You Have the Meeting, So Now What? With Guest Warren Spiwak

Welcome to the Oil and Gas Sales and Marketing Podcast. We're every week your hosts, Mark LaCour and Matt Bertram, share proven strategies and real-world tactics to help you connect with customers and close more deals. Let's do this! Hey everybody, welcome back to the show.

Today we got an extra, extra special guest because normally we just have special guests. But before we get into that, this is a place where normally I would leave a review, but darn it, people! Y'all are not leaving us reviews. Let Matt and I know what you like, what you don't like. If you want to shape the show, the review is the best place to do it.

In the show note itself is a link. If you do click on make it super easy, leave us a review. Like I said, we need the reviews because we want to make sure that we're making our audience happy. Warren Speedweck, welcome to the show. Hey, hey, how are you guys? Sales and marketing, this is going to be a fun one. And audience, if you don't know, Warren is the host of our pitch podcast

where he has the somewhat arduous but fun job of bringing on sales leaders and having them actually try to pitch their product or service. On his show, he has tons and tons of experience of what works and what doesn't work in the oil and gas industry. Warren, I'm just going to stop right there and hand it off to you. Where are we going with this? Okay, well, let's just, first of all, right out of the gate,

what you're going to get out of this episode is between what we're going to be talking about, about sales cadence within a presentation or executive briefing is what a lot of people call it. What happens when you've already got the meeting, you've got the ear of your prospect, they set up this valuable opportunity for you to pitch, not just what you guys can do and the solution that you're bringing to the table,

but it's an opportunity for you to build rapport and really take this deal from just being an idea or a concept to actually beating the competition and making a new customer. So we're going to get into that, but I think what's really important because it's funny, I was just in a conversation maybe just three weeks ago where someone said, hey, Warren, will you role play with me? Basically, they wanted to do kind of a little chess match of sales.

Let's just talk about what we're not talking about because in this scenario, one minute we're talking about presentation, the next minute I feel like we're trying to book a meeting because the person asking for the coaching isn't really being concise. So long story short, here's what we're not going to be talking about. Setting up the call.

We're not going to be talking about the marketing and branding that we know is out there, which I think it is fun to talk about what that is before we get into the meat of this interview. But we're also not going to be talking about how in today's marketplace, attraction marketing is really where it's at and that's what I've loved about being part of OGGN is that once somebody understands your value proposition as a professional with what your services are, you definitely want to have thought leadership out online.

You want real real estate out in the worldwide web where people can go down a little bit of a wormhole. Well, that's a super topic. That's really not what today's about. It's really about you've got the meeting. You've got the attention. Now what do you do?

Love it. Love it. Matt and I spent a lot of time on getting people to this point and getting companies and sales and marketing teams to this point, but we've yet to actually talk about what happens next and you're perfect for this because this is what you do day in and day out. Yeah, and it's interesting because a lot of times in the pitch podcast, I'm there with the highest level of sales leadership within an organization.

And as you guys know, and Matt, you can attest to this because you've been a big part of this, is we've sat down with the biggest technology companies, not in the country, but in the world. Yeah, a lot. What I'll tell you that I'm seeing is really understanding if you're selling a product or a service. Are you trying to close a deal or is it consultative selling and making sure that those line up with what you're trying to achieve has been the biggest thing, I think, to untangle in the oil and gas base specifically?

Totally. And something that's kind of funny because before we kicked off the interview I was telling Mark about, when I first came on to OGGN, which was a few years ago, so a lot of my work was, it's kind of like having the best restaurant in the world. If it's in the middle of the desert in Nevada, it doesn't matter because nobody knows it's there. Nobody's trying the food.

So part of our responsibility as professionals. Unless you're selling at Uber Eats, right, and you just need that visibility online, they can just book it and it would be brought to them. That's right. But the point is that you have to have a pathway. You have to have people need to be able to find you and they need to trust and like you.

Absolutely. And one of the things that Mark told me early on, because we would be selling these packages to very large companies to share their story, to have a corporation and their marketing team go through all that bureaucracy and do it successfully. Mark gave me this great analogy, which was, Warren, by the time they have the meeting with you, the deal should already be sold.

You don't need to go on there and say, hey, this is what our listeners are. Hey, this is where our footprint is. Hey, this is global. They're already there. Like we've done our work on the front end. Kind of like I was mentioning where he was like, hey, you don't go into Apple saying,

hey, tell us about your user speed or whatnot, right? It's a different mentality. So anyway, that's all the fun stuff, but today is really about doing. Let me pause you real quick, Warren. So audience of this show, you may not know this, but if you actually go to OGGN and you notice our pricing is public, our offerings are public, we have a media page to tell you all our statistics,

demographics, that's not an accident. That is done on purpose from a sales point of view to Warren's point so that when our clients engage, which tend to be Fortune 500 companies, they gather all this information and they've already made a decision on whether they want to buy from us or not by the time they reach out for their first meeting. That does two things.

First thing it does, it keeps wasting my sales team's time with people that can't do business with us for whatever reason. Maybe we charge too much. Maybe we're too big or whatever. The second thing though is that in today's world, and Matt can attest to this, most of the buying process is done online before they reach out and talk to a salesperson.

So instead of trying to run away from that, we leaned into it and it works. Not only does it work, it works incredible, which then when it gets to Warren, they're now all teed up. Understanding they're probably going to buy from us, but Warren, you still can make mistakes and lose the deal. Yes, you can.

