#BJJ #TheBJJandBIZPodcast #Business #SalesTraining
Summary
In this monologue, I get into the importance of avoiding assumptions in both martial arts and sales. (My new ABCs of Selling includes, "Always Be Curious.")
I share personal experiences from a recent training session and draw parallels to decision-making processes in sales, emphasizing the need for curiosity, concise communication, and understanding team dynamics.
Takeaways
- Assuming can lead to misunderstandings and missed opportunities.
- It's essential to remain open-minded and avoid making assumptions about others' skills or roles.
- In sales, decision-making often involves multiple stakeholders, not just the person with the title.
- Always ask who else is involved in the decision-making process.
- Objections in sales can often be anticipated and addressed up front.
- Effective communication requires curiosity and the ability to listen.
- Sales strategies should focus on building consensus among team members.
- Avoid using weak language that invites objections.
- The new ABCs of selling include being curious, concise, and courteous.
- Always be prepared to adapt your approach based on the conversation.
Chapters
00:00 The Dangers of Assumptions
06:03 Understanding Decision-Making in Sales
10:56 The New ABCs of Selling
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
So let's talk about the problems.
Problem with assuming, you know,like they say, when you assume
it makes an ass out of you and me.
And it's true. I was in Colorado this past week
go Falcons and got to train a little nogi at at a school up in
the monument. Great school, but man, they had
(00:25):
an army of people going to Vegaslast week.
So it was raining. Most of the school was
competing, but there was, I got there early and there was one
guy teaching the kids class. They were doing ghee and I saw
he was like A2 stripe purple belt, smaller guy, cauliflower
(00:46):
ear. So I'm like, OK, you know,
purple belt teaching class. That'll be interesting.
And we only had four people and no ghee.
So the two guys that showed up afterwards, I, they were younger
than me, everybody younger than me.
So I didn't know their ranks andas we rolled, they were they
were proficient. You know, they were calling the
(01:07):
purple belt Sir. So I'm assuming they were blue,
maybe high white, you know, forced dry white.
But then ask and but the so the guy started teaching.
I come to find out. So he's 31 years old, former
Marine. He was one and O in MMA got
smart, stopped doing that. Stop getting punched in the
face. But he was he was in the Marines
(01:30):
and was qualified for the Olympics as a wrestler.
So this guy, we had a great class and I learned, you know,
we covered some some fundamentals and he was really
talking about the problem or therisk of extending right.
And and we all do that from timeto time.
Reach out too much and you know,you get I helped teach the kids
(01:54):
class and there's just one dude he does.
He's flying arm bars, but you know, he's young, he's very
light, he's deadly. But obviously when you reach,
when you extend, even if you're in tight, you know if you're if
you're inside control, if you'rein mouth, you push and extend
too much, you're going to get your arms broken.
(02:15):
But he was talking about it fromthe beginning during stand up,
keeping the hands in tight and moving the body in now, and I
guess in wrestling it's a thing.You know that they use their
head a lot more. And I know my professor is
really good at using his head, grinding it into your temple,
into your jaw. I do that from I'll let people
take my back as we're wrong and I like to fight out of bad
(02:36):
positions and but I'll use a crown in my head.
Well, AI make them carry my weight right sounds, but then
when I'm when I'm ready to startmoving, I'll put the crown of my
head in their jaw and that elicits a response.
But anyway, so he was talking about keeping the hands in and
(02:56):
moving your whole body until you're head to head with them
and then getting grips so you'renever truly extended.
And I do like to I like to snap the neck.
I like to control today's Tuesday.
I'm recording this. We do nogi on Tuesdays and great
professor, 3 stripe guy, former Marine, trained in a lot of
(03:17):
stuff, Muay Thai, Taekwondo, judo.
He is a deadly individual. But we always he likes, he tells
us, you know, grab the neck grab, you know with your left
hand, their right hand cause most people are right-handed and
just pull them down. Nobody likes to be controlled
like that. So I I like to pull down, get
(03:38):
close guillotine. I usually end up with an arm in
guillotine, but if I can get thestraight guillotine, I'll, I'll
go for it. But I'm a big guy.
