Surfacing Unspoken Objections— No time to whine about a loss— The Conclusion pt. 4

Key Takeaways

so usually when I do calls I'm I'm pretty calm I I don't know what to expect but I have an idea and um I just try to keep an open mind and and stay ready and and present in the moment I don't think I felt that way before this call I knew going into the call that I was going to carry the weight of it even though there was a bunch of people in the room because it's my area of expertise I've been in life or death situations before where my life my friend's life depend on actions that I took I was a police officer and a Narcotics agent and I can remember gearing up and getting ready to serve a search warrant on someone's [Music] house and the feeling that I got then is kind of the same feeling that I got when I was prepping for the call I I think I was uh not not nervous I wouldn't say nervous um uh maybe a little anxious and and excited about the call um because I think uh despite my best efforts I I let the maybe the scale and the um you know fiscal benefits uh that the job had maybe get to me a little bit when that much money is on the table I don't think anybody would not feel nervous I truly believed going into the call that we were the right ones for the job and I still think that we were were the right ones for the job I know that the the energy in the room changed after the call obviously I was expecting the client the lead to have questions for me and I was prepared to answer their questions to the best of my [Music] ability what I wasn't prepared for was the pitch we were expected to go through and Pitch our concept not even a concept we were expected to pitch the engagement and I was not prepared for that it it was really unknown um and and what I mean by that is I we we hung up and I really had no idea how that call went like I remember I remember being there I remember doing the call and I remember you know discussing everything but I I couldn't put my finger on if the call went well or if it did not went well because there remember thinking that there wasn't any clear sign that the call went spectacular right I we weren't smiling and like ha see you later talk to you soon hang up it definitely wasn't that um at the same time it wasn't like oh my God that was so embarrassing I I can't believe you know he said this I can't believe she did that and blah blah blah um there was nothing like that it was it was just kind of like neutral knowing that they didn't understand what I was trying to say really clued me in on the fact that I I just bombed the call so what happened on the call when their um the client engineer started asking very technical questions did did did the guy uh our partner answered those questions on the call yes did yes okay I don't think really technical questions came up okay I don't know they they got pretty in there did they I don't remember that I'm I'm pretty Technical and they were using some terms that I was like oh it was a brief dip into that it wasn't like 90% of the conversation about that they asked lots of questions like how do we work together who is this and it wasn't clear to them we also learned something that the clients don't always read The Proposal right until the call and I understand that they're busy I don't read our own proposals until I have to and so then we have to get our game ready to tell that story tell it quickly and be of the moment yes now let's go over the call the call is an area where we can improve upon so we can do better as the call so Mr Burns who led the call tell me what we can do better my first instinct was to ask for questions on the proposal and in this case they hadn't read it and so um having an agenda or even like maybe it's even a backup agenda so that I can present our proposal or pitch or bid um would have been a better what would they like just what would the agenda sound like to you well it was a pitch and we didn't know it and I did don't know how to pitch like that so I was completely kind of lost okay how who we have helped you you're not going to get that experience overnight right these guys have done it a lot I've done it even more so so what maybe we can take a moment okay let's let's take the camera over hereon you okay um in all our years of pitching what have we learned that we can share with Ben this is what you do during the pitch just think back guys your first five were probably horrible yeah I mean I I think the whole point of uh the meeting is to just get into the meet right away just avoid all the fluffy conversation for me it's just like have you guys had a chance to look at the pitch I'd like to jump to anything you guys already had quick concerns with and uh just focus on that or I could walk you through the the pitch deck you know and uh I could go and I could stop anytime like I'm not stuck to any script I'm just here to answer any of your questions as they come up so just being really open on on the agenda as opposed to being like Oh we have 5 minutes for this 10 minutes for that for me it's just more of like feeling out the room and making sure that whoever's on the other side CU I'm assuming they're the decision maker that they stay engaged with the call and that the sell through is much uh much easier because we could get that repertoire of just uh answering all the things that it matters most to that person on the other line I think the one thing that kind of threw you off through all of this all we did kind of like say like you know hello do you guys have any questions all that and they kind of I feel like my memory serves it correctly it was they didn't have any questions they weren't familiar with it so they kind of pushed it right back us and say okay you guys take it from here to start so I think that might have been what thrown us off is we didn't have that guidance of here's our concerns our questions here's what we want to know more about it was kind of like cool tell us and it was kind of wait should we start at the page one or you know exactly where we started so take us a little bit longer I think we would all would have liked to really kind of get going and dive into it right so then what I would do in that situation first of all did you guys remember it like that I did for the most part yeah I I think it went down like that where they didn't really give us clear direction as to here's our three questions because we read it so thoroughly I highlighted everything or hey no guys and sometimes clients do this