Executive Podcast #263: Influential Selling with Susan Davis (Part 1)

Chris Goede:

Hey, listeners, Chris Goede here with some bonus business insight before we jump into today’s episode. If you’re looking for the right place to host your next business gathering, conference, or event, look no further than Orlando, Florida. It’s no coincidence that Maxwell Leadership hosts our bi annual International Maxwell Conference in Orlando. Between its many luxurious hotels, meeting spaces, and venues, Orlando is the perfect place for you and your team to gather, collaborate, and grow. Whether you’re traveling for business or bringing your company for a meeting, there is a reason Orlando is as much a business capital as an entertainment one. And let’s not forget the delicious cuisine at one of the 46 Michelin rated restaurants where your team can kick off your evenings. So before you plan your next business event, check out Orlando, where the possibilities for business travel are unbelievably real.

Perry Holley:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:

And I’m Chris Cody, executive vice president of Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. We’re excited about today. We are going to go a completely different direction. And we have one of our, what I call our experiential learner, our executive facilitator and coach, but incredible facilitator and even more than that, just an incredible content writer has been in the business world and the sales world. So we are completely going off script today. Perry is smiling because Perry did not have to create content. Yeah, he didn’t create content.

Perry Holley:

I don’t know who she is, but I’m looking forward.

Chris Goede:

So Susan Davis, who you guys have probably seen around on some of our social media and some of our websites, is one of our executive facilitators and coaches. And we’re going to talk about why she’s here in just a minute.

But thank you for being here.

Susan Davis:

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Chris Goede:

She wanted to be in studio with us, so we moved her calendar around. She was going to be with some clients and we moved that around. And she’s joining us for a couple of episodes as we really talk about something we’ve never talked about before under.

Perry Holley:

Our hard to believe.

Chris Goede:

I do find after how many episodes, we’re going to talk about a brand new content piece that Susan is behind for us. And it’s really around influential selling and people go, man, why in the world is Maxwell Leadership developing and or have developed a sales course? And the reason we are is because we believe it’s built around influence. And when it comes to leadership and our organization, it is all about influence. And so we’re going to dive into that today. We’re going to dive into the dynamic world of sales. Perry comes from that background. Susan comes from that background. And so we have a great episode, not only this one in store for you, but then we’re also going to follow it up with some additional content in the second piece.

Chris Goede:

So who’s this podcast for? You may have already turned the podcast off. You may have said, well, this is not Perry’s lesson, so I’m off. Here’s what we want you to know. This is for everyone that is interested in sales. So whether you’re a sales representative, whether you’re a business owner and have a sales team, maybe you’re an entrepreneur and just selling yourself, maybe you’re an aspiring salesperson, influential selling. And the course that Susan has helped design is going to revolutionize the way that you approach sales. So let’s start with this. Let’s start with understanding influential selling.

Chris Goede:

Susan, take just a minute, talk a little bit about your heart behind this, the thought behind it, and what does influential selling mean to you and what do our listeners need to know?

Susan Davis:

Well, first of all, sales is influence. This is influence unleashed. This is what this is. But sales is anybody that works with people is in sales. And so understanding how to connect so we can have connections that convert gives you a competitive advantage. So we’ve designed this curriculum and this course around some different methodologies in sales, but also some other things that we’ll talk about today. And just understanding how do we connect with our customer quicker so that we can convert those sales quicker.

Perry Holley:

Love it. So influential. I come out of a sales background and I don’t think I ever connected these two dots. That my level of influence with my client, with my rest of my teammates, with my service team, with everybody. That my level of influence. Really affects everything I do. But there’s lots of sales courses. How does influential selling, how does it separate from others? What do you think? Yeah, differentiators.

Susan Davis:

There are a couple of different ways. So there is no other sales methodology on the market like this one. And the reason is we combine three things with it. Number one, personality styles, understanding self so that we then can adapt our selling styles to the buying styles of our customers. So understanding self, self awareness. But then we’re also, of course, using the time tradition, I mean, just the amazing thoughts of John C. Maxwell. We’re going to bring leadership.

Susan Davis:

Leadership is influence and influential selling. And then we’ve got some hardcore sales methodology. We’re going to teach you how to sell. We’re going to teach you how to uncover needs. We’re going to teach you how to handle objections, how to create value links for your customers. We’re going to do all this in one course. So that’s one of the differentiators.

Chris Goede:

Just yesterday, prior to this recording, susan and I were on a call with our team, our design team, and Susan has led a beta group of this content piece. And then we tweaked some of it and so it was the first time I saw it in quite some time. And as we were going through it, one of the things I said was, man, I love the application, I love the meat behind what has been created in here. And then what are next steps to your point? How do you do that? What does that look like? And so super excited that we’re going to be bringing something like that to the market. So I just wanted to throw that in there because that’s fresh off a call from yesterday. Let’s back up. Let’s talk just a minute about and Perry hit on this just a little bit about influence. You talked a little bit about in regards to personality styles.

