you find, that's an excellent point. It begets the question, Henry and Chris, on to partition a discovery call. We could break this down like our friend Oren Klaff does when he does a pitch. Are there certain aspects, Henry and Chris, when you're conducting the discovery call that you've found or that you discovered require more sensitivity to tonality, verbal disfluencies than other portions of the call? For instance, you're talking about pricing, you're talking about pain, or when you're talking about building the rapport upfront, anything that you've observed or anything that you discovered in that area?
Henry Wojdyla (09:44):
I would say if I had to frame it, if there's a typical structural pattern to my discovery calls, it's probably, I'll call it step two. The first step to some degree is a little bit of a slight recalibration of, okay, why are we here? Why are we assembled today? I will provide a little bit of additional contextual reminder of why we had reached out because it's not uncommon that our discovery calls, I mean, I'm speaking for the most part to fairly senior-level executives. So at the earliest, we are usually two weeks beyond when that discovery call was scheduled. They have full calendars, they're busy. So there's just a little bit of the first phase of a bit of reminder, some context, here's what we do, here's where the Venn diagram overlaps. Hopefully, that process is a little bit of a trust that's being reestablished or built upon even further.
(10:28):
Again, the tonality can be part of that. But I would say as parts of really the discovery is then trying to transition out of that because it's not really a commercial about us when I open, it's just a contextual framework. Then it's about getting into them what they're doing, what's on their, I guess their windscreen? What are they looking at or through that is really directing where they're vectoring as a company, as a firm. In our world where we're dealing with a subset of commercial real estate assets, so there's a lot of things that tie into not only internal factors, but external factors. And I think it's getting a lay of the land. And then they contextualize their piece. Now we've gone from serving up from our side a contextual reason why we're here today. Then we get phase two where they have responded back somewhat contextualizing where they fit in the marketplace, and then we start diving into the here and the now.
(11:21):
And I think that's where, we would call it step three, where I'm beginning to get this, getting back to the piece we're talking about, which is getting them to dial into the moment. Where does their company fit into the framework of the current market, the current dynamics? How are they seeing on a go forward basis? And getting them to start having thoughtful, self-reflective conversation. That's the piece that I was referring to earlier. So that's a very long-winded answer to your question. I would say it's that third step, if you will. And again, like I did mention a moment ago, this is still a work in progress for me, so that my thinking is not as clarified as I'd like it to be on this. But I can just tell you this is again, this is some of the pattern matching that I'm starting to see unfold here over the last few months.
(12:08):
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Corey Frank (12:55):
And Chris, you're a big believer in our friend Chris Voss and a lot of the mirroring techniques that he used. And I could see how mirroring could be incredibly effective in certain aspects of discovery.
Chris Beall (13:07):
Yeah, I mean, I divide these conversations into two big domains. One is the domain of the factual, where you're relatively safe talking about things that are factual. Some might be more sensitive than others. Facts, if somebody were to get in a discovery call with me and two minutes into the call they say, "So Chris, what's connectandsell? What's your current run rate revenue? What are your gross margins? And who on your team are you most concerned about that you think you might have to do something about?" And they do that two minutes in, it's like, I can go on there. Whereas in a second call or somewhere, sometime we really have a reason to talk about those facts, they won't have to be as skilled and just waiting helps. That's what Shawn was talking about. Just sometimes you just got to wait.
(14:00):
A disfluency is simply a form of waiting. You're waiting and letting that moment be filled in with what's in their mind. It's like when I teach really young people to play the piano, I always make this point, which is you only need to provide the structure, the sound, they'll fill in the rest in their head. The music happens over there, not out here, and not in our hands. It happens inside of them. But then there's another whole range of things that we do end up sometimes hitting on, which are really sensitive issues, like political issues internally, or concerns that this person might have about their own job, or maybe they're not going to be at that company anymore. And if they would tell you that, that'd be great. Where I think we get hung up there, and where I think tonality, disfluencies, mirroring, all of these techniques that... I never really think of them much as techniques, but all of these kinds of things you could find yourself doing if you were any good at this stuff.