That's what is so critical because I use the surfing analogy so you could have your rules on what surfing is and you could try to apply that to the sales world, but the wave matters. You've got to pay attention and be in the moment to be able to read your audience and listen and that's what we'll call the voice of the customer in this conversation. But yeah, if you guys are ready, let's kick it off. One of the thoughts that I had was we could really just round rob in each of these different

elements, and the listener can really hone in on what they really like. There's no right or wrong in my opinion, although we can also share some of the bigger mistakes that we see, and I promise to do that as we go through this. Let's do it. All right, so let's talk about the traditional. I'll use, again, with the oil and gas, I'll use technology as an example.

You have all these incredible technology companies that are trying to make an impact. Go back the last few years. People described the oil and gas industry as archaic with technology, and so there's all this data storage, combo, IoT, the Internet of Things, et cetera. Here's what some of the top executives are using for a formula. They're getting into a meeting, and again, you've done all your pre-work.

You're there. People are ready to engage. So here's one cookie-cutter format that let's break it down. The first thing is you're talking about background and challenges, telling them things that they already know, almost like a great stand-up comic where you're speaking of things that they're going, yeah, that is a pain point.

Oh, yes, this is a challenge. Oh, yes, this is a crowded space where we're trying to make an impact. We'll call that background and challenges, and if you're doing it right, it gives you a chance to really lay out the solution that you're about to get into. This is the formula. The second part is what they call considerations, which I think another

moniker for that would be what we would call voice of customer. So it's to say, how have you guys been solving this in the past? And that's where you get this opportunity to hear how they've been fumbling through some trying to adapt to this, and really at this point, like they say, it's better as a salesperson to be a elephant, not an alligator, meaning you want to have ears. You want to be able to listen to what the prospect is saying, and you want to give

voices to all of those people at the table. I'll pause there and ask you guys this, because here's what I see on pitch all the time. People make the mistake if they get on the show in the first 15 minutes, all we're doing is it's a credibility grind. Like, this is who we are. This is why you should trust us.

This is what we do, and not really getting into that voice of customer. So let's go there first, and I don't know, Mark, if you or Matt want to go first, but let's talk about voice of customer and how important it is. This is one of my biggest pet peeves, and it's been my pet peeve for 15 or 20 years. It's still going on. If you're going to do a presentation, and you have a slide deck,

nowhere on that slide deck should be logos to past customers. Nowhere on that slide deck should be anything about you, about any awards you've won, how big you are, your global reach, none of that. Nobody cares in the beginning, quite honestly. You want to hurry up. Everybody's time is valuable.

You want to hurry up and get to the problem, talk about how they're dealing with it now, and then talk about how you can help them improve however they're dealing with that problem. And if you want extra brownie points, talk about a problem they don't know they have. That shows that you really know their business as good if not better than they do. I get pitched to all the time, and I literally, I'm at the point now where I stop sales people. And go, I don't care.

This should not be in your pitch deck. You should be talking about a problem that I have, not about who you are and what you're won, 100%. That is probably the biggest mistake I see companies make. And unfortunately, in oil and gas, in the past, it worked, which means that sales managers and sales executives still want to see that in their decks.

And I'm telling you now, throw it out. It does not work. Now, after they decide to do business with you, then they're probably going to want to know who you've done business with in the past, who your company is. The stage that you're at war, just throw all that out. You're wasting valuable time.

And quite frankly, you're boring. People are in that room. So Mark, to kind of piggyback on that, I've seen a lot of salespeople that have worked at big sales organizations, and they had that big logo behind them. They used weight to get in the door and to sell. Then they go to a smaller company with a better cop plan or whatever, and they can't do it.

Or they're having to relearn how to sell. Really, even in advertising, you want to get into the mind of the customer. What is the issue they're dealing with? That's what we do as well as we're reverse engineering when people are searching on Google with search marketing. What are people looking for?

What's the problem that they're dealing with? And if you can get them not in their head quickly on that, you're speaking to their needs. You know what's going on with them. You can kind of restate with what's happening or getting them talking. That's how you want to open up the call. I think opening up the conversation or taking the plane off in the sales presentation is

the most important and having them engaged. Again, getting them engaged quickly is like, hey, this is my problem. This is what's going on. Hey, you understand that. Oh, you can maybe help me solve that. Frankly, I think by the time you get to that meeting anyway, there's going to be some kind

of vetting or qualification for you to be there to even have that conversation. Yeah, I think it's just dead time, dead air, and you want to get to the point. Really, that's what direct response messaging is all about online is, hey, let me get your knee, let me hook you in, and then let's get into it and see if I can create enough value that I might be the solution to your problem. Yeah, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole because Matt and I are excellent at doing this.

However, I want to back you up just a little bit. Yes. What you talked about, and I had experienced this myself when I went from Ma Bell, which is a 100-year-old company with name recognition all around the world to a startup with no name recognition. It is a huge problem because that name recognition of your company gets you in the door and gets

you to the meeting. However, the problem is not you or the product. The problem is the marketing of the company that has no name recognition. And if you're listening to this, one of the best ways to build brand awareness and thought leadership is something like a podcast, especially if you're small. If you put your time and resources into something like a podcast, you can have as much name

recognition as a much larger company. Anyway, but I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. Keep going, Warren, because this is fascinating. Okay, and before we go to the next thing, I want to piggyback one more thing that Matt said that for me resonated. This is exactly what I want.