I like to at a minimum, get the arm in and get them to their
knees, keep them in turtle, turnaround, grab a leg, grab a
forearm, dump them, dump them orpull them to me right.
And get get side control, get them out, whatever, you know,
(04:00):
belly get the points. But so again, he's talking about
sliding in, stepping in hands right here, stepping in close
and then controlling the hands and neck and then leading with
the head, head in the temple. Let them shift when they change
sides and and he's he's rotatingright.
(04:22):
I'm I'm big with the kids. I'm like, get them moving, get
in a circle, start using your feet, go for trips, get them off
balance. But that's what he's talking
about, steering them when they shift.
Watch the foot quite often when they go to shift their head,
duck under, go, whatever, boom, they'll step with that leg, get
a leg, shoot that single leg. We worked on some ankle picks.
(04:46):
We worked on AI don't even know what you call it, but the elbows
down the mat, grabbing the foot,you know, leaning with the head
into the knee and then grabbing the other leg.
I mean, it's essentially a double leg.
It's a tackle, but keeping the keeping both legs, wrapping your
arm, kind of stacking them and passing them.
So I've done a variation of that.
(05:08):
But I tell you all this just to remind you, you know, again, I'm
looking at this guy and I'm like, OK, purple belt.
Who the heck let's a purple beltteach a class.
But, and this school was big with some 345 stripe black
belts, you know, 5th degree black belts with, with judo
black belt experience, Taekwondoblack belts.
I mean, these guys are killers. So I should have known better.
(05:30):
But I mean, now to my credit, OK, there's my confession, but I
mean, I did not let it steer my,you know, guide my attitude.
I love to roll. So I don't care if it's a bunch
of white belts. I'm going to have fun and and I
did, but and I learned a lot. So, you know, remain open minded
(05:52):
and make no assumptions. And one of the big assumptions,
I'll cover a few assumptions that we make in sales.
And one is thinking that you're dealing with the decision maker
just because they have the titleclass example, I sold high tech
for many years, sold into big organizations.
I sold to Google. I sold the big hospital
networks, healthcare networks. And one of my biggest clients
(06:14):
was in Phoenix and they had two locations.
The hospital had two locations. And I worked directly with the
CIO and I got to know the CFO and they, the CIO, you would
think makes all the decisions. And he had the power to make the
decisions on technology. But he was a good leader, former
(06:35):
Navy, and he deferred to his team.
OK, so the, the stuff I sold worked.
It was, it was installed in the data center but worked on the
client side. So it was a hybrid and I need
it, I need it consensus from both.
OK, not really all three. It's all four because I need the
(06:55):
CFO. The stuff was more expensive
upfront, but had a great ROI. So I need the CFO to buy in and
I need the CIO to buy in. I need it the director of the
data center to buy in. I needed the the director client
side to buy in. So I did not assume that the the
(07:16):
people with the CS in front of their titles made the decisions.
OK, so you know, a classic example would be one of the
assumptions that I do make and Ido recommend when you speak with
someone is assume they have a team.
And now what I mean by that is Ireally do that more verbally.
(07:38):
I do not assume they have a team.
I don't assume no. But I will say to them, hey,
when you are making a decision such as this, when you are
considering a new computer system, when you are considering
a new software system, when you're considering a new general
contractor to renovate your home, build a patio, whatever.
When you are getting bids on, you know, AC unit blah, blah,
(08:01):
blah, who on your team do you consult with?
You know, and obviously you're dealing with a household
purchase. You don't have a team, but you
know, who do you bounce ideas off of?
Is it a spouse? Do you have, you know, a family
in in the business, a family member, a parent, you know, a
child, you know, who do you kickthese ideas around to make sure
(08:22):
you're making the best decision?So, you know, the CIO, I could
ask you, who on your team do youbring in to consider a data
center upgrade, a data center edition?
And now I let them tell me, oh, I wish I had a team or, you
know, I do have a team, but I make all those all the decision
or they say, you know, Joe has the servers, you know, data
(08:42):
center, Mary's got them client size.
OK, all right, you know, so, youknow, thanks for sharing that
with me. You know what, it makes sense.
So we get them in on our first call, you know, because if you
like what you see, obviously you're going to defer to them or
at least get their opinion. So why don't we just kill two
birds with one stone and have them in on this call so we can
(09:03):
kick things around and, you know, have a go, no go decision.