(14:58):
Where they're just super important is where it's highly likely there are incorrect assumptions being held by you and by the other party. And it's really hard to get underneath incorrect assumptions because in order to correct one, you have to give up something that you believe. You have to or they have to. People don't like to give up anything. We all know that old thing, if I take 50 bucks from you, you'll fight me until the end of time. If I offer you 50 bucks, you'll ignore me and go on with your cat videos. It is a very tricky business to get beyond assumptions.
(15:34):
I had one just the other day that was interesting. I was conducting a discovery call with a very senior person at a huge insurance company. He had a very specific problem that he had been advised we could help with. I jumped to the wrong conclusion about the nature of the potential solution, and then seven minutes later, thank goodness, he said, "No, no, you don't get it. What we want to do is X." Thank goodness he felt okay correcting my assumption, which was incorrect. But that's where had I been a little less sure of myself, I wouldn't have gone as far down that road and we wouldn't have wasted seven minutes. So it's like that TED Talk thing, talking as though you know what you're talking about causes other people to feel like they should either oppose you or shut up.
Corey Frank (16:25):
Right. Well, I think, Shawn, certainly your career, just like you have Mr. Rice on board at ConnectAndSell who's a former Marine, Shawn, the importance of tone, if you're a drill instructor, were you a Hollywood Marine or are you a Parris Island Marine? I never think we uncovered that yet.
Shawn Sease (16:43):
I was outside of the runway in San Diego. California, US Marine Corps, Recruit Depot in San Diego.
Corey Frank (16:51):
Okay. So you talk about the first couple of days establishing tone, Chris, certainly, I don't imagine verbal disfluencies, Henry, worked too well with a drill instructor trying to influence 17, 18-year-olds getting off the bus, putting their feet on the yellow footprints. So how did tone influence you from a perspective of raising the stakes about what you need to know about what you're going to go through for the next 13?
Shawn Sease (17:17):
Yeah, tone down, I can't even, it's frightening. I mean, it's actually frightening for an 18-year-old to be at bootcamp. It's frightening. Let me tell you this. Tonality is everything and it is just shock the fear into you. It's basically a reset. You just forget everything that you learned somewhere else because when you walk out of here, you're going to have a whole new plan for how you go about doing things. All the way from lining up your belt to shaving, to lining up your, just being completely squared away. But I'll tell you a funny story because you imagine having a name, a last name like Sease on the firing line when you're going to learn to fire your rifle. And I was accused of being so goddamn stupid that I'd start firing when they said, "Cease fire." So yeah, right now I think about it right now, I start shrinking because I remember, "I get it, man. I am not going to fire my rifle. I know what cease means. I get it." But it's just relentless.
(18:14):
So I know what cease fire means and I know that my trigger should, I mean, this is 30 years ago. I could still hear it like it was yesterday. Trigger finger off the trigger unless firing, it's in me. It's embedded in me. So yeah, tonality can be even more important in the Marine Corps training folks where you're actually trying to basically shock someone and strip them of everything that they've learned so far so that you could be created in the Marine Corps image, like a God mold kind of thing.
(18:43):
But one thing I wanted to touch on that popped up in my mind when it comes to discovery, and earlier we were talking, I shared with you this phrase that I've been using recently, which is I'm seeing a lot of teams gaining short-term tactical wins, specialization, other tools, things like this. Quick wins, dopamine hits at the expense of long-term strategic failures. So you get these short-term wins by automations, chat, all these, whatever, you'll make it work. If it's ChatGPT, you're going to go do that and go, "Wow, look what I made?" Short-term win, tactical win, long-term strategic failure. And one of the things that I think about when it comes to discovery is that, and again, it's just another real simple phrase is that we either do it together or we don't do it at all. In other words, in discovery for me is that I also have some things that I need to know about you, not like the pains and the problems and how we can help you and things like that.