I want people to listen, have some different points of view, choose what you like, take from it what you will. What Matt said, there's a very fine detail in it that I really love, and I won't name names, but I really would love to, but I won't. There is some very big technology companies that do acquisitions. And then what they have is they have recruiting going on.

And think about this. Sometimes when people are building their sales organization, broadening their sales team, if they're grabbing the top talent from the top companies, let's just keep in mind that there is a possibility that if your brand is that big that you're coming from and you're changing organizations, you could have built up some incompetence because you're able just to tear open your shirt and show them that big logo on the front of your chest.

And they're really some of the best talent out there are the ones that are using the consulting, being able to agree that, look, this is not a one size fits all. We know your problem, and here's how we're solving it. 100%. My older company Motelpoint did a lot of advisory work for companies that want to sell an oil and gas.

And to your point, one of the biggest mistakes they'd make would hire a 20 year veteran from somebody like Halliburton, and I will name names. This is my show. The problem with that sale 20 year veteran at Halliburton is he has never had to bring a new company and a new product into the oil and gas industry. He has the name recognition of Halliburton.

And a lot of what he or she did was order taken. You put that person in a startup role in a company having to break down doors, they'll fail, completely fail because they don't have that experience. You're absolutely right Warren. Yeah. And I'm not taking on you Halliburton.

It's a general thing. So here's the thing. Again, you're in this meeting. This concept of voice of the customer is what can you do? How can you shut up and listen early on in the meeting? Again, the key term here, considerations or voice of customer.

So here's a perfect example. I'm just going to give you an example with like a global service company that in order for them to operate, they really need to be able to hire and recruit people internationally. So here's an example, kind of a story, and then we'll get everybody's feedback on this, which is you walk in, here it is, your slide. Your slide should not outshine you.

Your slide should not be something that you're reading. The brain works at 400 words per minute, right? It can take it in that fast. That's why a lot of times what I recommend people, and I know Mark, you're a big advocate for this, is visuals without a lot of wording because it allows people to really, I guess what they say is, if you hear something only, if it's just like an audio version of what

you're learning, you're going to retain 20%. If you do it just visually, it's another 20%. But if you include both, now you're at a 50% or higher retention. This is where I'm going with it. Before you get into the voice of the customer and considerations, how great is it to give them a platform to stand on?

So example in this case is look at the challenges people are having in getting work visas for other countries to be able to come here with Homeland Security. Let's talk about currency changes. Let's talk about rules and regulations. Once you're able to give them just a few of the examples of the challenges that they already know that they have, now you can say, with a pause, tell me how you guys have been experiencing

this and how you've been handling it so far. An open-ended question, and I know this might seem so elementary, but guys, we know that there's a lot of people that are just trying to figure out how do they pivot from what they've been doing since the 80s and 90s and really get into this more feedback-based approach. Yeah. So first thing, it's rare that I have slides, even when I do public speaking.

And when I do have slides, there's not a single piece of text on any of them. In fact, the only piece of text on any of my slides is at my closing slide where it has my Twitter link and my email address for people to reach out to me. Everything else is pictures, is visuals that go along with the story that I tell. People are wired to listen to stories. And in your scenario, Warren, if I had a story where I had another company that was comparable

to the one I'm meeting with today that has the same issues with work visas and currency exchange, and I tell them the story of how we solve that, and behind me is the picture of a smiling manager at that company because now I've helped him with this problem and he or she can now work on bigger things than visas, that resonates with people and makes the conversation flow. And the bigger thing, though, is now the audience in that room, which are the people I want

to hear from, open up. They trust me. I've told them a story. I usually open with a little bit of humor. In this case, I make a crack about currency exchange, and when I'm finished, I'll be quiet and that room lights up.

The first person starts to speak, which then causes this person next to them to think of something and they start to speak, and pretty soon you have this dynamic conversation to the point that you almost can't take notes fast enough because they're throwing up valuable information to you, which is worth a fortune in your sales process. Absolutely. Stories is how people comprehend and their memory works, I guess.

I would also say the infographic piece is huge. Since you're from the Pitch podcast, I'll pitch EWRdigital.com, we have tons of infographics because when you're telling something or explaining something and you use an image or data to do that, that's how the mind remembers. I would also say I see so many salespeople sell features. You need to be selling what is the end result of what I'm going to get from whatever it

is you're doing. Sell the benefits of that, and then you plug in the features based on what you've uncovered through the discovery process and opening up that call, but they're looking for a solution. You need to sell that solution and what that solution is going to bring to them and the smiling kids and all that, Mark. They want to see that.

They want to imagine that. They want this to solve that problem and get there. If you focus on the benefits first and then fill in the features as needed and then use pictures to sell and stories to sell, your call is going to go far better than the standard format of what I tend to see. I love it, and I love the pace of this.

This is so prime. Here's my little cherry on top of all of this. Do you guys know what the word gelatophobia is? It doesn't involve Italian ice cream. A fear of Italian ice cream, I have no idea. Gelatophobia is the fear of being laughed at.

I think we can all agree. If you have people feeling warm and there's a sense of humor in the room and you can build off of that, it goes a long way. On this topic, from the infographic side, all the way to choosing what photos you're going to do, why not be brave? Because to be good at something, you have to be willing to fail miserably at first.

You've got to try new things. For the listener who's been saying, man, I've been doing it this long for this many years and I'm just so used to it, and I almost think my company might think I'm crazy for doing this, anything worth getting good at is worth doing badly. So try it. That's what we would say is try it.

