A little while back I spoke in Austin at the #FlipMyFunnel conference. It was an Account Based Marketing (ABM) conference.

ABM is hot right now. I see a lot of organization implementing it, including a number of my clients.  In spite of the power of ABM, and the tools, methodologies etc, messaging is still a critical part of sales and ABM. Unfortunately, too many people miss the mark on Account Based Marketing messaging and they let their ego get in the way.

Therefore, my presentation was on why our ego’s get in the way and how that hurts our ABM messages.

Enjoy, and I’ve included the transcript as well.

Transcribed:

Keenan:
I am the author of Not Taught: What It Takes to be Successful in the 21st Century, and I’m the CEO and Founder of A Sales Guy. That’s all you’re going to hear about me today unless you have questions, because truth of the matter is you don’t give a shit and that’s kind of my point in this presentation. You can follow @Keenan. I’ve got a couple of Not Taughts. Just because I can, anybody that tweets something funny, cool about this presentation or the most whatever, I’ll figure it out, I’ll give you a free signed copy at the end. All right, oh snap. Oh, there you go. All right, I’m a fixer, because I’m from Boston. See, now I got to go back. I’m a fixer or a fixer for those of you who aren’t from Boston. I love fixing shit. I was married for a while, and I married the wrong person because she didn’t like a fixer. You know what they say, it’s like “Oh, I had a bad day at work,” or, “The kids are causing this,” or, “I don’t like this,” but okay, let’s try to fix it. She’s like, “Can you just listen to me.”

When I say that I’m a fixer is I love the idea and it’s innate in me to try to fix stuff. You guys ever watch Naked and Afraid? First off, I have no clue why these fools sign up for that shit. I mean, I’m sorry. I have no understanding why these people do this. They got to be crazy, and there’s also a powerful, I didn’t know the words, metaphor, a powerful case study for the overconfidence of people, right? It reminds me of Facebook and that gorilla, “I would have done this and I would have done and I would have done this.” Bullshit, because everyone of these people that gets on this Naked and Afraid and they’re like, “Don’t let me leave. I’m here forever. I’m here for the 21 days.” I saw one the other day the girl literally quit after 24 hours. I was like, “Yeah, okay. You know your business. You got it. Well done.” The idea of a fixer is if I were on Naked and Afraid I’d be the guy like, “Okay, I get up the camp,” I’d be miserable by the way, I wouldn’t do it, but if you force me to I’d go out and get some water and food and I’d come back and I’d work on the house some more and be like, “OH, the house isn’t right,” and I’d come out working on some more.

By the time of Naked and Afraid I’d have a six person hut with heat and electricity in it. I wouldn’t stop because I’d trying to fix something. It’s just how I am. I’m a fixer. One of the keys to being a fixer when it comes to other people is you have to understand other people. You have to understand them and that’s where we’re going to with this in the next 21 minutes and 38 seconds. Nobody gives a shit about you people. Nobody gives a shit about you, your product, your company or any other corny thing that you want to talk about. You know one of my favorite ones is, is usually smaller companies. That stupid frickin ink 5000 fastest growing companies. Anybody on that? All right, can’t offend anybody today, but you guys know what I’m talking about, right? Anybody been sold by one of those companies before? That’s like the first thing they want to tell you. “We’re the 8th fastest growing company.” I don’t give a shit. Why are you talking to me about this? That’s you. I don’t care about you, right? What do you think I care about?

audience:
Yourself. Business.
Keenan:
Me, I care about me when you’re selling to me. I care about me. That’s all I care about. I got stuff to do. I got business to take care of. I got bills to pay. If you’re not talking about me, I don’t want to talk about you. When we do things like how long we been in business, what our product does, when we do that stuff what are we doing? We’re assuming these things [inaudible 00:04:23] tell you that it has value in an indirect way, in a self-centered way. In a way that focused on me, right? I don’t care and neither should you. You don’t think enough about your customers. sales and marketing people too many times are spending time on us and not them. How many people have gotten e-mails or requests to meet with a salesperson that’s, “Can I just 10, 15, 20 minutes of your time?” Raise your hands. Half the time they don’t even offer you anything do they? They just say, “Hey, I’m so and so. I’m great and we’re great and can I get 15 minutes of your time to talk about X.” Those are the real bad ones. Sometimes someone makes a half-hearted attempt and says, “Hey, I’m so and so and I can help you increase sales. Can I get 20 minutes of your time?” Okay, increase sales but that’s huge.

