YouSaid · the spoken record

Matt Dixon

lines on the record: 62
first: 2024-05-30
most recent: 2024-05-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Well, I thank you for the offer. I love being connected with folks who heard me on shows like this one. So if you heard me on the podcast, I heard you on Lenny's show, shoot me a LinkedIn invite, pretty active there. Love being connected with folks. So please reach out to me. If you want to learn more about Jolt Effect, so we do a lot of workshops and training around that methodology. Visit Joltifact.com. There's a ton of, there's also a lot of free tools on there that you can download that help you put some of these concepts into practice with your sales teams or if you're an individual seller. And then, of course, the books are available everywhere. Good books are sold, which I think is on the internet these days.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's exactly right. And make sure those connections are really tight, right? Getting this right starts with answering the question, why should the customer buy from you instead of your competitor? And it's not because you're more customer-centric or more innovative and possible to prove. Your competitors claim the same thing. It's not that you're the leading global solution provider of whatever you sell. It starts with the product or the way you deliver the product or something about your service delivery that only your company does. You are only capable. Nobody else can touch with a barge pole. And then the second question is, what would have to be true for the customer to want to pay us for that, to pay a premium, ideally? And that's kind of the core components, if you will, of a challenger conversation.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, it's a simple example, but you see, again, they're still selling a fancy wand, right? But before they were leading with it, let me show you this and talk about the future's benefits. And that led to how much it cost. Now they're leading to it. They're starting with an insight and giving the customer a reason to care about solving this business problem. And it turns out the only way to solve it is buying this XP 9000 drill from Dense Bly.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, what Densfly does is start the conversation there. And then they say, you know, one of the things that we figured out is that primary, based on our own independent research, one of the primary drivers of all these bad outcomes, absenteeism, repetitive motion injuries is related to the equipment that hygienists use. It's because they're holding that old-fashioned heavy wand attached to that big, heavy power cable at an awkward angle, doing repetitive motion all day. But what if you could solve for that? What if that was no longer a problem? The dentist says, well, how would you solve for that? There's no other technology. That's what we got. We've had the same equipment for 30 years. Let me show you the new XP9000s, world's first cordless lightweight ergonomic drill, and we can show you that it is far preferred by hygienists because they don't get injured as often because it's much easier to hold and it doesn't put stress on the joints and kind of pinch points, if you will, where hygienists tend to experience.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And all these appointments. And that's a bunch of upset customers who end up then going to the practice down the street or saying bad things about me on Google reviews or what have you. So there's all kinds of ripple effects for the dentist. The cost of losing a hygienist is massive. And the market.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Day long. So that's why dental offices really struggle to keep hygienists showing up, you know, not calling in sick, not out for months at a time for reconstructive solder surgery, not with exorbitant health benefits claims and workers' comp claims. And so they came in and they revised their sales pitch. And now when they come into the dental office, they sit down. They say, I'd like to talk to you about your hygienist workforce. Are you guys seeing higher turnover? Have you seen any absenteeism due to carpal or lower back or neck or shoulder injuries? What are you guys doing about that? What's the cost to your business? And they get the dentist talking and the way they start talking about it is not just the insurance and workers' costs. It's stuff like when my hygienist get injured, and this is pretty, it's a repetitive motion business and job. And when they get injured and they call in sick, I've got to reschedule all these clean.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They would gently put it back in the briefcase, close the briefcase, say, Can you give me a price on new drill bits or new polishing attachments? And so they couldn't get anybody to want to pay for this thing that was much more expensive than the old one. So they did a lot of work and they figured out they knew that this was unique. They knew this was a unique product. Nobody else in the market made this. The only supplier who had figured this out. Total innovation. But they hadn't given the customer a reason to want to pay a premium for that innovation until they figured out the connection between the equipment that hygienists use and absenteeism and workers' comp. It turns out that one of the biggest professions where you get carpal tunnel syndrome shoulder and neck and lower back injuries is being a dental hygienist. And the reason is that they're standing holding that heavy wand being dragged down by that heavy cord at an awkward angle all the way.