At least, you know, is it worth pursuing?
So, but what I'm doing there is I'm taking away the objection,
you know, once I spend time withthem, maybe even to give a
proposal. Well, OK, I need to bump this
up. I need to run this by my husband
or my wife. If I take that away up front,
they say I make all the I wear the pants in the family.
(09:24):
I make all those decisions. Now when I go to the next step
and they give me that objection,I can now take over the the
moral frame because I'm catchingthem in a lie.
OK, say you're going to run thisby such and such.
I mean, when we talked a couple weeks ago and I asked you like
(09:44):
who and your team, like who do you run this by?
And you said you make all the decisions that I misunderstand.
You did. Has something changed between
now and then? Like, help me understand.
Like, it seemed like there's a disconnect here.
So you got to be careful. You know, if you just say, dude,
you're lying to me, you probablywon't win that sale.
(10:04):
So you got to salvage this thing.
So something is going on, and it's probably on your end,
probably how you asked it because people do not want to be
confronted. They don't want to be
challenged. They do not want to admit they
have less power than they want to have.
So if you just say, you know, doyou make these decisions, you
know, or you just like a wimp, you, you got to bring somebody
in 'cause you're just too weak to make the call.
(10:26):
Obviously that's an exaggeration, but you get the
point. But you got to be careful.
If you're getting the same objection all the time, I
guarantee you you are telegraphing it, you are
inviting it, you are welcoming that objection into your life.
You got to fix it. You're using weak words, you're
using bad tonality, you're just challenging them.
You're doing something wrong. OK.
(10:47):
So do not assume that the persons, because they have a
title, make the decisions, OK? Do not assume they have money.
Do not assume they do not have money.
Assume nothing. OK, assume that.
Yeah, I guess you can't assume anything.
(11:09):
So again, the new AB CS of selling and I put it in the
description there. You know, one of them includes
always be curious. Another is always be concise.
You cannot learn anything from your prospects if you're doing
all the talking. Always be curious, always be
concise, always be courteous. OK, I've got a whole list.
(11:29):
I'll I'll find my blog post I wrote a while back with the new
ABC's of sign. I'll link to that.
There's a long list, you know, always be courageous, but the
big ones, you know, always be concise and is not always be
closing. No, don't do that.
Always be concise, always be curious, always be courteous.
We'll start with those. OK, Apply those today, this
(11:51):
week, Let me know how it goes and I'll get you the rest of
them. Maybe I'll make a video on that
as well. All right, I gotta go to Nogee.
Can I get my stuff? I'll go sell something.
So let's talk about the problems.
Problem with assuming, you know,like they say, when you assume
it makes an ass out of you and me.
And it's true. I was in Colorado this past week
go Falcons and got to train a little nogi at at a school up in
the monument. Great school, but man, they had
(00:25):
an army of people going to Vegaslast week.
So it was raining. Most of the school was
competing, but there was, I got there early and there was one
guy teaching the kids class. They were doing ghee and I saw
he was like A2 stripe purple belt, smaller guy, cauliflower
(00:46):
ear. So I'm like, OK, you know,
purple belt teaching class. That'll be interesting.
And we only had four people and no ghee.
So the two guys that showed up afterwards, I, they were younger
than me, everybody younger than me.
So I didn't know their ranks andas we rolled, they were they
were proficient. You know, they were calling the
(01:07):
purple belt Sir. So I'm assuming they were blue,
maybe high white, you know, forced dry white.
But then ask and but the so the guy started teaching.
I come to find out. So he's 31 years old, former
Marine. He was one and O in MMA got
smart, stopped doing that. Stop getting punched in the
face. But he was he was in the Marines
(01:30):
and was qualified for the Olympics as a wrestler.
So this guy, we had a great class and I learned, you know,
we covered some some fundamentals and he was really
talking about the problem or therisk of extending right.
And and we all do that from timeto time.
Reach out too much and you know,you get I helped teach the kids
(01:54):
class and there's just one dude he does.