Chris Goede:

Why is it so important from your experience to understand personality styles in sales?

Susan Davis:

Wow. So we think about we have this lens of how we view and how we want to be sold to how we want to be interacted with. But really it’s our lens. And if we sell to people based on our style, we’re probably not connecting with them because most chances there’s 75% chance that they’re not just like us. Right. And so understanding, number one, yourself, that’s part of EQ. But then understanding how to adjust or self regulate to the style of your buyer actually enables you to connect. I learned this 23 years ago.

Susan Davis:

It was one of actually, I think some of the best training I ever had was how do you connect to the person you’re selling with and not make it about you? And we talk about this all the time in five levels is one of the things to be successful is let’s serve people where they are, not where we are. And that’s one of the things we’re going to do here in influential selling.

Perry Holley:

So I know the tool you’re using for personality and temperament is the Right Path tool. We use this quite a bit for all of our courses and coaching around Right Path. I like it personally. I know. We have Disk and Myers bridge. There’s lots of other options, but that we really like right Path, because it’s really a DNA level, who you really are. But does everybody in the class take a right path? How are you using the right path?

Susan Davis:

That’s the exciting part, is everybody will take a right path assessment. So we have created four unique selling styles. Now, if you use a different personality profile, that’s okay, we will adapt it to that as well. But we’ve created the style of the server, the closer the expert and the influencer, and we are able to actually map it back. How to adjust your selling style to that of the buyer’s style. So Right Path really peels back that onion a little bit more and helps us identify not only the buying size, but even what you’re wearing, gestures you’re using, language you’re using. And we’re really going to get down and dirty and give you some practical tips and applications of how to do this real world.

Chris Goede:

You can already see in just our conversation the crossover between leadership and sales. Right. And we talk about often on this podcast here. And as you’re leading teams, we talk about you need to lead people the way they need to be led. And so I think we’re talking about the same thing. And that’s why we were so excited to dive into this content piece and push it out there.

Susan Davis:

That’s why I say it’s influenced unleashed. It’s a sales edition, right. I love that.

Perry Holley:

I saw there the model you use. You call it the six C’s. I’m a little upset it wasn’t five C’s, but we’ll talk about that.

Chris Goede:

Sorry, I have this thing.

Perry Holley:

I don’t know.

Chris Goede:

You didn’t get the memo?

Susan Davis:

Hey, we’re changing, we’re changing.

Perry Holley:

So just the limited time we have today, maybe we can just take the first three C’s. I think you already mentioned. Well, go ahead if you want to hit all six, but then let’s dive into maybe the first three and tell us how they play.

Susan Davis:

Yeah. So we have the six C’s of influential selling. The first C is capture. Capture. I’m sorry. Connect quickly. We want to connect quickly with our audience, and we’re going to show you how to do that. We’ve got some really unique things there.

Susan Davis:

Number two is capturing the need. So this is identifying what the true pain points are, what the true needs of the customer are. In order for us then to number three, communicate our value. Once we capture the actual need, we can communicate the value of the service or product we’re selling. Then we want to counter objections and we’re going to spend a lot of time in there because that’s one of the things that salespeople obviously do every day. We’re going to then step five, craft the close. And then step six, we are going to continue the relationship. So the six C’s of selling, we can combine five and six if that makes you happy.

Chris Goede:

I need to grow. We need to get out of our comfort zone. Well, let’s jump in then. Those are the six we’re going to cover in this episode. We want to give you some meat today. We want to give you some thoughts today that may help you currently right now as you’re listening to this or with your team. Let’s talk about the first three C’s today, and then the next episode will go into the other C’s. So the first one you said was connect quickly.

Chris Goede:

Talk to our listeners a little bit about the connect Quickly and what is it that they can expect or how does that help them in the sales process?

Susan Davis:

Yeah, so the first thing, customers will make a decision pretty quickly when you start that process with them. So we have to be able to connect with them immediately. But the thing is as salespeople, we like to get in and tell them everything we want to tell them, and that’s just what we do.

Chris Goede:

I know a couple of salespeople.

Susan Davis:

Yeah, you have a quota. Your leader is pressuring you to make a sale. Right? So we get in there with an agenda and we take over the call. That’s what we do as salespeople. So we’re going to reverse this. We’re going to make it about them. We’re going to come prepared. Right.

Susan Davis:

We’re going to actually ask them to speak first, and then we’re going to let them know that their time is valuable and we’re going to focus on what they need first. So we’re going to connect quickly. We’re going to take this almost the platinum rule that we talk about in five levels. It becomes about them and serving them where they are, what they need, not what we need. And this is where we move from salesperson transaction to trusted advisor or more consultative.