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This thing is cordless. It's amazing. It's a revolution. And then the first thing they would ask is how much is it? And when they told them it costs like three times more than the current old fashioned ones they're using with the heavy cord than”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That drill bits could be attached to cleaning implements, et cetera. And it was a total breakthrough. They actually, when they unveiled it, it was pretty interesting. They gave, you remember the scene in pulp fiction where they opened the briefcase and it emanates like a light emits from it. So they gave all their salespeople this little aluminum briefcase thing with this eggshell foam and a wand in there. I can't remember what it's called. Let's call it the XP9000. But it had one demo wand in there, and they would go around to dental offices and be like, and it was literally like blue lighting inside and it was really cool to reveal. And they'd take it out and they give it to the dentist or the head of the dental office and they would hold it and be like, what? Like it's so much lighter and it's ergonomic.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we wrote a sequel, The Challenger Cell called The Challenger Customer. And in that book, we talk about a case from a company called Dense Sply. Dentsply, as the name would suggest, manufactures, produces dental supplies, right? So they sell equipment and product into dental practices and dental offices. And years ago, Dent Sply had developed, we all know, I think your listeners can all relate to this when you go to the dentist and the hygienist is polishing your teeth or they're using the water pick or unfortunately maybe the dentist using the drill. And that wand has a very heavy power cord that's attached to it and it's attached to this power base in that it feeds water through there and electrical current and all those things. Denseply had developed the world's first lightweight ergonomic cordless wand.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“World, it's about leading to your unique benefits. So what you're really trying to do is kind of create a fire and then be the only person in town who sells the fire extinguisher that'll put it out.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, very well said. I think one of the, just like the FOMO, FOMU kind of shorthand, here's a shorthand I'd give to salespeople is like the most salespeople are trying to figure out what keeping the customer up at night, right? It's classic solution selling needs diagnosis, et cetera. The challenger approach is about showing the customer what should be keeping them up at night. What is the thing you know that they need to know? What is the way that other customers are using your solution to generate returns and benefit for their organization? What's the risk that they don't know about, but you do? Because by the way, you're going to talk to 10 times more customers than the, or I say you're going to talk to like 10 of that customer in a week or 10 times more in a week than they will all year. So you are a window into the outside world for them. And that's what challengers really understand. It's not free consulting, though, because if you remember from the Challenger sale, it's not just about bringing these provocative ideas that reframe the customer's understanding of the world.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A little bit on what's really going on here. Is it that they're indifferent or is it that they're indecisive? And those are actually two very different things.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, the only thing I would suggest is that for anybody, I mean, I think a just due-it is this, is that you should hit the pause button when that customer, because the customers we all know are going to get cold feet, often late stage, and it can be very frustrating. And the knee-jerk reaction for almost every salesperson out there has happened like in our analysis. 75% of salespeople we studied would immediately go out to dialing up the FOMO. Like go back to doing that, like you're not going to get these benefits. You're going to be stuck in this terrible state of affairs you're in right now, dial up the cost of inaction, or let's try to use some price base or other delivery window-based urgency driver to get the customer to move forward. But just remember that if the customer is already convinced that the status quo is suboptimal and they've already got the intent that you're basically, again, you're using fear on top of a customer, selling into a customer's already afraid, and you're actually making it worse. So hitting the pause button and just reflecting.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And if it does, we get you back up on track. Because the last thing we want is for you guys to be upset that you're losing ground and you're not going to deliver on the outcomes that you promised to your boss. So let's set that up. So there's lots of different ways we can create those opt-out clauses in some industries are an option, not very common in B2B, but in some cases you can offer those or specialized contract carve outs, for instance. There's lots of different things we can do to create that safety net where the customer doesn't feel like they're jumping out of an airplane by themselves, but you are the tandem skydiving instructor that's going to guide them safely to the ground.