(19:35):
But how does your company actually buy something? When was the last time you bought something? Who else do I need to get involved with this? It's the two-way street to build a mutual going forward, and it always seems like it ends up being more of a battle, like a sparring match or something like that. Like I am trying to get these answers, questions from you. Can I convince you that we solve a pain or something like that? And we too quickly get away from that concept of we either do this together or, that's me saying that. We either do this together or we don't do it at all. Which means that in the beginning, let's set some expectations. Here's some of the things I'm after. What are you after? Hey, if I give you a call, will you call me back? All these little tiny things that make all the difference in building relationship with someone and then keeping to your word and then coming back and telling people.
(20:22):
Let me share with you something at the end of a cold call where we set a meeting. At the very end of it, takes about five or six seconds, "Hey Corey, any reason why you wouldn't make it to this meeting?" "No it's on my calendar. I'm good to go. We're good to go. Shawn, I appreciate that." "Let's just say this, in the off chance that you don't make it, can you and I agree that we'll work to reschedule it right away? That way you won't have to get a restraining order because I'm going to follow up with you." You go, "Yeah, you bet." But I'm going to use that again. I'm going to use that in my language later on when you don't show up or something does happen because, and I'm going to be true to my word and I'm going to remind you, "Hey, we agreed that we'd reschedule this thing. Let's get it done." And setting this expectation around, let's do this together or not at all.
(21:02):
Or, yeah, I shared with you earlier today, one more thought on my calendar and on my about section in LinkedIn, [inaudible 00:21:07] says, "Hey, let's get together and see what we can, if we like each other well enough to work together, shake something out of the trees. If not, we'll shake hands and go our separate ways." That's my intro call because I want to find out is there something here and let's both work on it together. Those are some of my thoughts. It sets the stage for a long term.
Corey Frank (21:24):
Just as you went into character there and delivered that message about, "Can we agree to work together and find a way to get this back on the calendar if something does get in the way?" I can imagine, Henry, that your high-stakes world of medical real estate properties, these aren't six-figure opportunities. These are seven, eight-figure deals going on here. So credibility, certainty has to win the day. You're dealing with a very competitive product. You mentioned to me a few years ago, I think. I mean, you're dealing with just what's left. It's not even the alpha of a lot of these deals. And so tone implying, maybe uncertainty, tone implying that maybe you're not the best person for this role. You're a commodity, maybe there's some commission breath, that makes a difference in overall how much it makes.
(22:16):
So how do you deal with, how do you balance the fact that you try to get that to be authentic, but you also not necessarily have to be the drill instructor here, as we heard from Shawn, but you do have to be in a position of authority to say, "Listen, your money's safe with me. I'm not going to put your money to sleep. I know what I'm doing. I know these properties. I've already done the vetting." How do you balance that in your, especially in your world?
Henry Wojdyla (22:39):
It's a good question, and I don't know that I have an immediate just pat answer for you. There's no question, tonality is a piece of it. I think asking, I'd say framing the questions correctly is a lot of it. And that framing is a combination in my world of it is tonality. I think it's using certain nomenclature correctly. I think it's also, I will tell you the big thing tonality wise is I would say there's a lot of, there's this phrase, "There's riches in the niches." And we have taken that approach at a high level for the business model. But is it a discovery call? But I think there's a lot of riches in silence and the ability to basically shut up after asking a question and being comfortable with sometimes some very pregnant pauses. Because to your point, Corey, and I know I'm meandering a little bit in answering it, but we're dealing typically with eight figure or more size transactions, the questions that surround those in terms of where does this asset sit in your overall thesis? Where is this from a harvesting and recycling of capital perspective?
(23:45):
These are big questions. And even for people that are busy trafficking in these type of assets in a day in day out basis. If we're really getting into true discovery and they're really being contemplative about what they're providing you in terms of feedback and answers, they're going to need a few seconds themselves to think about that. So I think this is another example of getting out of the way at almost at a tactical level, which is just being quiet. I think that actually also instills some credibility because you're not trying to fill the gaps. You're not uncomfortable with the silence. I think that in and of itself provides maybe a tactical level benefit, but I think the more strategic benefit is you're hopefully actually getting better quality responses from the prospect.
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(24:52):
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