“How are you going to help me increase sales? What makes you think I even have a sales problem? Twenty minutes, I don’t have that kind of time for you.” Lesson one, nobody gives a shit about you. Let it sink in. We have one job as sales and marketing people. Anybody know what it is?

Keenan:
I like this buy. Even if his answer is wrong I like this guy. What did you say?
audience:
Give a shit about [inaudible 00:05:46]
Keenan:
Get people to give a shit about you. He’s pretty much right. I wish I had actually put that up there. That was good. He’s heading in the right direction. As much as I talk trash every once in a while I try to be somewhat profound and this next one’s probably profound, but we think it’s to sell. We think it’s to sell shit but before we can sell shit we have to do something don’t we? What do we have to do?
audience:
Find out what they need.
Keenan:
Yes, we need to find out what they need but it still requires something else.
audience:
Who they are.
Keenan:
That still requires something else. Yes, you’re going in the right direction.
audience:
Understanding them.
Keenan:
Yes, understanding them but that still requires something else.
audience:
Trust.
Keenan:
Trust, who said trust? Now we’re heading in the right direction. Watch this, watch this. Ready? It’s to get the prospect to let you help them. Anybody thought of it like that before, because if the prospect is not willing to let you help them they are not going to give you the information you need. They are not going to go on this journey with you. Right? Think about how you buy yourself. Whether you know it or not, whether you’re buying a new car or whether you’re buying something for your organization, somewhere along the line, some sales rep or some marketing organization catches your attention after you let your guard down and you start saying, “Hey, I got this problem. I struggle with this.” You become vulnerable and you do it in hopes that person on the other side can solve your problem and you’re being vulnerable so that solution they come to the table with is a good one. How many of you ever dealt with a buyer who doesn’t let their guard down but takes you through the whole sales process? Anybody gone through that? I can tell you as a salesperson I have. One of the perfect examples, anybody have to respond to a RFP before? Wait a minute, so I asked anybody selling they don’t take you through the sales process and don’t raise their hand but I say [inaudible 00:07:54] and everybody’s like, “That sucks.” That’s what a RFP is.

They sit on this fucking stupid thing this thick as if your time doesn’t matter and they say, “Fill it out and do not [inaudible 00:08:08] to anybody and do not talk to anybody and we’ll let you know.” Is that what an RFP is, right? Is that client or prospect letting you help them? Is that person letting you help them?
audience:
No.
Keenan:
No. How easy it to sell when they don’t let you help them?

Keenan:
Thank you. It’s exceedingly hard. Why is it hard if they don’t let you help them.
audience:
[inaudible 00:08:43]
Keenan:
Thank you. You don’t know what they need. You can’t provide a solution that provides value. Here’s lesson number two, that’s our goal is sales. Get the customer or prospect to let you help them. How do we do that? I’m going a little slow today. I need more Redbull. Lead with empathy. Screw your ego for now. Empathy is the most powerful skill when it comes to sales. We can’t connect with people if we don’t have an empathy for their situation. When it comes to marketing, when it comes to sales and our messages we have to start with putting ourselves in their shoes. How empathetic are we of them? How connected to their situation are we becoming? I was talking to someone one day and someone was asking me about sales calls and I have really been an individual contributor in a while but I still sell because my business development guy gets me clients and he sets up meetings for me and part of my company sells consulting. I’ll get on the phone with a CRO or CEO and I didn’t realize it, it’s one of those things that I think I did at the time but I went auto pilot and what my business dead guy does is he gets them buttered up enough that they want to let me help them.

I started having these conversations and I’m thinking nothing of me. I am so deep into their business and my minds going a thousand miles an hour about how they’re building their sales team, what their strategy looks like, how they’re compensating people, how the team’s coaching looks like. I’m in their business kind of like when I was married to my wife, “I got a problem I can fix for you.” I don’t even think about my offering or what I can do until all of a sudden the light switches. All of a sudden I know, “I can help these people,” and that switch then allows me to take all that stuff I learned and start talking about how I can make their world better, but I’m not even thinking about product, I’m not thinking about my service, I’m not thinking about anything but them. They’re the center focus, it’s all I care about and all I want to do and all I want my business [inaudible 00:11:10] guy to do is get these people to be willing to let me help them and the rest takes care of itself. I didn’t make this shit up by the way. Greenburg and Greenburg, Spaulding and Plank, Frank and Park and Moore, you can look any of these cats up, they’ve done research over research, study after study usually in the weirdest spaces so I kind of don’t like it like car dealerships for instance and car salesman.