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're going to monitor. Here's how often we're going to connect with each other. Instills a lot of confidence with the customer because it feels like, oh, you guys have done this before, right? You've been there, you've done that, you've helped other customers like me get value. Everything from that kind of stuff to adding in professional services support, especially like you think about tech purchase, I'm not saying give it away for free, but you will find that high performing salespeople will also add on professional services. But it's not just because they're selling more, which they are because they're high performing salespeople. It's the way they position that. They usually position it as an insurance policy. Hey, Lenny, I know you guys want to DIY. This is one of the great things about our solution. You totally can. You get all the training support, all the videos. You got all the enablement content you need. But I know this is a big priority for you. And I think it would be really smart to carve out a slug of professional services hours. That way our A team is lined up in case anything slips.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because we see that at least that in 100% of our implementations. And then let's set up to over deliver against that because I think we're going to do better than that based on what I know about your organization. Easily six, seven, eight, nine percent, maybe even 10. But I don't want you to just walk in and promising 10x improvement sales productivity if we finish the year and we're at 7x in the CFO is now asking hard questions when in absolute terms she should be thrilled with 7x, right? So let's make sure we set ourselves up for success. The other thing you've got to do though is establish some safety net options. So there are lots of different shapes and forms these can take. Everything from, you know, before the deal is closed, pulling the implementation team onto the caller, the customer success team or the account management team so we can start roadmapping, hey, as soon as we get signature, here's how we're going to spend our next six months together to make sure you guys are getting all the value you expect. If not more, here's what we got to do. Here are the stage gates, here are the owners, here are the metros.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Inbound lead from a customer who says, Hey, I saw that case study on your website of the customer who got the 10X improvement in sales productivity, and we want that. Like, that sounds great. And that company's in our industry, amazing. That's a slam dunk business case for us. The average salesperson's thinking, like, if you're excited about that, I'm not going to talk you out of it because that means you're going to be excited to take it to the CFO and excited to sign the agreement and get going. What great salespeople do, though, is they know that while they'll stand by those claims, those case studies, those proof points, they try to kind of underpromise and overdeliver and they might say something along the lines of, you know, Lenny, absolutely. That is a great case. I was involved in that sale. But we also need to understand is everything went perfectly. They resourced it to the hilt. They had no integration issues, no hiccups. It was beautiful and seamless. And I don't think you and I can think of many technology implementations that happen that way. And so what I'd rather we do is build your business case around a 5x improvement in sales productivity.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And what happens in that moment is dangerous for the salesperson. The customer, it sounds like they're loving it, right? They're loving that I'm talking to people who really know their stuff. But what's also happening in that moment is the salesperson is actively getting delegated down to the person they sound like. And if they don't sound like any more than a glorified MC or a coordinator, then that's kind of all the customer will perceive them as. So what right or ability would you have to guide the customer on what to choose if you've offered no value or expertise? You've got, at least, you don't have to be as deep as the product people are. You're not going to be your salesperson. You're not a product person. But you do have to be deeper than the customer. And you do have to demonstrate that expertise. And so those are the keys, again, the customer to stop trying to be an expert and start trusting you as their expert. And then the T is taking risk off the table. Two keys to doing that. I think the first one happens really early, actually, and that is resetting the customer's expectations. Average salespeople love when they get an”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Doesn't buy from them, it buys from a competitor. You just want to help them get to a great decision. So that's step number one is building that trust. And step number two is you got to demonstrate some expertise. And what we see in so many sales interactions, especially in tech, is that salespeople will show up with the clown carve experts, the subject matter experts, the solutions engineers, the product people, the executive sponsors, and then they will just punt to these people.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hey you, you're only guessing the customers who love you, and we know we're going to say great things about us. So that's what the customer thinks, right? That is what is in the customer's mind. And so you've got to actually shift, get the customer to stop trying to be an expert and start trusting you as an expert. And there are two keys to that. The first one is you've got to establish some trust. I know that sounds like a platitude, but we found in the analysis there are specific things that sales, great salespeople do very early on. They are brutally transparent with customers about like, hey, I know you were interested in this capability. I got to be honest, we get mixed reviews on that. It's kind of an early capability for us. We're still trying to iron out the kinks. Or I know you are interested in this use case, but I have to be honest, we're actually not the best in the market at that. Our competitor is much better at that than we are. So these kinds of moments show the customer that you're not here to put one over on them. You're here to get them to a great decision. It kind of makes no difference to the salesperson whether the customer buys from them.