Asking the Right Questions to Gain the Right Opportunities with the Right People

with Paul Cherry,

Founder, Performance Based Results

In this episode, Pete is joined by Paul Cherry, Founder of Performance Based Results. Paul shares his years of experience in helping companies combat a challenging economy by asking the right questions, getting the right opportunities, and speaking to the right people.

Notes:

Key topics in today’s conversation include:

  • Biggest challenges organizations are facing over the last six months (0:51)
  • Asking the right questions to gain the right opportunities (2:52)
  • Identifying the right people in selling B2B (13:43)
  • How the right questions played a key role in Paul’s personal journey (17:49)
  • The key to better sales success: listening (22:57)
  • What does SaaS(ramp) mean to Paul? (29:39)

 

The SaaS(ramp) Podcast explores how tech leaders scale from product adoption to enterprise success. Learn more at www.saasrampmedia.com.

Transcription:

Pete Thornton 00:00
All right. Welcome back rampants to The SaaS Ramp Podcast. I’m your host podcast Pete. Awesome guest on, interesting guest, a little unique and different today. We have Paul Cherry on the show. Paul is founder of Performance Based Results, otherwise called PBR. Welcome to the show, Paul. I went looking for you actually, we had some discussions in previous episodes and discovery was brought up very frequently by the heads of sales enablement, leaders that often speak to. And so I was like, Okay, well, who’s an expert there? Where are we going to get some tidbits from so I really appreciate you coming on. And I know my audience will appreciate it as well.

Paul Cherry 00:48
Oh, Pete, it’s a pleasure. So thank you, looking forward to it.

Pete Thornton 00:51
So big changes over the very end of this year, this is 2022. So for anybody listening later on, we’re into December at this point. So wanted to ask you, Paul, for our first question is maybe what is the biggest challenge you’ve seen with organizations you’re working with? Over the last couple quarters here, maybe six, the

Paul Cherry 01:11
a big challenge would just be in terms of that, okay, now, we got to just step up our game, be more innovative and proactive, no impact, the opportunities we can’t wait for? We have to create them. Okay. That’s what I’m seeing now. And that’s a good opportunity for us to step up our game.

Pete Thornton 01:28
Interesting. Okay. So I’ll just ask you, because I’m not sure you’ve been doing this for a minute. Have you seen some other cycles like this? Do you have an experience when things turn a little bit in the economy and, kind of knowing what it takes to get over that hump?

Paul Cherry 01:45
Well, the thing is just, we’ve really had a phenomenal ride in terms of the economy in terms of what sales professionals are doing, in terms of making sure that we’re attracting, we are retaining, we’re investing in terms of the products and opportunities to have that focus. And there’s this cautiousness, this anxiety, there’s a reactive Miss wondering, okay, what’s going to happen, and this is where we really have to develop laser focus. And what I tell my technology clients, and clients in just about every industry is, there’s always three basic components in good times and bad times. And that is, three things are, we got to ask the right questions. Because when you get asked the right questions, I mean, number two, you identify the right opportunities. And number three is making sure that you’re engaging the right people. So it’s the right questions, the right opportunities, the right people. That’s what really helps sales professionals, especially in this b2b world that we’re in, be more successful and effective. Yeah, that’s a challenge.

Pete Thornton 02:50
Yeah, can I? Are you there? So I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. It’s hard not to the least when you see three bullet points like that. I’m a former teacher too. So I’m just like, oh, three bullet points. There it is. There’s no slide. You said, the questions like the line of questions, asking the right type of questions, breaking down the right opportunities. And speaking to the right people. Can we take a minute like maybe we’ll just unpatched it. Okay, so

Paul Cherry 03:14
My background is very passionate about questions. And, you know, in terms of that I was a messed up kid when I was a teenager, at a gifted counselor that just asked me questions to help me discover. But he also learned that in my 20s, like most people, you go through like 10 to 12 jobs in your 20s to about early 30s. One thing I got really good at was in the interview process. And what I always did was turn it around, and ask the interviewer the questions to engage. And it really made a difference, because that got them to talk. But it’s the same thing, because that’s the concept of selling we’re selling every day. But here’s where I’m going with it for the folks that are on our SaaS program today is to look at your salespeople and say, okay, my people are doing a pretty good job of questioning our challenge that they probably aren’t. Because number one, it’s interesting that with this incredible study that was done by the Darnell Research Institute, across all industries, but particularly technology, and that is that our engaging question came up: what percent of the time are our customers not telling us what is on their minds? And on average, the answer was about 80% of the time. And notice Pete I said, customers, I didn’t say prospects, I said customers 80% of the time, they’re sharing with us what’s really on their minds. And it’s the concept that’s called masking MASKing when somebody is hiding, withdrawing, protecting their true feelings. When we’re trying to sell your products or services or SaaS solutions, you know, how do you expand okay, how great your services are, but the fact is, they took it further and said, Well, what percentage of time is that customer active listening? And it’s low on average. 20% Okay, I’m gonna call it You know, we say when I call it loose, not sharing with you and they’re not listening. What you have to do is you have to ask those penetrating, thought provoking questions. How do you get 100%? Listening? Gauge probing? Okay. I’ll be happy to give you some examples.