literally just walk us through the whole thing yeah without them saying I haven't read it yet guys and this will give me an opportunity to read it right right okay so it was kind of stuck in no man's land mhm okay so now what usually for me uh cuz I know with written proposals you try and put all the nice detail in there tells a good story but I try to reframe whatever the heck we're talking about right like so here's what we heard last time we spoke together I heard this this and this and we had to address these objections and make sure we address all of this in the proposal we've done all of that here and then you can just kind of jump right into it so just reframing what summarize what the problem was that you guys are trying to solve for them so that you guys are on the same page and uh and uh and that kind of leads you right into page one or page 10 of of your that's a good excellent strategy what Matthew is saying let's do a quick recap then here's the top three things we heard there were some concerns about security um whether or not uh a team like ours can work and if we have the technical chops to meet that so when we said uh here's the things that they needed to hear actually the domain expertise was the number one thing how do we prove domain expertise we brought in the best person for the job it wasn't us and we're always going to do right by this job so we found the do uh the domain expert for this well not not only that we demonstrate expertise by having an informed conversation with the client by asking really great questions that's how you know somebody knows something okay so it can't just be like yeah we're really good at calling forward 11 right it just can't be okay and here's how we're going to work we're basically squashing every objection they might have prior to them even mouthing it now I'm going to recommend you guys do this with one of the sales agents that we wound up hiring on the very first call he's obviously done this a gazillion times and gave us the whole pitch we do have that call and I don't think it was transcribed but we do have the whole call you should listen listen to it and study it and understand what they're doing the first thing they did was to identify a very common pain point for us okay they said well let me tell you why sales don't work because it takes too long takes time to vet and before you know it you spent this amount of money with zero leads and the results could be six months later we don't work that way so he already touched on the three things that we're going to say you take too long it's too expensive it takes too long to ramp up and it doesn't work he already said it so that means if you're aware of it that means I've already solved for that problem okay you're concerned that there are two teams working on this and not one and I'll tell you why that's a benefit you're concerned that this and then this and this that we don't have the expertise when in fact we scoured the planet and found guys who are doing work at this same level for clients just like yours or just like you and and and I'm going to turn it over to him to speak about the very specific technical things and you guys can have an engineering talk so that you feel comfortable because I don't think there's a conversation to have if you don't feel comfortable with engineering okay we are strong at design but sometimes what the clients are not asking for is design they're asking for all the other stuff so we don't want to go in there and sell that okay we have to be very attentive to what the real problems are I think some of these things are are U like hitting the deadline uh security is good but it's like a lot of people can make these kind of claims we wouldn't be in business of could hit the deadline so everybody's invited is going to hit the deadline nobody's going to present a case that's not it so really we need to Bone up on their expertise and that's the questions here's the bit it looks like everything they're used to seeing yeah the engineers feel comfortable so there's always a blocker the deal Blocker in this case potentially could have been the engineers I don't know making a lot of assump asss here we got to get over that because we should have gotten to the second or third call when they get into the specifics like let me know about your team again 10 biles of every single person we should be able to get there then if we lose it at that point it's like we did everything we're supposed to we got killed this was the third second second call I don't mean it like that first call is a preliminary call second call is to pitch proposal engagements like this tend to have two or three subsequent you talk to County and need to deal with all your when Scott knows that the job's going to happen you got to get through all these Gates oh okay you know how like we did one call with everybody and then we eliminated the field mental one then we had another call with them you see like and then we had a third call with them to get on the call with a client and if we had a fourth call in scheduling teams then you know they they know they're going to get the job the more calls you have subsequent calls different phases means clients more and more engaged because they're not going to spend all that time jerking your chain doesn't does make any sense all right so okay so so Ben and everybody we're going to quickly assess where we're at did you guys read it do you have any questions if not we don't shame them into it we're like okay why don't we do this why don't we really recap what we heard okay this is what we heard and then you can go in a nonlinear fashion not Page by Page nobody wants to do that that's deadly okay pick up the most important things did we miss anything this gives them time to think okay okay do you have any further questions so we're going to recap the top three and what we're going to do is we're going to uh surface the unspoken objections when I put quotes it's not I'm quoting myself I'm just trying to make sure you guys know that it's a term you guys know what the surface unspoken objections right they're things that are not ready to say to you but You' already said them all okay okay that would give Mr Burns time to figure out whatever you should be ready I think another thing that you guys have to remember and this is going to come over time is to be very much in the moment be completely transparent it's hard to do it takes practice and we got to just keep practice doing be in the moment