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Last two, so L is about this customer who's doing endless amounts of research. Every salesperson's seen this customer, they're never happy with the number of reference calls or the amount of research they've done. They want to talk to more and more people. They're just information overload mode or what we might call analysis paralysis mode because at some point they're just, they're never satisfied with they always feel like all the answers will be in the next white paper they read or the next reference call they do or the next person on LinkedIn they talk to. And so what salespeople need to do to stop that, you got to understand, I think, why customers do that. They don't want to be surprised that is the main reason, but they also don't trust the salesperson to be forthcoming. So they believe the salesperson is paid to sell them more than they need, to put one over on them, hide the dirty laundry, only talk about the things that work in the platform, not the things that don't work. You're not going to introduce any of the customers who”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a really simple example, but it works in complex sales as well. Customers are looking for somebody to share in the risk and the burden of making a bad decision. And having that partner who's guiding them toward what they should care about and what they shouldn't care about, what they should consider and what they should take out of the proposal is actually very reassuring in comforting them. It increases the odds of getting some kind of decision from them.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This one, it's absolutely delicious, it's one of our kind of dark horse favorites, if you will. But remember, everything we make here is delicious. So if you don't like those choices, you're not going to go wrong with any of them. But those are just my favorites. Now, what happens in that moment is what psychologists call the delegation effect, which is rather than the burden of a bad decision being solely on the shoulders of the decider, that burden is now shared. Now think about it. If you order the dish the way...”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can leave that out of the proposal. Companies like you get started in this way. Let me put three options in front of you. I would go the middle one because I really think that's going to be the best for you in the first year. And then we can expand from there. Here's an analogy. I'll often tell people to think about the last time they went to a fancy restaurant and they looked at a menu with like some expensive entrees and everything looked delicious, right? But they didn't know what to order. So you ask the wait person what they recommend. How helpful is it if that wait person says to you, well, what are you in the mood to eat tonight? Like it's no help at all, right? You're no closer to a decision. They basically just dump the problem back on your lap. But what a great way people do is they say, you know, if you want my opinion, I love this dish and I'd probably say it's our most popular. We sell out of it every night. We've still got it. So you're in luck. It's a lot of food though. Big portion, if you're in the mood for something lighter, there's a vegetarian option. It doesn't get as much play on Yelp, but I love...”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Start over because I don't think we could figure this right away. So we have to be, we have to, there's a time and a place to offer options and there's a time and place to narrow choices up. The simple guidance here for salespeople is that you've got to shift your posture from asking the customer what they want and just diagnosing their needs to actually recommending to them what they should do. And salespeople get a little bit anxious about this, I find, because they don't want to be seen as like, I told you to do A, but you're like, I don't want to do that. I want to do B. And now I feel like we're at odds. And so they worry about that. And so salespeople have grown up in this world that like, it's the customer's choice. The customer's always right. Let me just guide them, but they're the ones should make this decision. But sometimes the customer can't. And they don't know enough about these decisions. Like we know the stuff because we eat, sleep, and breathe it every day as salespeople. We work in this industry. They don't. And so we are in a much better position to be able to guide them toward like, you know what? You don't really need X1.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The O yeah, so this was right with that example we talked about before options are really a double-edged sword. What we know from the research is that options are great early on. So if you're meeting at the trade show and the customer's swinging by your booth or you're doing a first demo or first, like let a thousand flowers bloom. But if you want the customer to actually make a decision, you've got to get the weed whacker out and cull it down to a manageable set of choices. And the science is very clear on this, that too many choices at some point will overwhelm the customer and at least a lot of bad outcomes at least to the customer not making a decision at all because they don't want to make the wrong decision. I want to work with you, but you put so many options in front of us. Like, I don't want to be blamed if I choose the wrong one. It leads to things like post-decision dysfunction, which is I thought I made the right decisions, but now I'm learning more. And people are asking hard questions, and maybe I need to go revisit this. And, hey, Lenny, we're going to have to scrap that agreement.