Perry Holley:

I love it because you’re exactly right. When you start in the sales process, you don’t really think about connecting with the client as much as getting my message to the client. And so by this building, influence is all about getting that relationship and making a connection, finding common ground. And then I think it leads beautifully into number two, which you said is really about the need, is how am I going to uncover that need, but take it. Once I’ve made a good connection, take me to the second C. Yeah.

Susan Davis:

So we are going to then capture the need. And this is probably one of the most critical pieces because again, customers will come to you all the time, I need this, I want this, and that’s great that they think they want it. And I can tell you from personal experience, I’ve gone in with a vendor before and said this is exactly what I need. After questions that they’ve asked me, they’ve uncovered that that’s not really what I needed. And if we really want to be yes, that’s good. If we want to be a trusted advisor, we have to truly understand the pain point. That means we got to uncover those needs. That’s going to be through a series of questions, prompts, open ended questions, echoes.

Susan Davis:

We’ve got some ways that we’re going to do that with them, but we really want to identify those exact pain points so that we truly understand through active listening and processes of hearing what’s really going on in their world.

Chris Goede:

So when you say active listening, that’s something we all need to work on, especially Perry and I talk a little bit about because I heard you dragging me yesterday. Well, I just figured since Susan’s here, you and I ought to get in the same boat. I heard you talk a little bit yesterday as we were going through this content about this new process or the process that’s in this content piece, or as a salesperson. Can you just expand on that a little bit and add value to our listeners that may be selling right now? Maybe thinking about that. Maybe new way to go about listening.

Susan Davis:

Yeah. So I’ll give you just a little this is a good teaser. So with active listening, we talk about it all the time. Oh, we need to listen more. Right. But what does that truly mean? So our brain is processing between 750 and 850 words a minute, but our mouth is speaking at about 150 to 250 words a minute. So what’s really happening, and you both are doing it right now, you’re thinking about the next thing to say before I’ve even finished speaking. So you’ve already formulated your next question.

Susan Davis:

You’ve thought about your next idea. In true active listening, we’re right in the moment. Right. Your next thing you say should be based off of what I say. We’re really going to role play that. And it takes practice. Sales is a competitive sport. You got to practice this stuff.

Susan Davis:

This doesn’t just come easily because we’re so in tuned. I mean, think about it. Have you ever walked up to somebody, hey, my name is Susan. What’s your name? They tell your name 2 seconds later, you’re like, what’s their name?

Chris Goede:

I’m horrible with that.

Susan Davis:

It’s because you’re already processing what’s going on next before you’ve really actively listened. So we’re going to spend a lot of time in that. We talk about the herd process of listening, which is another activity we’re going to do. So we have a lot in this area to really drill down and capture those needs.

Perry Holley:

So thinking about the word influence and the law of influence, tell me, do you really dive into john teaches so much about leadership and all that is influence. Now you’re saying selling, I’m going to use this influence. What’s the relationship? Do you put the law of influence? Are you down on that?

Susan Davis:

Yeah, we’re going to talk about not only the law of influence, we’re going to talk about a lot of the laws. I mean, think about the law of buy in. The law of buy in even tells us people buy into you.

Perry Holley:

So you’re really combining the 21 laws absolutely. The whole influence and building those laws into how salespeople in the sales process would use the laws of influence to drive their sales effort.

Susan Davis:

Absolutely. Because as John says, and we all know, everything rises and falls on leadership, including sales.

Chris Goede:

That’s good. Even just picking up on what you just said, Perry, like the 21 laws, I’ve heard her talk about the five levels and the crossover. Here’s the thing that I think is really critical. We talk about having a common language inside organizations to develop a culture. Right. And so now you’re saying not only is leading people important to us, but we want to also sell the right way.

Susan Davis:

Absolutely.

Chris Goede:

And so now we have the same common language that’s crossing over, whether it’s leadership, whether it’s selling or whatever it might be. So I love how you’re pulling all those principles into the opportunity to help develop a salesperson, a sales team, whatever that might look like.

Susan Davis:

And I mean, think about this. If you really capture the real need and then in the third step, you actually give them the value they need, even if you don’t have a product or service that takes care of them, they think of you as a trusted advisor. They’re thinking, you know what? Let me call Chris. He may not have it, but he’ll know who to call. I trust him. Guess what? That’s level two, right? Trust, care, and help. So it really connects right back to building that foundation.

Perry Holley:

Tell me. So in my sales experience, uncovering the need is really an art form. We tend to just listen for the first thing that sounds like something we have and then we take off on that. So I love that you are drilling down on uncovering truly what the needs are. But then this third C about communicating value, the value proposition is where I think a lot of sales efforts come unglued, is that we’re not really clear on how to communicate our value prop. So tell me about this third C.