It's funny, I have a sales executive that I know that's in the beverage world, and a lot of times when he's doing his problems of the marketplace or the challenges that the prospect is experiencing, he'll have a photo and it's a little bit of an animated part of his slide, but it's his dog running across the screen, he's going, that dog don't hunt. And so it's like, you could do this, but that dog doesn't hunt. You could do that, that's not working, and you're showing them really what your competitor's value

proposition is and why it's not going to work so that you can really, in a very eloquent way, get into what matters, but also build that kind of feeling of having a relaxed audience. Yeah, love it. So Warren, I would piggyback on that a little bit. You kind of keyed in on the transfer of enthusiasm and being likable is actually really important. Mark's actually very funny and he can tell good jokes.

And I can tell you that's an art that you have to work on, but really letting someone see you as a human and connect with them and be personable and then have that enthusiasm and transfer that enthusiasm is a lot of when I was starting out selling, why I think I was so successful and I've started to see some data to support that sort of thing. And I think that's a lot of what you're talking about, even if you're not giving a joke or something like that, just being personable and connecting with them and kind of opening up the room so it's not as stiff.

And I think that that's fantastic. Completely. And another example, I just saw this the other day, a patent attorney who's talking to the insurance world, which is my industry, talking about balancing like the legal obligations of having a patent. What is his slide? Does it have a bunch of words? No, here's the slide. I forget the name of the wire walking guy, but he went from the Empire State Building

or from one side of the World Trade Center to the other. But it's just the guy, the photo is of that man on this high wire balancing. And he's going, it's a tricky world out there. And it just gives him a full runway to talk about things that are authentic. And again, going back to surfing, you don't go from laying on your board to getting up on your feet without timing. Timing is everything.

And for you to be able to show up to your own presentation and be authentically yourself and follow your intuition, trusting yourself is such a big deal. 100%. Let me throw a little bit of technical tip in there. In order to do everything war and just rattle it off, you have to be comfortable with your presentation. If you're worried about your presentation, if you're worried about what you could say,

you're not going to be able to relax and be funny or capture the inside joke in the room that you might have missed. So I know sales professionals hate this. I'm telling you guys, practice your presentation. Get in front of your peers, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your dog, something. Practice it till it's second nature. I never do a presentation that I couldn't do right now.

Like literally you could rattle off five or six of presentations I've done over the last five years. And I'm so comfortable. I know it so well. I could do it right now on the show. And at that point, it allows you just to relax and be in the moment. So spend the time and effort to practice your presentation so that you're not worried about missing something.

And before we get into these next couple of parts, I want to add something else that's super important in today's world. You guys as sales professionals, more now than ever, are sometimes presenting online. You're doing these virtual meetings through Teams and Zoom. So if we all agree, engagement equals trust and trust equals engagement. It's just a very simple one-two punch. What you have to realize is on a Zoom, if I wanted right now to know if Matt and Mark are agreeing with what I'm saying,

I could say, hey guys, if you know what I'm talking about and you feel like this is helpful, will you hit the money bag sign or will you give me a round of applause just to give me some feedback here? You can take control of your meeting and keep control of it by having these pauses where people get Zoom fatigue and they start zoning out and they're feeding their cat while you're trying to give them a presentation. You can control that through engagement. All right, here's the other thing is so once your customer starts talking to you,

this is another major thing about today's world is the good old days where you just have one decision maker that feels like they don't need to listen to anyone else's feedback or really put the equity of the decision into their team. Those days actually are gone. So if you are someone that's got like a one hit target, you need to reevaluate what you're doing. Today is about team selling. You need to be connecting to everyone.

So going back to a major enterprise-sized opportunity, do you got the CEOs buy-in? Do you have the COOs buy-in? Do you have if it's regarding technology is the CTO there? You want multiple advocates because sometimes relationships can slow a deal down. If someone just feels like, hey, it's my brother-in-law that's my vendor. I could never go to a family barbecue if we don't do this.

If two or three other major power players in that organization are saying, this isn't about your family barbecue. This is about our shareholders. This is about our ROI. This is about our company. This is about our culture.

Now you're cooking with gas. Now you're actually where you want to be in a power selling opportunity. And for that, let's dialogue that for a bit because it is a different world. The days of the single decision maker are just about gone. It's now a decision-making team. And if you are in a meeting, odds are that half of that decision-making team

are not in that meeting with you and you don't know who they are. You could spend all the time and work trying to figure out who those people are and there is some benefit to that. But if you go back to the basics where you're talking about a problem that you know your client has, you're talking about how you can help them solve that problem and what would be the results of solving that problem.

And you are able to articulate it well where they remember it. The decision-making team will spread your information internally. I do want to caveat this though. It's something that happens a lot in oil and gas. In that, you'll have procurement or supply chain reach out to your company and say, hey, look, we want a RFQ or RFP because we're looking at replacing our ERP system.

I'm making that up, by the way. Your first thing as a professional salesperson would be to ask the supply chain people to help you engage with the buyers. The end users. If they tell you no, my advice is to walk away from the deal because number one, if they tell you no, that means they don't want you to talk to the end users

and they only do that for two reasons. One is that they're really not looking at buying anything right now and they're just gathering information and they don't want to waste their executives time. Or number two, they already know who they want the vendor to be, but they're required by internal policy to have three or four quotes and you're wasting your resources by just giving them a quote to meet their criteria.