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe comes I think that's perfect language. At this point, most customers like you are thinking about this, or they're kind of worried about that, or they're getting a little anxious about this. Let's have a conversation about it. You know.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and that's just one example. That's if I hypothesize that you're really struggling with what to choose. Now, my hypothesis might be, you know what you want. You've done plenty of research, but you're really worried about the ROI, right? And you're just worried. You just aren't going to be able to accomplish that. So that ping might sound very different. It might be, you know, we've been having a discussion about like you've been asking for multiple terms of the ROI calculation and changing parameters and really trying to make it bulletproof. But a lot of customers struggle with that a little bit because that's a big thing. You're putting your name against that. And so maybe we should have a conversation about whether that's a concern for you. Is there believability gap? Is there an execution gap you're worried about on your side or on our side? Let's have a conversation about that. So I can set the proper expectations so you feel really confident going to the CFO and lobbying for investment here. So that ping could go in, but it's based on what I think.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They don't know what to pick. Let me be of service and value to you. And so that's the first thing that we point to. And that's going to tell us, okay, is it a choice problem? They're overwhelmed. They don't know what to choose. Like that example we just used. Is it that they're just doing endless research and they feel like they haven't really come down the learning curve yet around this purchase? Or is it, no, I don't actually know that we're going to get what we're paying for here? And we screw this stuff up every day of the week and twice on Sunday. And I don't think it's going to be different. And then I'm going to get blamed. So help me manage the downside risk. But it tells us kind of where to go next on that journey, if that makes sense.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Later on down the road. Or you might get the customer who says, no, no, no, we were just being polite. There's a lot of stuff you showed us that we're not actually that interested in. It's cool, but it's just not for us. We are very clear on what we want. So let me share that with you now. However, what I'm really concerned about is once we get this kind of specked out and configured and priced, I'm going to take it to the CFO because I've got to get her approval on this. build our business case on the claim you guys make about improving sales productivity by 10 because she'll laugh me out of her office and so help me get grounded in what's a believable outcome for us right so that i can sell it and i can be confident we're going to actually hit it so it's again it's not designed to embarrass the customer it's designed to get this on the table so it can be recognized and dealt with and contextualized you're not you're totally normal everybody struggles with this you know there's a lot of stuff we throw in front of people and they you know it it ends up doing some harm”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you will, that what they've articulated is actually a concern for their buyers. So hypothetically, let's imagine we're talking about a purchase and we've had a lot of great conversations. And so, what I might say to you is, you know, Lenny, I'm just curious if we could calibrate here for just a moment. And there's a reason I'm asking this, which is a lot of the customers at this point in our process of working together, they get almost overwhelmed with all the options. And look, I probably made this worse. We're very proud of what we do. I want to show you, paint the art of the possible. But I also know if we're going to do business together, you told me right away budgets are limited and you don't have, you can't have it all. So you've got to decide what's nice to have and what's neat to have. I'm just curious, are you and your team clear on what would be in and out of the proposal? And what's going to happen is one of two things. One, you might say, or a few things. You might say, you know what? No, we don't know and we have liked everything you've shown us. But as you said, we can't have it all. So we'd be really curious to know what do other companies like us start with. How do we get going? What are the things we can do without and we can maybe add?”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, Lenny, do you find when you go to the cheesecake factory? Do you leave satisfied or hungry? Because you can't decide what to order. Like, it's either not great approaches with customers. You'll end the sale pretty quickly. Because, again, your customers find that kind of offensive. They'd like to think of themselves as decisive people. And so we found a technique, this is actually not in the book, we found it after we wrote the book called pings and echoes that high performers use. So think of like the way a surface ship might detect a submarine in the water using sonar. They send a ping out into the water and they're listening, if you will, using sonar for the reflection back. And the reflection tells them, is it a friendly submarine, an enemy submarine? Is it just a whale? Is it heading towards us, away from