Pete Thornton 05:18
What I mean by that. So, yeah, for quick summary like, I am not, I guess at all shocked to hear that there would be like an, even though you said customers not prospects, that is a little galling, maybe 80%, higher than I would have guessed 8% on the masking, like not really getting into what they think and feel at least 80% high. And then the act of listening. I could have guessed that though, I’d be like, yeah, yeah, because they jump on another Zoom meeting, it’s 30 minutes, they’re cranking through their day, I can get back the only way I ever knew how to do that, especially when doing something like a demo saying things that are very US centric, is to get back into them and open lagging a bit, but you’d love some examples of how that looks. Got the

Paul Cherry 06:01
demos, the kiss of death, okay? See elstat Okay, the demos, I gag. And and, and your customers gag too. And it’s good. You know, the statistics that I shared with you. They’re worse today. Because if you look at social media platforms, and our attention spans and looking at YouTube videos, for example, was about two to three minutes. And today, you know, I’m hopping on Tik Tok. And if it’s more than 2025 seconds, boom, I’m out. So attention spans are shorter. But here’s the thing is that in terms of the probing, you know, we talked about this, I shouldn’t give it away about the SaaS ramp up, but you asked me and let me tell you something here, the way to speed things up or to slow down. And the challenge I say is that, you know, we want to sometimes do everything in the world of technology, where we’re giving our product pitch, it’s really about you cannot tell value until you understand what the customer values. So we ask those kinds of deeper, thought provoking questions. And here’s what I found in my research, you know, 10,000 observations and all sales interviews, including the technology, is that 87% of the questions that a sales professionals ask in the SAS environment tend to be in the present. And some basic questions, what’s going on? How’s it going? What are you using now? How many platforms? What projects do you have? What are the problems? What are the issues? Can I schedule a demo? Who else should be involved? What are you paying now? To see these commoditized product bookings questions? And you know, go through the checklist, and then get through that and say, Can I give you a product demo? Where as I’m like, you know, what? 87% of the questions in the present. Stay out of the president, he can point it out. Why? Because you put people to sleep, you annoy them, you antagonize them, you interrogate them. And when I watch sales professionals in this environment, inside and outside is 9% to 10%. Go into the future. So tell me more about the goals you’re looking to accomplish. What do you see that’s going to be changing over the next two to three years? So there’s about 9% questions in interesting Pete. Just what percentage is left? Three and 4%?

Pete Thornton 08:04
Yeah, like there was only a couple of percent left. So I’m amazed. It’s

Paul Cherry 08:09
usually it’s what did you do this weekend? Really? That’s the best history question. You could ask somebody. And I’m like, You know what, it’s just an I’ll challenge any of your clients here on the podcast with us just listen to those calls as the discovery calls that they’re making. People are scratching at the surface, no matter why they’re not sharing 80% of the information, because the burden is on us as sales professionals are not digging deep enough. The right questions are truth seeking missiles. Okay. So you know, where I say that, so let’s get into it. Again, I don’t want to speed things up, because I know of our brevity, but what I teach is to get more descriptive opening questions. So like, a bad question might be, “Here’s what I hope nobody asks this, but it’s like Pete, are you the decision maker? Think about that. What’s wrong with that question?

Pete Thornton 08:59
You don’t know why it’s been asked like, you don’t know God asked for it. And it’s like, it hurt me a little bit. If you’re not that you want mask and say you’re not if you are, because there’s a lot of reasons you might give something incorrect you

Paul Cherry 09:13
can do to you and it’s closed ended and it’s closed, and it just gets yes or no, it’s a horrible question. Guess what? It’s an important question. So how would I salvage that question? Let’s say you use descriptive openers on occasion like describe tell me share with me walk to help you understand. So for example, the salvage that question is said of Are You the decision maker? It would be so take me through your decision making process. See how he tweaked that question from closed ended to open ended immediately. Yeah, and that’s where I get who’s the decision maker, how’s the decisions made? Possibly criteria three to four questions in question, just with descriptive openers. So that’s a real easy takeaway for your people to be at. I’ll tell the leaders here that are on this podcast when they’re engaging their teams. They said, How’s your day going? You know, what do you get? I mean, it’s kind of a cliche. What do you expect that person to say? Oh, okay, not bad. Take me through how, you know, taking the entire morning has been what’s been good, what’s been challenging, you know, as you reflect back on the morning, because I want to know, just a little bit deeper, what’s going on in the mindset? You know, so whether we’re selling internally or internally, let’s have better engagement strategies make sense?