He's flying arm bars, but you know, he's young, he's very
light, he's deadly. But obviously when you reach,
when you extend, even if you're in tight, you know if you're if
you're inside control, if you'rein mouth, you push and extend
too much, you're going to get your arms broken.
(02:15):
But he was talking about it fromthe beginning during stand up,
keeping the hands in tight and moving the body in now, and I
guess in wrestling it's a thing.You know that they use their
head a lot more. And I know my professor is
really good at using his head, grinding it into your temple,
into your jaw. I do that from I'll let people
take my back as we're wrong and I like to fight out of bad
(02:36):
positions and but I'll use a crown in my head.
Well, AI make them carry my weight right sounds, but then
when I'm when I'm ready to startmoving, I'll put the crown of my
head in their jaw and that elicits a response.
But anyway, so he was talking about keeping the hands in and
(02:56):
moving your whole body until you're head to head with them
and then getting grips so you'renever truly extended.
And I do like to I like to snap the neck.
I like to control today's Tuesday.
I'm recording this. We do nogi on Tuesdays and great
professor, 3 stripe guy, former Marine, trained in a lot of
(03:17):
stuff, Muay Thai, Taekwondo, judo.
He is a deadly individual. But we always he likes, he tells
us, you know, grab the neck grab, you know with your left
hand, their right hand cause most people are right-handed and
just pull them down. Nobody likes to be controlled
like that. So I I like to pull down, get
(03:38):
close guillotine. I usually end up with an arm in
guillotine, but if I can get thestraight guillotine, I'll, I'll
go for it. But I'm a big guy.
I like to at a minimum, get the arm in and get them to their
knees, keep them in turtle, turnaround, grab a leg, grab a
forearm, dump them, dump them orpull them to me right.
And get get side control, get them out, whatever, you know,
(04:00):
belly get the points. But so again, he's talking about
sliding in, stepping in hands right here, stepping in close
and then controlling the hands and neck and then leading with
the head, head in the temple. Let them shift when they change
sides and and he's he's rotatingright.
(04:22):
I'm I'm big with the kids. I'm like, get them moving, get
in a circle, start using your feet, go for trips, get them off
balance. But that's what he's talking
about, steering them when they shift.
Watch the foot quite often when they go to shift their head,
duck under, go, whatever, boom, they'll step with that leg, get
a leg, shoot that single leg. We worked on some ankle picks.
(04:46):
We worked on AI don't even know what you call it, but the elbows
down the mat, grabbing the foot,you know, leaning with the head
into the knee and then grabbing the other leg.
I mean, it's essentially a double leg.
It's a tackle, but keeping the keeping both legs, wrapping your
arm, kind of stacking them and passing them.
So I've done a variation of that.
(05:08):
But I tell you all this just to remind you, you know, again, I'm
looking at this guy and I'm like, OK, purple belt.
Who the heck let's a purple beltteach a class.
But, and this school was big with some 345 stripe black
belts, you know, 5th degree black belts with, with judo
black belt experience, Taekwondoblack belts.
I mean, these guys are killers. So I should have known better.
(05:30):
But I mean, now to my credit, OK, there's my confession, but I
mean, I did not let it steer my,you know, guide my attitude.
I love to roll. So I don't care if it's a bunch
of white belts. I'm going to have fun and and I
did, but and I learned a lot. So, you know, remain open minded
(05:52):
and make no assumptions. And one of the big assumptions,
I'll cover a few assumptions that we make in sales.
And one is thinking that you're dealing with the decision maker
just because they have the titleclass example, I sold high tech
for many years, sold into big organizations.
I sold to Google. I sold the big hospital
networks, healthcare networks. And one of my biggest clients
(06:14):
was in Phoenix and they had two locations.
The hospital had two locations. And I worked directly with the
CIO and I got to know the CFO and they, the CIO, you would
think makes all the decisions. And he had the power to make the
decisions on technology. But he was a good leader, former
(06:35):
Navy, and he deferred to his team.
OK, so the, the stuff I sold worked.
It was, it was installed in the data center but worked on the
client side. So it was a hybrid and I need
it, I need it consensus from both.