us? At what speed are they about to torpedo us? All that good stuff. And we want to do the same thing in sales. So the way this works is that a salesperson will try to articulate, but in a non, not to out the customer, but to get confirmation or”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of buyers in our two and a half million sales calls we studied either showed moderate or high levels of indecision. The folks who are not worried about fear or failure were 13%. So, yeah, those people do exist. And by the way, if you find one of those people, you should sell them everything as soon as possible. They're making the decision quite literally on the dollars and cents in the ROI and whether it makes sense for their business. It's a rational decision for them. But for the rest, they're dealing with a lot of emotion. And that emotion is all wrapped up with fear of failure. And what's so tough about this is that it's not just Dunn and Kruger like we think we're more decisive than we really are. Even if your customer knows that they're indecisive or they're worried about failing or how their boss is going to perceive them, if this purchase doesn't pan out, they don't like talking about it because it's embarrassing. They don't want to talk about like, God, I got to tell you, this better pay off because it doesn't. I'm already on thin eyes with my boss. She doesn't like me already. This is going to be the last straw, you know? Nobody's going to say that stuff. And so how do we get on the table? One of the things we don't think works particularly well are kind of classic open-ended questions.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I've likened indecision to liken the carbon monoxide poisoning of sales. It's everywhere, but it's odorless. It's tasteless. You can't, you know, but you need a carbon monoxide detector, and that's what the J is. So how do we get fear of failure on the table? And the problem with this is that, and I think most of your listeners will be familiar with this, everybody, especially customers, suffers and senior executives, especially suffer from what's called the Dunn and Kruger effect, which is they think they are better at things than they really are. And decisiveness is one of those things that buyers will think they will say they think they're a decisive effect. If you surveyed your customers, not they recommend this and you add 100 of them if they consider themselves to be decisive folks, like 99 out of 100 will say absolutely yes. I make the tough calls, I manage from the gut, you know, I live on the edge as an executive making those big calls. But the research tells a very different story. It turns out that 87%.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, how do we do it? So, the first thing is we've got to judge their level of indecision. We've got to figure out what we're dealing with. The second thing is we've got to offer a recommendation. The third thing is we've got to get them to stop doing endless research and start trusting using what we call limit the exploration. And the T is we've got to de-risk the deal. We've got to take some risk off the table. And we established that safety net for the customer so they feel like we've got their back. So maybe we talk about each of those. I'll start with the J because it's first. But also, I think the way while it's kind of linear, I would encourage listeners don't think about this as a process where it's like I do step one, two, three, four JOLT. Think of it as it starts with the J and the J tells you what the next step is. Is it the T is it the L? Is it the O? Is it the O? And then we got to deal with T. Then we got to go back to the O because it comes up again. So think of it as sort of the divining rod. So how do we figure out what's got the customer nervous? And this is a really, really, really tricky thing.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That jolt isn't an acronym. So it just so happened it worked out that way. But I like it because it's memorable, but it also speaks to what's happening, right? Our customers stuck in their indecisive state. They want to buy from us, but they just can't because they're worried about what might go wrong. You got to jolt them forward. We got to jolt them into action.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think she's on point on that. I mean, your customers are, yeah, they're really, really afraid of this not panning out. And what's so interesting, and salespeople can think of so many different occasions where the purchase, buying your product just made all the sense in the world for the customer. It would make things so much better. It would solve such big problems for them. They're so dissatisfied with their current approach. It's just a no-brainer and the customer will look at that and they will agree with you and they still won't make a decision because of the what ifs, right?”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seven figure deals, eight figure deals, nine figure deals to your customers. That increases the customer's anxiety that I really have to see return on this. And so you in many respects are getting whipsawed by these factors in a way that the startups are not because they're not, they don't have as many choices, right? There's not as much coverage about that. The investment is lower. And so there's a little bit less risk for the customer. So you guys aren't immune just because you're the big brand.