Susan Davis:

Yeah, so how we communicate our value is critically important because the more that we can overlay our product or service with their pain point and create that value solution, the larger that value solution is, the more chance they’re going to purchase our product or service. But only if it’s right for them. And you talked about drilling down and really understanding what that value is. Salespeople do it all the time. We think we hear one thing and we immediately just want to jump in and sell and solve the problem. That’s where we’re really going to talk about no, let’s keep going. Because one of the things is we’ll see as we talk about later, we want to uncover any potential objection early and often, and we can’t do that unless we’re really uncovering the needs and then offering the appropriate value. And again, I can offer you benefits all day long.

Susan Davis:

I heard a story one time. Someone know a real estate agent. Hey, Perry, I’ve got this five bedroom house with a pool, a golf course, all this. Those are benefits. What if I’m single, I don’t swim, and I don’t play golf? The only one I’ve ever heard is it all has indoor plumbing, which I think everybody would like. But the benefit to you is not the benefit to me. So we got to communicate value, not the benefit.

Chris Goede:

All right, so let me recap this first episode here with the three C’s. It’s just some of the meat that we wanted to pass along on the session today. Number one, first, we want to connect quickly. Man, isn’t that true with the people that we lead right?

Susan Davis:

Absolutely.

Chris Goede:

Not even just talking about sales number two, we want to capture the need, what that is. I was listening to you the other day and I heard you say they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know until you really go through and listen. I also know and have worked with some salespeople in the past where they’ll sell them something that they wanted to sell them and then we get in the field or whatever do that and but I’m going to keep the names quiet in here. But then we get in the field and we’re like, oh, no. And I know you guys both have done this where you’ve been with clients before and you’re like got to change or go in different direction. Not even the right content because we got to go here to serve the client, right. So important.

Susan Davis:

I see it everywhere. I mean, every industry, it doesn’t matter the industry. It happens.

Chris Goede:

Yeah. And then finally, the third C for today was to communicate your value. So as we kind of wrap up here, this is just the beginning of what we want to share with you on this content piece. It is something that we do believe is going to change the culture of how we sell and in organizations that we partner with or maybe organizations out there where you go, man, I need my team to hear like, we need to sell a little bit different. We need a differentiator when it comes to selling. If that’s you, here’s what we want to do. I want to change kind of the URL. Perry and I normally have a normal URL, but specifically for this content piece and having Susan with us today, I want you to go to MaxwellLeadership.com/PrivateWorkshop, there we’ll have a form set up for you.

Chris Goede:

And then we’ll jump on the phone, talk a little bit more about what is it that you do need and we’ll connect with you and we’ll try to live this out because this is so important to us. So before we throw it back to Susan for maybe some closing thoughts, mr. Salesperson, you got any thoughts in your mind about what you heard today as we kind of wrap?

Perry Holley:

I love what I’m hearing and I have previewed the content and it’s solid. And I love the tie from being a salesperson with influence. I love an ad. I didn’t think about that. You added today was a common language of sales culture, that it’s a common language of leadership. It’s a common language of influence in the sales process, which I love a lot. Just remind me, the workshop experience is one day two. Davis, what are we talk a little bit about that?

Susan Davis:

Yeah. So the workshop experience, ideally two days in person. This workshop is not just PowerPoints and read participant manuals. We’re going to be up, moving, role playing, small group, large group. I’m very experiential in that way. And plus, that’s how adults learn. Now, here’s the challenge. There are people in the audience right now that have been selling for 30 years, and they’re like, I don’t need that.

Susan Davis:

Listen, you got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and I’m going to challenge you to do something different. Right? I see it all the time. I get people all the time. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Guess what? What got you here will not get you to where you need to be tomorrow because our quotas are going up. But here’s the thing, is, it really takes a very small amount to be a lot better. And so even if you don’t take every piece of the six steps and you take two, we’ve got some stats on how some of these things have moved sales numbers for people with organizations we’ve worked with. So I’m telling you, get comfortable with being uncomfortable, take a little risk and say, you know what? I do have something to learn, because this is some good stuff here.

Susan Davis:

We’re excited about it.

Perry Holley:

Terrific. Well, great stuff. Tune in. We’re going to talk more about it in next week’s podcast. But as Chris said, if you’d like to know more about this offering, get some information from us about that, see the full learner guide about the six C’s and begin to learn more about this. You can do all of that at MaxwellLeadership.com/PrivateWorkshop, and you can leave us a comment or a question there. We always love hearing from you, and we’re very grateful you’d spend this time with us today. That’s all from Maxwell leadership executive podcast.