10:23
Yeah. See? Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Cherry 10:26
So that’s, go ahead. You’re talking about

Pete Thornton 10:28
opening the questions up a little bit. I want to interject one more step, though. Because like with these percentages, like how much in the present tense, the new blank reference, overpack or future? Or is it just getting them out of just this here. And now that’s more important, like, I know that sometimes we want a current state, we want a future state so we can actually know where we’re going, where we’re coming from. But back, yeah. What is it that you like, if you’re a coach, a sales team? And you might say, hey, why don’t we spend some time here? Why don’t we spend some time there? Is there a place you point them? Or is it just surely getting out of these, like very static close into present tense questions?

Paul Cherry 11:06
Thank you. Yes. It’s interesting, because deals are present quite often. And that’s good. You brought that up? Because I don’t want to knock down those present tense questions. What are you using? Now? What’s working? You know, what is your budget? What are your challenges? Who is involved in decision making decisions, all these important present questions, but it’s like, Why do you take those questions in the beginning, every buddy in your you know, in the SAS environment, your competitors are asking, there’s no differentiation, but you’re just forcing people to say, you know, what, I think I’m just gonna stay put and use who were using was, I want to start it off more in terms of, you know, and it really is setting the question, you know, Pete, let me see if I’m really good bit with what you’re looking to. Let me ask you some questions. So tell me a little bit about the background, the history of this organization? What’s led to your success today? Right? I mean, it’s something like that. And what do you envision? Tell me what you envision over the next three to five years? What’s really going to be the driving force to ensure your success? Oh, that’s what a start strategically, bigger picture, see how we did that? versus getting right into the tactical saying, you know, something stupid? So Pete, you know, what business? Are you in? What technology area? You know, it’s like, well, of course, we know we did some research there. But even then, start bigger, because that’s what people also want to be in the SAS environment, we’re so focused on, you know, setting up the demo and wanting to sell the product, I really want to get into the mindset, the business, the business. So it’s almost, you know, where I want to gravitate to somebody who’s in technology, whether it’s somebody a, you know, a software engineer, or even a Chief Technology Officer, I really want to know the business business first, before I get into technology, and a lot of these salespeople this environment, just struggle with, because they’re so wired, because they want to sell technology, but it’s not. That’s why people buy. It is a struggle to buy for business reasons.

Pete Thornton 12:56
So say you had this, you bring it up a great point here. We’re talking like technical versus business, like,

Paul Cherry 13:03
It’s all about how can I be more profitable? How can I be more successful? How can I speed up my, you know, my market, you know, and gain greater and differentiate myself and the competitive environment, all the things that we that people that are listening on this broadcast today, it’s the same thing that your customers or prospects are thinking, and yet we’re not engaging the customers in those areas, because we want to get right into the weeds to do that setup of the product demo. And that’s why you know, what, why they’re not seeing the kind of sales because we’re creating stalls and objections and put offs and just people like, you know what, let’s just stay put. Nice product demo. Yeah, I really like it really? Looks good. Okay, I’ll call you when something comes up. And I need a joke.

Pete Thornton 13:42
Oh, you mentioned identifying the right people. And what you’re bringing up right now is, this dovetails nicely, so I asked, maybe I can buy a challenge I see in, in this product, lead growth, SAS space, like this, the Oakley that are utilizing the product day in and day out, though they have premium usage, maybe 1000s of people within an organization, but they’re not using the enterprise version. So in order to sell the enterprise version, you have to sell on value. It’s extraordinarily much more expensive than even these low priced or free, you know, infinitely more expensive than those. But the people who first want to engage with a member of the sales team are going to be like software developers, they’re the ones using it for an hour and a half. Yes, but your buyer, your economic buyer is way up here dealing with business value, you’re talking to this person, but didn’t need to get to that person. What advice tips like things to just be aware of when you’re walking through that if you could talk to us about it.