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Through the sale. So, what I said to this big enterprise tech company was, look, you guys, yes, it's tough to be a startup right now, early stage company. There's a lot of risks there. But who's offering more choices them or you guys? You guys have a partner ecosystem. You have like 20 different cloud products. You've bought like seven companies in the past three years. You have a cornucopia of options, which adds to the buyer's anxiety that they haven't chosen the right thing. Second, do you think there's more written about you guys or about them? You could fill a football stadium with all the coverage on you guys. And are you, I mean, there is everybody's got an opinion about you because you are the 800-pound gorilla and everybody's worked with you before. And they have opinions good and bad. And people want to leave no stone unturned. And then lastly, turns out you guys are a lot more expensive because you're trying to move from selling simple products like these ankle biters out there, these startups, into selling big enterprise solutions. You guys are selling like not.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Contract because the CTO said, I can't, I'm spending every day talking to all the other key stakeholders trying to convince them that, yes, we did all of our due diligence, but I just life is too short and we're probably going to end up going with one of the big players. We're sorry. I mean, that's such a painful story, right? But that's the customer who's like, they're going to keep doing research because they don't want to be surprised when some new piece of information comes to light. So it's the second big fear of failure driver or failure driver. The third one is that the customer is worried they're just not going to see the ROI. They're not going to get the full benefits. You might project for them a 5x improvement in sales productivity. What if it comes in at 2 or 3x? And my name's on the agreement and the CFO comes asking why we didn't get the benefits we thought. You know, today's environment, that's not just egg on your face. You could get fired for that stuff. So this is a client who's really looking for that vendor to have their back and to assure them that they're going to see the benefits that are being projected and prompt.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Their biggest deal of their existence was an early stage company seven figure deal, game changer for this organization, and they beat out some big established competitors. This was a huge win. They went out, they celebrated, it was just totally amazing. Their first big enterprise win in their first seven-figure deal and their first victory against some of these incumbents. Unfortunately, about two weeks after they won this deal, the new Gartner Magic Quadrant on their space came out, and they were shown to be kind of the leader, but they're sort of middle of the pack. And all of a sudden the client who signed the agreement, the CTO, just got like crap rained from everybody saying, did you see the Gardner Magic Quadrant? It looks like the company we just plunked down seven figures with was kind of seen as so-so by the Gardner analyst. Have we talked to these guys and those guys? And why are we going with the leaders and blah, blah, blah? They ended up backing out of the country.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That first startup, yeah, you've got to be 10 times better to get the mindshare. It may be even better than that to get somebody to take a leap of faith with you. And so there is inherent risk in going with the unproven player. But I cautioned these folks, and I said, now remember, what are the things that drive fear of failure in indecision? It turns out there are three big ones. The first one is, have I made the right choice? I know I want to work with this vendor, but did I configure the solution of the proposal the right way, the right contract length, the right implementation, the right use cases, the right integrations, all that professional services or DIY, all those big questions? The second thing that customers worry about their second fear of failure is that they're going to learn something after the contract is signed that's going to make the decision look like not such a great decision. I'll give you a really specific example about this. I spoke to a tech company not too long ago, maybe a month ago, and they landed.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We encountered a ton of examples. It's so interesting. You mentioned startups, and I think sometimes I was actually with a big enterprise software company, and I think, and I presented this research to some of their sales leaders. And one of the folks in the room said, I'm really glad we are who we are, that we are the 800-pound gorilla, especially in a market like we're in right now. It's the old adage goes, it wasn't IBM, but the old adage is that nobody ever got fired for buying from IBM, right? This company is like the IBM of their space. They're the 800-pound gorilla. They've got the brand strength, the reputation, they're the safe choice, right? And so this team felt kind of comfortable or comforted, I should say, by that fact, especially in a tight environment where it's a battle for deals and for mindshare for wins out there in the market right now, especially in tech. And what I said is you've got to remember, though, that may be true, and I would argue, and I think you're right.