So if supply chain a quota won't let you meet with the decision making team, walk away. Now, with all that said, supply chain can also be your best friend. Remember, supply chain in large oil and gas companies, especially the super majors and the big service companies, are compensated the opposite of the salespeople. So if you bring in a $500,000 deal and they're able to reduce that price to $400,000,

they get compensated for that. Just the opposite of a salesperson where you get compensated either on closing a deal or margins or whatever. So if you understand that going into it, you can make supply chain your partner and go, look, I can help you get a lower cost for this and make sure your decision makers are happy.

You got to work with me. To Warren's point, you have to be brave enough to have that conversation and only know a handful of pay-in sellers in oil and gas that routinely have this type of conversation with supply chain. But you know what? Every one of those people that do that knock it off the park every single year

and their customers love them. Matt, before I go, I was going to recap and go to this part four, but before I do that, of course, I want you to chime in. Yeah. A few things really quickly is certainly using like graphic design, one-pagers, links, DAX, even videos, also even little personal recorded videos.

You can use something like Loom to make sure your message gets communicated and it gets disseminated throughout the organization is absolutely critical. You can leverage marketing, retargeting, their email drips, text strips. There's all kinds of things depending on what your customer journey looks like and your sales funnel looks like. I would say with procurement people, you know, if they don't let you talk

to the right person, those RFPs are sometimes just templated stuff. It's not even what the customer really wants is what I've found. I would actually throw a question back to both of you as we move on. I just had a big global shipping company want to rebuild their website and I got on the phone. I had a couple series of calls, got on the phone, talked to, I think, the decision maker

and he's like, we already have two other proposals. He like showed me everything that they had and he was like asking for me to get one. And also the deal was a much bigger than the people that I was talking to before. Like we were just talking about the US based one. They're talking about the whole global site. I didn't know exactly how to take that conversation.

I kind of felt like there was a lot of rapport and it seemed like they wanted to go with us because they already had two other proposals and they were like giving me the roadmap. They even gave me the cost structure, all that sort of thing. How would you all interpret that? I'm really curious because this was interesting that this guy either was not paying any attention

or you established a high trust relationship instantly or very quickly for him to share those type of details is really good. That's every sales person's dream is to have that type of insight to your competition. Matt, you better win this gig. Yeah. And then here's my point of view on it and it's twofold, right?

Because I think two different ways, cynically and then really positive. The cynical side to me would be like, I don't know why you're showing me these two deals, but now that I understand that there's all these different players at bat, I feel like I'm being kind of positioned as a commodity a little bit. So I'd get a little bit, for me, I would get a little bit more on the offensive and here's how I would respond to it.

And again, it could go either way. The first initial thought that I would have is if this person has this many proposals already, maybe this is a great opportunity to say, you know what? I don't really want to go through and give you a whole nother proposal. Why don't you tell me all the things you love about both of these and tell me exactly what you want to pay and we'll have a conversation.

But it's kind of like, it's funny because I hear a lot of these real estate gurus where they talk about how to get a property owner that doesn't want to sell to sell the deal. How they do it is they say, name your price and sometimes in sales, you have to just go like, I either want to fail fast and have my day back to myself or I want you to just tell me am I in? Here's your chance.

And this is one other little thing. You know, my son's a doorknocker. He's literally knocking on doors selling security systems. There's a couple little gimmicks to it that make it work. Number one is they're only in the neighborhood for the next two days and they've got people that can install right away.

That's special. The second one is because they're only here for two days, there's really some special pricing and they're doing some add-ons. So the point is, is he with the most time loses. And if you can control that by going, look, you've done all your homework. You're highly educated on this.

Tell me what you love. Tell me what you want and what you think it's worth. I'm really in a place in my career where I don't do homework. You know, I don't like people stealing my homework. So just let me know what it is. And if it's something I can do, I'll do it better.

I'll do it faster. I'll do it with more strategy than any of these people. But that's just one of my thoughts. I love that word. This is a great therapy session, guys. I like this.

This is really helpful. Thank you. It's a tough gig when the word RFP, I think for all of us just really, it's like, oh, this is a political thing. It's like, oh, they're just doing this to show they're exercising their muscles. And then the other thing is, is when you're really in a free market

where someone's doing their diligence and they've got proposals. Yeah, definitely a compliment that you're trusted. That's a big sign that they're saying, here's all the cards. But it is kind of like, well, what the hell am I supposed to do with this? You know, this is what I do for a living. This is my livelihood.

All right. So now we'll go into this next piece. And it's we're getting really close to the point where we can really dialogue about all of this. And Matt, I want to have you be the first to reply to this section. So the recap is you've got your challenges and background that you're basically

sharing data with your client that they know are real challenges. You're getting the voice of the customer. You're hearing how they've been dealing with it or not been dealing with it. Or they're saying, yeah, we haven't figured this out at all. Great. Now, with that voice of the customer, you're noticing these hoops

that you can actually shoot a ball through. As you get past these two things, now it's time to talk about how your organization is solving the issue. With that, Matt and Mark, I would just say, let's talk about case studies, the importance of storytelling. Let's talk visuals and how it can be accomplished.

But here's an example to kind of make it a softball response to you guys. In the world of data or storage, somebody could come in and say, OK, this is how we're solving it. Here's the top three ways that we're helping companies. And then they might say something like, by making this decision, our clients are saving 72% on this and they're being 82% more productive, et cetera.