That car salesmen with more empathy out preform those with less empathy like 10 fold. It’s a joke. What they found is empathy drives trust. Trust drives comfort and when that happens guess what they’re willing to let you do? Oh my goodness.
audience:
Help them.
Keenan:
Help them. Aye. I was like, “Come on this is a small crowd.” I should come down there and start talking to you guys, get right down in there with you. Come on, we can get some fun, right? Start letting you help them. That was good work baby. They’re not letting you help them. The research supports it. Check out any of these studies. They’re interesting, powerful. Greenburg also did a Harvard business review in 2013, 12 something like that and he showed some of the numbers. The only thing about it bugs me is he kept calling them men. I’m a dude too, you wouldn’t think I’d notice but it’s just, “When salesmen,” and the men and men and men and men, I’m like … I literally he said men so many times I went and I looked at when it was written because like, “This has to be written in the 70s. I swear to God. I’m not kidding you. It as so out of place. I was like, “This fuckers been [inaudible 00:12:47]” 2013 I was blown away. Outside of that it’s an interesting study. I’m actually going to give you some stuff to use now. I’m just not going to pontificate the whole time. How do we do this? How do we start providing that value? How do we bring empathy to the table? We’re going to do a Steven Covey on their ass.

Anybody know Steven Covey? Wow, I am old. I was in the workplace when that shit came out. It was the biggest deal. Anybody old enough to remember that? It was in the late 80s, early 90s. Oh my god, everybody and their mother. Big rocks and little rocks, remember that shit? It was great.
audience:
Paper.
Keenan:
I’m sorry?
audience:
I had a giant binder. It was paper.
Keenan:
Yes! Yes! It was paper. She’s right, hallelujah. He joined forces with some store, the Franklin Covey store. Yes, yes, yes. Amen. Those of you around, what is habit 5?
audience:
[inaudible 00:13:56]
Keenan:
Follow the trend. I put a trend out here. I’m talking about empathy. Seek first to understand. Seek first to understand. The more we can understand the workplace we can understand the environment of our customers, of our key target customers or what are they called? ICPS, ideal client profile. All these frickin acronyms. You know what I’m saying, right? The minute we have a better understanding of who they are and how they work and the processes they employ, the better position we are to have empathy for what they are doing. I’m a crazy dude so I’m going to go rogue here for a second but before the gorilla did his crazy stuff all that was all over the internet was this transgender bathroom shit, and I’m in Texas too. I love this. Are you kidding me. It’s Dallas. It’s Austin not Dallas but I can still have some fun with this. It was everywhere, right? What I find interesting with that is the people generally speaking who had the biggest reaction where the people most removed. If you had a son or daughter who was trans-gendered you had an entirely different perspective whether or not you agreed. If you had a friend who was trans-gendered, whether or not you agreed wasn’t the point, you had a very different opinion. You could have empathy for what that must have been like. It’s no different here folks.

The less information you have about your customers, about your clients and their day to day lives and they things that the effect, the less effective you can be because you can’t bring empathy to the table. To put it in perspective one of the things that … I’m going to slightly go rogue again. I see the time, don’t worry, is we talk a lot about what people do and I see this all the time with the people that I consult for. Few organizations teach their sale steams and their marketing teams to be experts in how they do it. We don’t know how important how is and a cheesy, totally cheesy metaphor, I use it all the time but it gets the point so I don’t care how cheesy it is. Let’s say you sell logistics services and there’s a particular client that you’ve been trying to get to forever and you call them up and you start looking for the problem and you say things like, “Hey, how long does it take you to get a package from LA to Boston,” and they say, “We have the most sophisticated system in the world. We get it from LA to Boston in 3 days. No one can get it there faster by truck. Our trucks do this. We have fuel efficient trucks so we get from a cost perspective [inaudible 00:16:58]. Nobody can do that ground better than we can.”

The sales person keeps asking all these questions trying to look for a problem and he’s not getting one so he turns to him and says, “You’re not interested in what we have to offer?” They say, “No, not at all,” and he says, “Have you ever considered flight,” and they go, “Huh? What do you mean flight?” “Aren’t you aware there are now planes and you can put that on a plane, get that shit to Boston in like 6 hours?” “No. What’s flight?” We assume that our customers have all the information so based on our customers perspective, or that prospects perspective they were the best transportation company in the world without the knowledge that you could actually put that shit on a plane. The only way you can find a problem, a really good problem is to understand how. How are people doing it? How do they do it today? How are they building their sales teams? How do they go to market? How do they do their account based management? God, it’s weird coming over here and talking to you guys, like six of you and the whole worlds over here. I wish you could … It really does. It’s almost a shocking feeling when I go like this. I feel bipolar. Now, let’s get to the how. How is powerful. Teach your sales people and your marketing people to understand the how’s.

