EP143: SaaS Sales Methodologies - which one best fits your needs?

Sales methodologies are the practical, how-to “guides” that support a sales process. These actions serve as a bridge between each step of the sales cycle by keeping both the buyer's and prospect's demands in mind. In our recent episodes with Brad Ferguson, Corey and Brad discussed the Sandler method vs. Oren Klaff's Pitch method. In this quick comparison segment, Corey explains the difference between the two methods, and when one fits better than the other. What is your method to determine which sales methodology fits your company? Have you bothered to determine which to use, or are you even using one method? That's a great place to start. Corey Frank is an expert at taking companies through this process - he's done it dozens of times. Welcome to this episode of Market Dominance Guys, "SaaS Sales Methodologies - which one best fits your needs?"

Full episode transcript below:

 

Susan Finch: Welcome to another session with the Market Dominance Guys, a program exploring all the high stakes speed bumps and off ramps of driving to the top of your market. With our host, Chris Beall from Connect and Sell, and Corey Frank from Branch 49.

Sales methodologies are the practical how-to guides that support a sales process. [00:00:30] These actions serve as a bridge between each step of the sales cycle, by keeping both the buyer and prospects demands in mind. In our recent episodes with Brad Ferguson, Corey and Brad talked about the Sandler method versus Oren Klaff's pitch method. In this quick comparison segment, Corey explains the difference between the two methods, and which one fits better over the other.

Welcome to the Market Dominance Guys. I'm Susan Finch, your commentator today, sitting in for Corey and Chris, but it doesn't mean they're not going to be here in spirit [00:01:00] or maybe with a few clips.

Corey Frank: Sandler is always more frontal. Sandler, meaning, it's trying to flush out a decision, almost like choose your own adventure. There's a lot of buyer autonomy in Sandler. And Pitch is more, the principles of people want what they can't have, people chase what moves away from them. And people only place value on that which is difficult to obtain. And so, you find there's no formal close in the pitch [00:01:30] methodology.

Chris Beall: Right.

Corey Frank: The pitch methodology is, you had said earlier in this discussion that if we can get to the prospect to talk about 70% of the time, that's a good thing. He'll settle with 50/50, but oftentimes it doesn't do that. The pitch methodology is different than sales, because a pitch is one shot, one kill, you lick the bullet. You better not screw it up, otherwise, as Oran says, you're going to get a to go cup for that coffee. There's no coming back. Like, oh, one more thing. No, you're [00:02:00] out. So the stakes are a little higher.

And so Sandler, if I'm going to establish a territory, I'm new in my copier sales, I'm new in my software, and I got Northern California to throughout Oregon. I'm going to use Sandler. If I'm stockbroker, If I'm a one shot, one kill, I'm going to use, probably, Pitch. But I really believe, I don't think you can pitch anything without an understanding of a formal [00:02:30] sales methodology like Sandler. That's why we do it the way we do. People have to go through Sandler, they have to go through the foundations, and then you want to add to your achievements, like your little video game character, he's an elf level four, he knows how to throw stars, or this one's got nun chucks. Great. That's where you're going to fill it in.

Here's an example. This is right from Oren, the other master's mouth. It's, we're trying to set an appointment. Hey, do you have a few minutes on your calendar? I'd like to set up about a 15 minutes [00:03:00] call with Brad, and you guys should talk a little bit deeper about your solution. The pitch anything methodology is more after you create a little bit of value in the intro. It's, listen, Brad. We don't have a lot of time to play footsy going back and forth and trying to get dates and times on the calendar. So let's just settle on Thursday afternoon. Are you a morning person or an afternoon person? Set it on Thursday at 2:00. Let's lock it in.

I like you guys on paper, but [00:03:30] we really need to talk with you. And we've realized that an ambush sales call like this is no place to really get into the nitty gritty details, pricing speeds, and feeds. So let's get it going. And that's more, you're doing most of the talking, and people are chasing you. So there's not a lot of qualification out of the gate.

Susan Finch: Trevor Hatfield, managing general partner at Interact Capital, has a wonderful post we'll link in this episode post. Seven [00:04:00] sales methodologies for SAS, and how to pick the one for your business, which explains of various sales methodologies, or at least his favorite seven for SAS. He also says the easiest way to choose which methodology is ideal for your company is to figure out what you need.

Here's a quick summary of each, and when he feels you need each one of the top methods he covers. Here we go. Who needs spin selling? All those organizations where the prospect may not have identified their issue or issues, [00:04:30] or completely comprehended its ramifications. They need spin selling. Meddic, M-E-D-D-I-C, is beneficial for all those SAS marketing agents working in B2B complex environments, where they need to be highly knowledgeable of the right people who can help them drive sales.

In a dynamic B2B sales environment, challenge your sales methodology is especially beneficial when sales representatives need to take charge of the discussion by bringing out their unique [00:05:00] selling features. Solution selling applies when working in companies or organizations with highly personalized products or services.

We already covered Sandler, but Trevor says this sales tactic is particularly good at building strong customer ties. However, there are no drawbacks to employing this process, because it works in various sales situations. Well, let's talk about one of my personal favorites, snap selling. This is useful when your clients have a [00:05:30] busy work schedule, and you need to communicate with them to make the buying process go smoothly.