say what you think say what you think okay I'm going to write that down cuz that's a new rule here it's Blair 's rule say what you think and we're going to start applying this in small ways so when it's game day you guys have no problem okay new rule at blind say what you think I'm thinking there's one other thing I'm thinking which is uh something you mentioned a long time ago which is often times when you're presenting or pitching what you think they're most concerned about they do not care about it's always something else something that might be super insignificant and the easiest thing in the world to just and going back to being present so instead of like what I tell myself is don't think about what you're going to say next or how you're going to reply to that just listen to what they're saying right now and if they want to talk about that little like green square over there talk about that talk about that all day for as long as they want to talk about it because they're engaged in that and that's where they want to be no matter what the like script says or what you have mapped out you're going to talk about next we're talking about that right now listen intently right don't listen to respond yes which also means uh going off the script it's very hard to do because you rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and you have to be ready to jump the track at a moment's notice because when they ask a question you can always tell you answer the wrong question yeah right what you have for breakfast it's funny you should ask that I D I drive a Toyota you're like what and it's not as obvious to you but it's obvious to everybody in the room and we need to be good partners for each other I don't think we have to outline that because we already are but I need you guys to know that that if you were in the hot seat buy your partner some time and then now you guys also know you can say and you we're practicing this on our show is to say I need a moment to think about that that's a really great question that you raise don't be foolish to race in there with a knee-jerk answer it's not a good answer if they throw you a really good question just know that it's going to take some time to think about how to respond an intelligent person is not one who responds quickly but the one who takes time to think about it to ask follow-up questions in in some strange ways when you ask follow-up questions they kind of answer their own question and you realize it was a poorly formulated question to begin with and when you give them opportunity to address it again they do a much better job and they are leading you to the answer they want to hear anyways you just have to be willing to do that so don't slow down don't be quick to answer all right all right anything else you guys I wasn't on the call but one general rule of thumb is don't want the job when you go into the job when you go into the pitch thing but that's just a mentality check box they have to do before you get in I don't think anybody was eager on the call to like oversell they there're no zealots here where we're like yeah aren't we the greatest and just pitch pitch pitch I don't think anybody did that but that's a good thing to be mindful of and I think we've trained ourselves to think like that right we're going to come in we're going to be detached emotionally and we're passionate when we do the work but totally detached when it comes to presenting work and what the outcome looks like okay we asked them some questions obviously they didn't say anything because I think in this one specific case and it's not often that we have this there are also young very polite clients too typically when we ask that question of is there something we Miss because if there is and you don't feel comfortable I'd like to hear it now so that we can scramble and figure out how we can respond to that because we don't want to walk away thinking that we're going to we're a contender when we're not and when it comes to more senior level creatives they'll say guys I'm concerned about this this and that you didn't answer that you confused me here but these were younger more much more polite clients and they didn't say anything they thought it obviously because they didn't give us the job so in this situation and if it played differently they might have said guys I'm really concerned that there two teams here why shouldn't we just hire team a and not team A and B CU I'm pretty sure we're going to pay a heavy tax on that aren't we I think Ben was prepared to answer that question that was one of the ones that we talked about right but they didn't say it and then in the follow-up call that Scott had with the client they're like we have to address we had to kind of have a conversation yeah they didn't say anything yeah I had two file conversations the first one was that immediate after you guys did your lunch and he was like my initial gut is their that team is concerned and then obviously when he broke me broke the news that concern came to light what was the concern about the two teams like that his engineering team had their concerns about it that was his first initial gut and then when he did be with his team they told him that yeah ultimately that was a let me tell you how to address the impossible okay when people say to me we're concerned that you're a California company and we're East Coast what do we say how do we how do we respond to that we got to work on your time and you won't feel the difference that's what we say we just meet the the thing head on then we give them an example we say We'll readjust our schedule we'll assign a specific team to be able to be here on your time so that you can sync up and you'll never work around our time but I'll tell you why it's an advantage because typically and we we pivot here typically what happens is meetings you know you have to get approvals and you can do that without chewing up time so we're not sitting on our hands so you'll have the benefit of both we'll sign a team member to fi any calls and questions that you have at whatever time you want whether you're in Singapore when you're in New York or wherever else you're at and secondly our day starts later therefore once we get the notes and have a chance to organize the team they can get marching we get a lot more done so we don't end until your 10 o00 clock that's an advantage especially if you have like end of day thoughts too we can incorporate that and get started so you're getting the best of both