How are people doing what you sell today different because if you really think about it the true differentiating and everything on the planet is how? Way back in the day when computers were created PC and MAC, they were both computers, they both did computing, but they did it very differently, huh? How’s a powerful one? All right. Know their business problems, not just their technical problems. This is another one that I experience with folks that don’t really understand. Anybody know the difference between a business problem and a technical problem.
audience:
I’m thinking business problem is people oriented. It’s around people and their daily processes perhaps.
Keenan:
That’s good but no. Business problems and technical problems are like this, technical problems are the things that prohibit you from getting there. If you’re talking about efficiency like I can’t … You got two separate databases and you can’t run certain reports and you can do certain things, that’s a technical problem. They want sales people all the time trying to sell to that technical problem and there’s nothing wrong with that but what’s the busies problem.
audience:
[inaudible 00:19:32]
Keenan:
Who said that? What?
audience:
I just said how does it impact [crosstalk 00:19:35]
Keenan:
Yes! The business problem is the impact of the technical problems. Here’s the powerful piece, if you have a technical problem that’s a big technical problem but it really only effects a small business problem what are the chances of selling that shit? [inaudible 00:19:53] I can’t do this. I can’t do that. We got a deal. What’s the impact? What’s the business problem? It’s really not that big well then we just wasted our time. You get really good at understanding the difference between business problems and technical problems. Once you do that be Santa, make a list. Make a list of all the problems that your company can solve. Ironically enough I have a framework on my site, a sales guy [inaudible 00:20:22]. We can a really simple table, word tables. They’re pretty. It’s really simple that walks you through this process and somewhere downloading got back to my business and said it’s garbage and I was like, “What the hell you looking for paper and numbers? It’s just a frickin structure,” but it’s a structure few people go through because I can tell you right now based on my experiences almost none of your sales organizations, marketing organizations have any place in the company a list of the actual business problems your product or service or company solve. Everybody talks about them and if you ask people to tell you what they are some people can give you some, but no one’s actually done a complete inventory.

Here’s the irony in the piece, sales and marketing fuck everything up sometimes right, because and [inaudible 00:21:08] can speak to this, when some smart guys and girls got in a room with a bar napkin and sketched out the company what were they focused on? Some problem or set of business problems that they realized weren’t getting addressed. Am I telling the truth here? No body was talking about the 8 fastest growing companies. No one talking about any of this shit. They were talking, “Oh, look. Here’s a problem, it’s not getting addressed and we can fix it,” but then you start hiring people, you start hiring sales people and you start hiring marketing people and they forget or we move away from the problems we solve. Go back, make a list of all the problems. Once you make that list of problems … Oh boy, now I’m getting in trouble, you got to right down why do they matter. You got all the business problems here on the next call and you want to say … Whoops. It’s all right. [inaudible 00:22:09] hold this. All right. Why do they matter? Why do the business problems matter? I’m going to hold it. That is the outcome. If my business problem is X why does it matter to the organization? What’s the impact? Sorry guys, can I get some help over here? Sorry guys. Technology, oh I got it. I got it. See what I mean?

that was a technical problem. The business problem is it kind of threw me off my game. I got to get my game back. There’s a perfect example. Technical problem, my mike’s not working. Business problem, it’s messing me up a little. I’ve lost my audience. I got to get it back. All right. Once you have the problems I want to know why they matter. What’s the impact to the organization? Think about what happens to that organization when that problem exists. This is powerful exercise guys. Marketing and sales need to get together and do this. It is a powerful exercise because when you understand the impact to an organization when certain problems exist you now are on the front of this curve and your ability to respond to those problems goes up 10 fold, and then, here’s the interesting one, why do the problems exist? Few people touch on this one. If I guess I’m telling you why problems exist what do I start looking like? An expert. When I can look you in the eye and say, “You’re struggling with poor lead generation,” real problem, “Therefore it’s forcing you to have high close rates in order to make your number and you’re struggling to get to your number. Let me tell you why these things exist. Normally we see that when you have low lead generation the problem exists because either marketing is not on target. You’re not using the right mediums.”