How do you guys and when do you guys within the cadence of a presentation do you get to outcomes? And I know, Mark, I kind of think I know what you're going to say, but you guys start. I think, Matt, because you're the graphic, like you think about everything so visually,

I'd love you to go first and then Mark to try to tear us both apart. I think you share those stories when you feel that they're valuable to the conversation. I don't think that there's a perfect place necessarily to share them, but I also think you need to understand what the problem is, how they've tried to solve it. So you make sure that those stories are meaningful and impactful.

I hear clients talking and you see those opportunities to share those things. And really, when the conversation flow gets to the right point, you pull that stuff out. I mean, I love having like pre-conversations with people before the official conversation because you often get a lot of different kind of insights. And I think the more targeted you can get with like,

hey, this customer looks just kind of like you and we did a similar thing here, had one of those calls today. It went fantastic because like Mark said, you're comfortable with not just your sale, but you're comfortable with what that solution is. And I would tell you, you got to be careful of staying on track.

When you start getting off track or veering into areas that are not your lane or selling in uncomfortable areas, it shows also you're in dangerous territory. You're maybe not following protocol from a sailing standpoint. Usually it's like, here's the road. Here's the normal objections. Here's the thing.

And we're really looking for customers that fit. I would tell you, if you find that you're veering way off course, that client could be a headache down the road if that's not your competency. Typically, you're just sharing stories along the way. I don't know if that's a really good answer. It's just, I share them when I think it's going to add value to the conversation.

Well, this would be more of a planned thing and the idea of, okay, you're going through this day in, day out with helping businesses. So you know at some point that you're now about to show them the solution. You're showing them what your value proposition is. This is just before closing the presentation, which is the very final part of this conversation.

So just really about those visuals. Mark, to you, you're now educating. You're showing how this solution takes place or how you've solved it for others. What do you find is one of the best ways to do that? So I always like to have real case use scenarios and if possible, what's called proof of concepts,

where you've taken your solution out of the lab or out of the office and actually engage and installed it or implemented it with the client and then track the process. Two benefits there, one is if you're really right and if you really do help with whatever problem is, you don't sell it to the rest of the company

because when you do a proof of concept, you engage with the company, your prospect company, their own people sell it to the company. Their own people come back and go, Joe, this stuff is incredible. We need to do this. And if you're in that place, remember the frontline people. The frontline people are the ones you're usually not talking to.

They're definitely not the decision makers. But I'm telling you right now, if a company buys something and the frontline people don't use it, it's going to fail. And if you want to sell something to the frontline people, your champions and telling their management they need this, it will absolutely close the deal.

The other thing is don't be afraid to talk price almost upfront. Don't sidestep stuff. Don't start talking about discounts upfront. You're valuable. Your price is your price. To Warren's point earlier, we talked about Apple. How many times have you been in an Apple store to buy a new phone or computer and try to negotiate down?

You've never done it. Why? You know ahead of time, they won't do it. Why? Because behind you, there's 18,000 other people willing to pay full price. Why? Because Apple shows its value for what you pay for. That's how you should be as a salesperson. And then finally, don't be afraid.

It's actually a favor to both you and your prospect. Don't be afraid to say at that point, I don't think we're a good fit. However, not only are we not a good fit, I know somebody else that's a better fit. Let me make an introduction to you. A lot of times, the people in that room will remember that. And I've had this happen personally many times where I've turned business away

in a month or six months or five years later, they come back because they remembered that. Even to the point that when we do consulting work at Motel Point, we intentionally build in contingency time. If we think it's going to take 10 days, we build it for 15 days because it may take longer than we think.

And when we're finished the work, you know what we do? If we don't use that extra five days of contingency time, we write them a check and give it back to them. You talk about instant trusted advisor. I've had hundreds of companies tell me, I have never had a vendor bring me money back.

Honest, upright, transparent. A lot of people question me about sales. How do you want to be in sales? Isn't that a horrible profession to be in and always ask why? And they tend to answer something to the effect of, well, don't you hate trying to make people buy stuff they don't want to buy?

And I go, that's not sales. Sales is me finding people to have problems and helping them. People love that. So a professional sales person is a value to the client's team. It's not something that is negative in any shape or form. So even in the work and the deal, don't be afraid to say you can't help.

Don't be afraid to talk about price right up front. And if you can help, make sure that the story you're telling is around something that's real and actual, like a proof of concept so they can actually see the real benefits of what you're proposing to do. I would say really quick to Warren and Mark to add to this, don't cut your price.

And like you said, Apple doesn't cut its price. Throw something in. Throw some kind of value to create that urgency. Warren, like you were talking about with your son selling, always add value up to the point if there's not enough value, but don't be a race to the bottom.

And then just to better, I guess, answer your question, we have a lot of like infographics that tell a story, have some statistics when we submit for awards and things like that. Also, like a testimonial video or customer videos are very, very powerful. So if you have a testimonial video with a case study graphic with the data of the results all together in a package,

either in a lead behind or you showed in the presentation. Again, third party trust is way better or citing some kind of source is always way better to pull through that story. Before we get into this final part about closing the presentation because there's multiple variables to that. I think any listener needs to hang on for that final piece

because there's a lot here. And I know we're not rushing this interview because you really can't rush something like this. There's just too many components, but a final two thoughts on this. Number one, towards you, Matt. Bravo to you on the fact that you and EWR

and the marketing that you guys have been doing. Testimonials is something. And that was why I really wanted to pivot that to you is because I know when it comes to case studies, yeah, there's a visual way to do it. That's your forte is telling stories with marketing.