we will meet you head on so where they say um it's two teams we have to understand why that's a problem and address that so that should have been a question we've thrown to the technical team and said how do we operate like one team for you as if you were a California company that's when he says I will be out there for four trips here are the key Milestones I'll bring myself and my lead engineer and we will adjust to La time we'll get up later we'll have stuff we'll have like a dedicated FTP right we'll have stuff see and that's how we say it here's the benefit you guys we can play this on both sides so we need to truly understand that that should have been in the deck yeah because we didn't hear that loud and clear we did not respond to it and we need a commitment from our partner as to what they're willing to do I only find out after the fact they're willing to fly out here and do all this kind of stuff that should have been just part of the budget we could have padded the budget in that instance and covered travel expenses on our end just say we want you to be here as if you're just part of our company actually we want you to put a producer here fulltime for the duration of the project to run it look how how smart we sound now yeah then the clients are like whoa you're going to have one of their dudes at your office like yeah we work together that's how we work it's not about the money it's about making you feel comfortable okay remember on the call I was not sure who the decision maker was because there was I think at least two different departments from within this client on there um and I'm not sure who had more say like marketing or Engineers or project manager and stuff so wonder if you guys have any ideas about how to approach that if you approach that at all doesn't that matter who the decision maker is on yeah so if you're on a call with a group of like six or seven people and you don't know like usually it's it's pretty clear who is the lead who's like the person you're going to talk to you know like on our side is Ben on their side no idea who that was or what their role was right or anything it was just kind of like a group of people listening the conversation I had they were equally decision there was the marketing team that needed to get their concerns met and there was the engineer team and they all had equal concerns and equal voices yeah so let's I don't know if that's true or not but that's was portray to me yeah yeah I guess I don't know like I'm accustom to talking into one person and then there's other people there too that makes conversations really easy you know when there's a group you're kind of just talking into a void you're like yeah anyone have anything to say so uh usually you could just frame the conversation up front right so it's like okay we have a 30 minute call I want to spend as much time with that call addressing your guys's concerns and answering any questions you have before I get there I just want to go around the room and listen who's on the other side so that I know what you guys are listening for so I understand what uh you know what parts of the deck are important to you so it's like if you're from marketing you know I'm assuming you want to be uh you want to know about a b and c if you're on the engineering side I know you want to spend time in here so I want to make sure everybody gets their equal time on this call and I get to address everybody yeah and then usually if there's somebody who's like spearheading the whole thing or the main decision maker usually at that point they'll step in and be like you know I I oversee everything or you know usually or somebody that's low will say oh you know Bob is the one who answers everybody's question you know he he's the final site right so that's a good way to do it at the beginning so the the simple thing is you can ask somewhere in here who and how will you make your decision we always ask this question right M and they'll be reluctant to tell us but you can ask and we have to remember something in most Cor environments it's a c cover your yeah right so nobody wants to get fired nobody wants to speak out so they're going to take the most conservative route on a million dollar project that's a million dollar mistake you get fired for that stuff instantly and it's bad for your professional reputation moving forward you're the idiot who hired those idiots who screwed this whole thing up so we have to make sure we are seen as the safest Choice yeah we we have to just keep remembering that okay our goal is to be the least risky we talk about this the least risky option we have to be and all we did was present risk two teams Factor doll you know whatever it is oh my God they're only going to facilitate one day so we got to solve that problem okay then one last little bit that I'm going to talk about that there's no way Matt can know but I think we've forgotten about they was something that happened on the call that I've replayed in my mind that I know that we need to do better when they asked this specific question we did not give them a specific answer yeah they asked us Point Blank what's wrong with our site we should have said we should have known that and you know how we would know that we would ask our partner to tell them what's wrong with the site and we would know too we do know some things we're not like total idiots just part-time we could say this this and that and I think if I ask you Greg you're the expert of character animation I'm going to show you a crappy piece of character animation tell me what's wrong and you're like well it just doesn't work okay Greg's out he's not an expert experts have these things they've seen them they can see them a mile away if we hit on their top three things about what's wrong I'm not talking about prescribing Solutions they're just saying what's wrong yeah that we recognize what's wrong and that's going to put us in the point category there so you know what I'm saying so I'm going to say get specific tell them what's wrong when they ask only when they ask obviously so that is U what is that called diagnosing not prescribing then we're done I think that's it okay this was a million dooll learning opportunity okay we can learn from this and this is the kind of education you get in the field when the stakes are highest unfortunately this is not the kind of stuff you get by reading a book you have to go through this and this is how we learn and there's a very very valuable lesson here [Music]