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Later, if you don't say yes now, what you're really doing is using scare tactics, but you're trying to scare somebody who's already afraid. The problem is they're not afraid of the thing you think they're afraid of. They're not afraid of missing out. They're afraid of messing up. And so we've got to address that as salespeople. We've got to help instill the confidence in the customer that you're making a great decision. I've got your back. You're going to look like a hero, not like a fool. And that's really what the jolt effect is about. It's about how the very best salespeople execute that. So it wasn't that we were wrong with Challenger, it's just the story was kind of incomplete. You got to break status quo by say if you don't do that, you're never going to have an indecision problem. But even once you overcome the customer's indifference and their status quo bias, you got to second battle. You've got to fight, which is you've got to instill the confidence and make them feel good about this. Frankly, leap of faith they're about to take. And their fear, you got to deal with the fear that if something goes wrong, they're worried that they're going to be blamed for it.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We executed a contract and then something bad happened. And it turns out then the human mind, people are okay with missing out. They are not okay with messing up and being blamed. And this is really powerful. It's even more powerful than status quo bias, as I said. And so the shorthand for salespeople is this. Dialing up the FOMO can be very effective to overcome status quo bias. But knowing that every human being, including all of your customers, what I include in that definition of human beings, are definitely afraid of being personally blamed if things go wrong, the faux mu actually matters more than the faux mo. The faux mu is the fear of messing up or in the not safer work version of your podcast, I'd say faux, but your listeners can figure out what that stands for on their own. But this is really powerful for salespeople, right? To understand, look, if you are trying to scare your customer into action, you're going to miss out on these benefits. You're going to miss out on solving these problems. You're just going to pay more.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is the part I found so fascinating. So we dug into the psych research. We read probably 30 years of cognitive psychology journal articles, many of them from Dutch universities, which I find very interesting, but fairly, very big into this stuff. A lot of the economistski work around loss aversion and prospect theory, et cetera. And one of the big findings we came across is that there's actually a more powerful human bias, even more powerful than status quo bias, that rears its ugly head and causes indecision. And that is called the omission bias. The omission bias is, if you get down to it, is the fact that people don't want to be blamed for making decisions that lead to a loss. In the human mind, there are two types of loss that we think about. We all like to avoid loss, but not all loss is created equal. There are losses that happen when we do nothing. And then there are losses that happen because we did something. So we made a decision. We picked a vendor.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Deals that are lost because the customer does actually prefer their status quo. So that is status quo bias. Like they believe what they're doing to say is good enough, what you're talking about is not a compelling enough reason to change or this is not a top priority. Those are all status quo preference reasons. But it turns out those are only 44% of the no decision losses. 56% of no decision losses are customers who want to buy but can't buy because they're stuck in this no man's land of indecision in that indecision itself stems from their fear of”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No decision. If it weren't for that finding, we never would have even bothered asking the question about like, why do people end up, why do we lose DLC decision? Why do customers make no decision? But this was really puzzling because it flew in the face of everything we talked about, including in Challenger to be totally candid. We talk about how Challengers are exceptional at breaking the customer's status quo bias by showing them the pain of same is worse than the pain of change. And again, overcoming that inertia that not just individuals, but organizations suffer from. Challenger is really good at that. And so here we see that the tactics that you might associate with challenging actually kind of backfire, which was, as the author of the Challenger said, a little bit troubling to me, but we'll come back to that. But I think what we realized was we got it right, but we got it kind of half right. And so we went back into the data and we asked a slightly different question, which is, why are deals lost to no decision? What drives that? And we found that actually there is a lot of...”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About these problems in your business. You guys are really struggling right now. By the way, Dad mentioned we're working with all of your competitors and they're seeing tremendous benefits from our product and you're going to be left in the dust and those problems you brought up with me, they're not going to solve themselves. So I'm trying to create that burning platform a little bit for the customer. We get them to realize the cost of their inaction. Like there is a cost to doing nothing. And if those two things don't work, what most salespeople go to is the 10% discount that's only good this quarter, right? So it's like the price driven urgency, like maybe this will be the thing you need to just get you over the finish line. What we were so surprised by, which led us to the question you asked, Lenny, was that 87% of the time when salespeople do that dial up the FOMO in those moments, especially with a customer who says that they're ready to move forward, but they start to backpedal and waffle and waver and become hesitant, dialing up the FOMO backfires 87% of the time. In other words, it increases the odds the deal will be lost.”
2024-05-30 · Lenny's Podcast · The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source