But the second thing is, is you are such an advocate for testimonials and the idea that in theory, you could be in a presentation and say, hey, I'm not dropping logos right now, but here's like the last eight reviews I've gotten. And the fact is, if it really is some executives, if it's real clients telling real stories,

that is truly powerful and it's something you can be. Again, you build your presentation how you want to, you could put it wherever you feel it's fit. But part of that solution is people really walking away mathematically. And my last little caveat to what Mark was saying was something else that I learned very much through just years

and years of doing this. And this goes to where Mark mentioned, sometimes you help your prospect the best by being not the person that's going to do business with them, but be there as a relationship. So in other words, two things.

Number one, you can't help them and you can refer them and help them meet the person they need to meet. That's great. But the second thing is, is if they really should be your customer and they're just not seeing it yet, or it's just not on the table.

If you don't talk to them anymore, because they said no, you are failing. You are making one of the biggest mistakes of any sales professional. I want to know that if I tell you no, that you might still say,

hey, here's a cool article I think you should read, or hey, here's a cool happy hour I think you should go to, or hey, here's a really great guest I just had on my show that you might want to meet. Just let me know. Having a relationship is the glue that makes someone's no one year

become a yes the next year. Be a good friend, have that high integrity, and realize that your ecosystem is a huge asset in what we do. Warren, isn't the data saying that you have to say, like someone typically says no like four times to you before they say yes or something like that?

There's a rule to that. It's like if you want to borrow a dollar, think about the guy begging for your change on the corner. The first time you say no, but if you just ask two more times, you're going to like dig in your pocket

and just try to make them go away, right? I'm just pointing out like yes, there's a whole thing about asking three times and making sure people hear you. But follow up, right? So email follow ups and nurture campaigns and retarget.

I always think from marketing standpoint, right? Like sales is driving it and then marketing is that support structure when you're doing B2B selling. And now you're going to make me say another thing, even though I know I'm supposed to go into my last final component here, but I got to say this.

This is my Bravo to OGGN is the idea that if someone asks, let's say example asks you, what realtor would you recommend? You get a picture in your head immediately. Your job as a sales professional is whatever profession you're in. If someone says, hey, what insurance agent can I talk to?

Or hey, what marketing company can I talk to? Or hey, what's the best technology for my landman service? You need to be the first one. And the only way you can do that is two things, make lots of impressions, which yes, it's through those campaigns.

It's through digital marketing like what we really are the epitome of here. And really the second thing is it's really being the picture in their mind of someone who has a tonality, meaning the type of personality that they feel comfortable just asking.

A lot of times it's not what you're saying, it's how you're saying it. All right, final piece to this because we really could do a three hour show on this. And I know nobody wants to do that right now. Dude, I got to go to the bathroom.

So you got to hurry up and get to the end of this. All right, I'm going to do it. All right. Okay. Closing the presentation, a few pieces of thought that I think everyone should consider depending on what kind of vertical you're in.

Number one, some companies can't say yes to you yet because they're in a multi-year contract. So you have to have a plan. You also, if you're a sales organization and you're not doing multi-year plans, that might be something you need to consider because how great is it to know that you're contractually obligated

to make this kind of revenue for the next three years versus just being a one-year wonder? That's number one. The second thing is, is when it comes to strategic agreements with that competitor, if you find out like you get to the end and they're saying you're going like, hey, here's the next steps,

you also don't want them to say, well, we're really, because we're not good for the next couple of years, we don't really have a reason to talk to you ever again. Have something, have a resource, have an educational opportunity for them. Have something that you can share that brings value so you're teed up when that contract expires.

And I'm going to let you guys get into that quickly. But before I do, I want to add one more strategy that you could consider that I see a lot of the big players using, which is an immersion day. So you get to the end of the presentation. You're not trying to close a deal right then and there because it might be inappropriate.

Is there something going back to that entire conversation, that voice of the customer where you could take, whether it's a technology or what kind of products you're distributing, can you spend a day with your potential buyer and not the threat of you trying to close a deal, but just wanting to see what they're doing currently

and see how it's looking or if you're in technology, look under the hood at how they're doing it today. An immersion day, knowing that you and your team can get in there and more relationships deep in that rapport is a great idea. So with that, I'll pause and let you guys bounce off your ideas from when it comes to closing a presentation.

When you close the presentation, a couple of things. You should have a finite time that's agreed upon ahead of time so everybody knows what time you're going to end because everybody's busy, has a schedule. You should also have agreed upon next steps. And that next step could be, we don't need to talk to you again,

but at least you know. Even if you lose the deal, the first thing out of your mouth can I be the backup vendor? To Warren's point, this gives you a reason to stay in touch with them. And about 20% of the time, the people that beat you out in that deal beat you out on price

and they're hoping to make it up on change orders. And the moment your client realizes what's going on, they're going to come back to you and so the deal is yours. The immersion day is a great tactic, Warren. And I would go one step further. If you're a professional salesperson, you've done this for a while.

You should have a couple of very high trust relationships. So I have that relationship right now with IBM. What you should do for your immersion day is take your prospect to your high trust relationship existing client and have them spend half a day. You go and pick up the cost for lunch, maybe even for transportation

and have your existing client talk to your prospect client about how you help them. That is worth its weight in gold. And if you don't have that high trust relationship with existing client that will let you bring in a prospect, you need to develop that, that needs to be on your plan.