I start diagnosing why it happens and what do they do? They get excited because they think I understand the problem. Am I tell the truth? That’s where expertise comes in, right there. When you can start telling people why the problems exist you become the expert. From there build all your marketing messages around that, all your sales messages around that. The business problems they’re having, the impact that those business problems create and why those problems exist in the first place. That’s what you want to do. That’s how your marketing messages do it. That’s how you bring empathy to the table because guess what isn’t in this? Your product, your service, your customer’s history, your culture, none of that’s in it, and we don’t want it to be because no one gives a shit. I like these people. Give shit away. The five-minute favor. Anybody heard the five-minute favor? Adam Grant wrote a great book, great book called “Give and Take” in it [inaudible 00:25:10] should have written this down, but in it he interviewed this guy and he said, “I’ve got this belief system and the belief system is simply this, if I can do a favor that takes five minutes or less I’ll do it for anybody.” I was like that’s pretty good, right? I get hit up all the time on the internet.

If someone asks for something, they want 20 minutes of my time that’s a whole different story, but as a company can we look for ways to give shit away, to give stuff to our customers clients, to give them things to make their world better without asking for anything in return? How do we create a giving sales culture, a giving marketing culture that enables our customers, our prospects to be successful without asking for anything in return? Think about becoming a giving organization because it’s valuable. Don’t think I didn’t see that, Tony. You want some of this Redbull? Be a giving organization. Takers are energy black holes. Again, same book, Give an Take, Adam talks about and did this experiment where they went to an organization and the takers and the givers and they measured the energy that they created, I don’t know they did it. I was pretty interesting, but they found those takers, they suck the life out of an energy, I mean suck the energy out of a company. I believe the same thing happens with non giving sales organizations. They suck the life out of their prospects, and sometimes the prospects don’t have a choice and they just grin and bare it and they hate it. Don’t be an energy sucker. Don’t suck the energy out of your prospects. They’re trying to get stuff done just like you are, so be a giving organization.

To simplify all of this, to be good at selling you simply have to give a shit and if you start with giving a shit everything else takes care of itself. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
Wow, I thought I had a lot of energy and passion but you totally tripped me down, man. It’s awesome. It’s great. We got a couple of minutes, you guys have any questions? I’ll start with the first question because I always have many questions but I’ll always start with the first question. What is one thing that marketers can learn from sales? Just one thing. They talk about sales being on one side and marketing being on side. We talk about sales focusing in accounts and all the things, empathy, everything, there’s so much stuff. Is there one thing that you think marketers really need to know just one thing about sales?
Keenan:
Yes, the micro experience. The micro experience. Guys, listen, as much as a pain in the ass sales people can be, they’re sitting down talking to the clients everyday, everyday. If you don’t give that credence, if you don’t give the credibility it deserves, you’re smoking crack. Here’s what I find interesting about this and you see it from the leaders as well, I’ve sat in sales organizations where the sales people came back and said, “This price is just too high,” and the sales leader’s like, “Oh, you just can fucking sell. You got to learn to fucking sell.” No, asshole. It’s true. It’s true. The customers don’t like this pricing. Same thing with marketing and other things. They’re out there and the customers are giving their feedback. If you don’t like it I’m sorry you don’t like it but listen to it. Sales people, the micro perspective that no body else has because they have to sit across from that customer client and listen to them express themselves.
Speaker 2:
Awesome. Sounds good. All right, go ahead. Can you use one of the microphones because it’s getting recorded so it’s easier to kind of have that.
Keenan:
What’s the over under that they bleep? What do you think?
audience:
What’s your take on a sales person or a marketer actually experiencing the product or the service sort of on their own as a blind user just to kind of see what the whole process feels like? As a marketer, I like to fill out my own form with my own personal e-mail address to see how I’m addressed, how I’m treated, what I give, the value of it all, but is there room for that in an efficient organization and do we need to make the room for that?
Keenan:
Oh my god. Let me ask the question the other way. Is there room not to have it? Oh my god, I think it’s rhetorical. You could probably sell something to me because if you’re not using you’re not using your own shit or you’re at least not testing your own shit I can’t help you and no body can help you. I’m building a self replication right now and I go in there and I use it as if I’m end user, I’m like, “Oh, that’s awful. We got to go fix this.” Yes. The answer is yes times 10. Yes. Do it. He’s right, and if you’re selling something call him.
Speaker 2:
All right. Let’s a huge round for [inaudible 00:30:01] Keenan. Thanks..