OK, not really all three. It's all four because I need the
(06:55):
CFO. The stuff was more expensive
upfront, but had a great ROI. So I need the CFO to buy in and
I need the CIO to buy in. I need it the director of the
data center to buy in. I needed the the director client
side to buy in. So I did not assume that the the
(07:16):
people with the CS in front of their titles made the decisions.
OK, so you know, a classic example would be one of the
assumptions that I do make and Ido recommend when you speak with
someone is assume they have a team.
And now what I mean by that is Ireally do that more verbally.
(07:38):
I do not assume they have a team.
I don't assume no. But I will say to them, hey,
when you are making a decision such as this, when you are
considering a new computer system, when you are considering
a new software system, when you're considering a new general
contractor to renovate your home, build a patio, whatever.
When you are getting bids on, you know, AC unit blah, blah,
(08:01):
blah, who on your team do you consult with?
You know, and obviously you're dealing with a household
purchase. You don't have a team, but you
know, who do you bounce ideas off of?
Is it a spouse? Do you have, you know, a family
in in the business, a family member, a parent, you know, a
child, you know, who do you kickthese ideas around to make sure
(08:22):
you're making the best decision?So, you know, the CIO, I could
ask you, who on your team do youbring in to consider a data
center upgrade, a data center edition?
And now I let them tell me, oh, I wish I had a team or, you
know, I do have a team, but I make all those all the decision
or they say, you know, Joe has the servers, you know, data
(08:42):
center, Mary's got them client size.
OK, all right, you know, so, youknow, thanks for sharing that
with me. You know what, it makes sense.
So we get them in on our first call, you know, because if you
like what you see, obviously you're going to defer to them or
at least get their opinion. So why don't we just kill two
birds with one stone and have them in on this call so we can
(09:03):
kick things around and, you know, have a go, no go decision.
At least, you know, is it worth pursuing?
So, but what I'm doing there is I'm taking away the objection,
you know, once I spend time withthem, maybe even to give a
proposal. Well, OK, I need to bump this
up. I need to run this by my husband
or my wife. If I take that away up front,
they say I make all the I wear the pants in the family.
(09:24):
I make all those decisions. Now when I go to the next step
and they give me that objection,I can now take over the the
moral frame because I'm catchingthem in a lie.
OK, say you're going to run thisby such and such.
I mean, when we talked a couple weeks ago and I asked you like
(09:44):
who and your team, like who do you run this by?
And you said you make all the decisions that I misunderstand.
You did. Has something changed between
now and then? Like, help me understand.
Like, it seemed like there's a disconnect here.
So you got to be careful. You know, if you just say, dude,
you're lying to me, you probablywon't win that sale.
(10:04):
So you got to salvage this thing.
So something is going on, and it's probably on your end,
probably how you asked it because people do not want to be
confronted. They don't want to be
challenged. They do not want to admit they
have less power than they want to have.
So if you just say, you know, doyou make these decisions, you
know, or you just like a wimp, you, you got to bring somebody
in 'cause you're just too weak to make the call.
(10:26):
Obviously that's an exaggeration, but you get the
point. But you got to be careful.
If you're getting the same objection all the time, I
guarantee you you are telegraphing it, you are
inviting it, you are welcoming that objection into your life.
You got to fix it. You're using weak words, you're
using bad tonality, you're just challenging them.
You're doing something wrong. OK.
(10:47):
So do not assume that the persons, because they have a
title, make the decisions, OK? Do not assume they have money.
Do not assume they do not have money.
Assume nothing. OK, assume that.
Yeah, I guess you can't assume anything.
(11:09):
So again, the new AB CS of selling and I put it in the
description there. You know, one of them includes
always be curious. Another is always be concise.
You cannot learn anything from your prospects if you're doing
all the talking. Always be curious, always be
concise, always be courteous. OK, I've got a whole list.
(11:29):
I'll I'll find my blog post I wrote a while back with the new
ABC's of sign. I'll link to that.
There's a long list, you know, always be courageous, but the
big ones, you know, always be concise and is not always be
closing. No, don't do that.
Always be concise, always be curious, always be courteous.
We'll start with those. OK, Apply those today, this
(11:51):
week, Let me know how it goes and I'll get you the rest of
them. Maybe I'll make a video on that
as well. All right, I gotta go to Nogee.
Can I get my stuff? I'll go sell something.
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