Jill Conrad, the creator and author of Snap Selling, reminds us that sales is an outcome, not a goal. In her book, there's a letter from your customer, brutal as it is, her fictional customer says, and I don't think it's so fictional, "In your well-intentioned, but misguided attempts to turn me into a customer, you fail woefully to capture and keep my attention. I don't care about your product [00:06:00] service or solution."

In a previous Market Dominance Guys episode with Oren Klaff, Oren and Chris agree that shifting the conversation to allow someone to share something they love or passionate about changes everything. Listen to an excerpt from episode 60.

Corey Frank: We have one of the titans of... Don't step on my lines here. One of the titans of sales thought leadership. Author of two bestselling books, How to Pitch Anything, which is one of the top five sales [00:06:30] books of all time. He is a consummate craftsman, constant alchemist of our profession, and has done more to advance the boundaries, I think, of sales thought leadership than almost anyone in the field today. We have the one, the only, Oren Klaff, to go along with the sage of sales here on the Market Dominance podcast today, Chris Beall.

Chris Beall: Tell me about this. When everything goes great in your world, in your business, when it's the perfect customer, it's [00:07:00] the perfect situation, their budget's in place, their need exactly matches your product, your customer success people don't mess it up, engineering doesn't do anything bad about it. The whole thing works perfectly. How does your product change that person's life? And they will hold forth, and they will hold forth sometimes for 15 minutes.

Oren Klaff: Yeah.

Chris Beall: A lot of discoveries happen. And I haven't had to ask any rhetorical questions, because frankly, I don't know the answer to either one of those questions. And frankly, I don't [00:07:30] kind of care about the answer, but I do care about the psychological process, which is speaking with pride as an equal, and then speaking with pride about their mission, without using the stupid word mission and getting into mission statements, what their company says its doing. It's like, why are you doing this? Why are you taking the precious moments of your life and spending them doing what you are doing? Because you must believe it's good for somebody.

Oren Klaff: Giving my take on it, I was called in to a pretty high volume motorcycle [00:08:00] parts, sort of a Bike Bandit, Revzilla kind of company. And so the thing about motorcycle parts that's so challenging is, they're, compared to cars, relatively low volume, but there's so much variation in parts. So even a correct part number can be a half year. So Bike Bandit can send out what they believe is a correct part based on the numbers and the catalog number, which [00:08:30] is very complicated. The user gets it, goes to put it on his bike, and it doesn't fit.

It can be on the guy, doesn't know what bike he has. He believes he has a 2004 Kawasaki KR 1000, and it's a 2004 Kawasaki K 1000 R. I don't know how the motorcycle industry works, but they make minor model derivations in the same year. So they may have [00:09:00] three of the same model. Motorcycles are very intelligent, specific. Anyway, the part comes, it doesn't fit. And Bike Bandit hasn't been malicious or malevolent, but the guys call, and their bike is down. And people are very passionate about it.

And they're screaming and yelling and frustrated and threatening, and all kinds of stuff is going on. And so I came in there, not in the city, I was doing sales stuff, but on the other end, I saw this going on. And I go, "Just ask the guy what [00:09:30] kind of bike he has." Just tell him, "Hey, can you tell me about your bike? It looks like a GSXR 600. How do you have it set up? Tell me about the bike." Well, the problem became the other way, where the guy would just exactly, like you're saying, he'd want to talk about his bike for 45 minutes.

And I thought about this just the other day, because behind me, I have all my bikes, and I was talking to a guy who was selling me, trying to get him on me on his membership program, and we were doing a video call, and I walked by. He's like, "Oh hey, are those your [00:10:00] motorcycles?" And I go, "Oh, yeah." He goes, "Tell me about them. I'm really into that." And then I went on for 40 minutes. And then I realized, and I know the guy, Ken, he doesn't care. He doesn't care at all, but he used this, and I'm familiar with it.

So I'm a million percent agreement. If you can get someone to talk about their motorcycle, they're completely off of the pain they're feeling as they're describing the thing that they love. So when [00:10:30] you could get somebody describing the thing that they love, it's for discovery, or any other sales or customer service process, it just creates magic.

Susan Finch: So what is your method to determine which sales methodology fits your company? Have you bothered to determine which to use, or even using one method? That's a great place to start. Corey Frank is an expert at taking companies through this process. He's done it dozens of times.

[00:11:00] I want to thank you all. This has been Susan Finch, your commentator on this episode of Market Dominance Guys. SAS sales methodologies, which one best fits your needs?

Selling a big idea to a skeptical customer, investor or partner is one of the hardest jobs in business. So when it's time to really go big, you need to use an uncommon methodology to gain attention, frame your thoughts, and employ successful sequencing that is fresh enough to convince others that your ideas will truly change their world.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• SNAP Selling by Jill Konrath https://www.amazon.com/SNAP-Selling-Business-Frazzled-Customers/ 
• Trevor Hatfield's article https://www.custify.com/blog/sales-methodologies-for-saas/ 
• Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff https://www.amazon.com/Pitch-Anything-Innovative-Presenting-Persuading 
• Episodes with Oren Klaff https://marketdominanceguys.com/category/guest-oren-klaff