You close the presentation, you have agreed upon next steps and whether it is a follow-up meeting, whether it's setting up their immersion day, whether that is them letting you know that you didn't win the deal, it doesn't matter. It needs to have a finite stop.

To Warren's point, the most important thing you do is make sure you stay in touch with them. I've already let you know that if you lose the deal, how you ask to be the backup vendor, if they're still in the consideration stage, ask them, is it okay if I reach out to you once a month?

Don't bug the crap out of them on email and phone calls, but agree upon with them what that cadence of conversation looks like. And that's the right way, in my opinion, to close the deal. Yeah, I think really the key in on the multi-year contract piece, depending on what's in your bag,

what I've found is you might not be a fit for this thing, but you might be a fit for something else, or they might have another need. If you continue to probe and do your exploratory call, there might be other things that, okay, I can't service this till whenever,

but I can get in over here. And also what I've found is these bigger corporations depending, again, if you're not just selling one thing in your bag, there's other departments that need things that you might be able to help with, or you might have some of their kind of offering,

or what I've found is also, do you need a second opinion? Maybe we can do some kind of consultancy on what's going on, because Mark, to your point, I see that all the time, people are quoting stuff that I'm like, they're losing money on this 100% as a loss leader to just get in the door, and then they're going to be like,

well, we've already invested this much, and okay, so now we got to change order this, change order that, and I hate that way to sell. I'm not a big fan of that, and I see that, and I definitely will call it out, and a lot of times I'll walk away from the deal

and say, guys, I can't do that at that price, X, Y, Z, here's why, and they might find some reason to select me for something else, or they like me, or they keep you in mind, and I think bringing them into the network, like you said, Warren, and continuing to stay on top of them,

and that's where content marketing goes, and everything's so important to build that relationship of no like and trust. Well, I don't want Mark to do the PP dance when we're on the borderline there, and here's how I'll close it out here

just because I know we got to shut it down. This was so awesome, like you guys are truly like, to me, the idea that not just being in the oil and gas and like being around this audience just so much, which we learned not just from what's going on within the oil and gas, the operators and the producers,

but it's really about the service companies too. We're just around so much. This opportunity to kind of walk through this and get your feedback is awesome, and here's what I would tell anybody. If you're someone that is listening to this

and you're going, I wonder how do we get a coaching session? How do I learn how to present my value proposition in an element like what these guys are talking about? This is a shameless plug, by the way. You can just literally email or reach out to myself on LinkedIn and just talk about wanting to be a guest on the Pitch Podcast.

Part of that is a strategy call. You get access to our team for 15 minutes just to talk about your sequence and how it's going to go through the interview. So just really want to give everybody an open invitation to reach out to me if you're interested at all,

and this is really what we do day in, day out. We're connectors and we're here to help everybody share their value proposition. I mean, that's what this show is all about. So thank you, Mark. Thank you, Matt, for inviting me and allowing me to kind of walk through this

because this is one of the biggest pet peeves for not just the teams that work for these companies because they're going, can we do this better, be more effective? But secondly, for the audience and their prospects who are going, don't torture me for 45 minutes to get to the good stuff. Let's make it meaningful.

Yep, Warren. I'm going to pause you right there because I got to pay the bills real quick and then we'll close out the show. So this is great having Warren on. What else is great is our two newsletters. Matt, I just saw a merchandise order come through

from the newsletter. That's the biggest we've done since we started this literally about an hour ago. Our Sunday update is killing it. We're up to 27,000 subscribers in seven weeks. We got everything from old recipes to humor to industry information.

Really great stuff. Sign up for that show in this show notes of Sunday update. At the same time, if you're in sales and marketing and you want an email newsletter in your inbox once a month with every single All In Gas conference trade show and expo that's going on.

We have a separate newsletter for that. Both of those are free. The links are in the show notes. Matt and I social channels. Links are also in the show notes. Matt and I are busting butt on this insiders group. So if you want to take your sales or marketing

leadership skills to the next level, we have something specifically for you in the All In Gas space that will announce early 2024. And then this will be our last episode for this year,

whatever Christmas episode coming out. Matt and I will be back fresh in January and more. We didn't prep you on this, so we'll put you on the spot. But this is the part of the show where we do a LinkedIn fail or tip of the week.

Do you have a LinkedIn tip or a failure you want to talk about to our audience real quick? No real LinkedIn failures other than I do have this weird neurosis where if I post something and it's not taking off immediately, I almost prefer to just delete it.

If I don't get attention in the first hour, I just do it a different day. But that could be terrible advice. But here's my tip. I think this is a powerful tip. When I use a hashtag

that's based on a topic of I'm looking for people that are in the market of something, I use the hashtag and I can see everyone who's making comments with that subject matter. You can be a wingman

to your prospects and say something supporting their thought leadership or supporting their post. If you get your name in front of them, it makes an impression and it also makes that invite

make a lot more sense when they know that you're someone who's actually supporting their point of view. So like-minded people, like like-minded people and that's my tip of the day for LinkedIn. That's a great tip. Alright guys,

we got to get out here so remember make a difference and not a sale. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Bye bye. Check us out next week for another enriching sales and marketing podcast.

A production of the Oil and Gas Global Network. Learn more at OGGN.com.