Paul Cherry 14:45
The challenge is that when I talk to people through the program, the questions that sell the powerful processes discover what your customers really want. You know, people really gravitate and get excited about these questions. My biggest frustration though, is that people then want Go with a checklist of questions like, just really, it’s about being in the moment to really understand. But if I could share some, you know, innovative questions you could never go wrong with. But the right timing, when to ask these questions would be one of the things is to take me through your decision making process. And I always want to know that because I want to know the people that are involved, okay, understand, how do I cultivate the relationships. So just like you said, the economic buyer, whether it’s the president, the CEO, the senior level executives, you know, the C suite, I want to know that perspective. And I wanted to know that technology, people from the CTOs to the software engineers, developers, to then the marketers, and the sales and everything else, operations, all that the people involved, then my next thing is help me understand that criteria. That’s going to be important from the C suites perspective, what they value, like you said, value because it is, from your perspective, as a software developer, tell me what you value most. And what I’m finding out is the criteria. And as I said, I get beyond that icing stuff, but really about that bigger picture, I have a more thorough and complete understanding of the customer’s needs. And I need to do that due diligence before I do the product demo. See, it’s really easy, understand the people and understand the criteria. Okay. And that’s really, you can’t go wrong. But the third area is then understanding the motivations. Okay? You know, what would motivate people? And those four things, you know, not to get deep here, but the four questions that anyone has on their mind, as part of the criteria is, I can minimize my risk. See, number two is how you’re going to enhance my competitive edge. Okay, make me look good. Number three, how are you going to help us be more profitable? Successful? And number four is how are you going to make my life easier? See, so that’s what you know, what I’m saying with the software developer, what’s going to be important from their motivation, when you said, you know, they’re gonna be using it. Their value is definitely gonna be different from, like you said, from the C level executive, right? So I put it all together. So when I get that presentation, man, I’m nailing because I’m addressing everybody involved in the decision process. That help, yeah, that, see where I can buy circles right back to saying you can’t sell value until you understand what customers

Pete Thornton 17:10
Do you understand the value? Yeah. Great. Great point. Yeah, pretty straightforward.

Paul Cherry 17:14
It’s not complicated. That’s the beauty of selling, people will try to make it complicated, like selling is crazy. But you know, everything that’s changed today, some things don’t change. And that is when it takes time to develop and cultivate relationships. I wish there was an answer to speed things up. But if you have a complex, you know, enterprise selling environment, Russia,

Pete Thornton 17:33
yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah. Good. Good point. Yeah, I just had a ball like going through because we had some bullet points and some tips to give some examples as well. So these have been excellent, Paul. Thank you, I’d love to know, maybe back up a step. And, you know, you’ve become, you know, your founder of PBR. That doesn’t happen overnight. You mentioned 10, to 12. organizations throughout the 20s. And things like that even alluded to, like how you had a personal experience of, deeper fundamentals are kind of essential type questions from a high school counselor. So would you walk us through some personal professional experiences that led into founding a PBR,

Paul Cherry 18:11
your attempts of that I’ve just had some gifted mentors, that really, first of all, you can’t be wired to be inquisitive. And I’m just very passionate, because I just like to know what makes people tick. And I think if I wasn’t in, you know, in sales or training development, I’d be a psychologist. And that’s really any gifted salesperson really is, you know, we call it consultative selling the really up we’re really good business social workers. And that is really to get in there. Understand customers, it’s such a basic premise that people want to be listened to and be understood. And, you know, people preach it all the time. But they struggle with that. And, you know, I will tell you now, when I was 1617, and I was just in a mess, and this counselor just stood there questioning to help draw out my issues, my frustrations and help lay on the line. We do the same premise we do with our customers. By asking these questions. They start clicking, you know, the Normans are thinking about I never thought of this wage, she asked this question because, ha, best answers come from your customers. Not you. Okay. You know what I mean? It’s selling somebody who could either lose weight. Well, guess what? You tell somebody you need to give us what they’re gonna fight you and push back. But if you plant the seed, the safety should entertain losing weight or changing eating habits, but it comes from them. Washington loves it. Yeah, that’s the purpose. Yes. Yeah. So they’ve been and I’ve learned is that in our five step discovery process for your clients here, I see But I see this in every industry, not just in the SAS and enterprise, is that we gravitate so quickly to the suit solution stage, which is about the product demos presenting itself. We’re doing most of the talk And you know what the number one premise of a good sales call is, is that if the customer did most of the talking great call, if I did the bulk of the talking bad call, in product demos, your salespeople are doing the bulk of the talk, he can’t rush there. Because then you lose control. And that, you know, then we’ll say, send me a quote, you send him a quote, you never hear back because you never had that emotional connection. Okay. Yeah. And the emotional connection is in the questions and listening, not in the solution. The solution is logic, okay. People buy because of the emotions, but justify it with logic.

Pete Thornton 20:37
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So does that help? Definitely does, it definitely does. Did you ever hit a point where you just did not click for you? Did you hit years of frustration of trying to drive through and deliver product demos like this? Or? And so you’re like, hey, I have to undo this? Did it scratch your own itch to figure out how the questioning worked? Or was it more natural for you, and it’s just something you love, there seems to be two ways people kind of get into something and become absolute experts in that in their arena. Didn’t know if it was one of the others for you. I’ve just had an incredible change

Paul Cherry 21:10
in training and development. And I give him a way my age, but your first job out of college was selling a yellow pages directory and a site. Really what are Yellow Pages today? You know what I mean? Well, let me tell you what Yellow Pages is today, it’s something more than selling SEO, search ended up in position. And so you know, it’s just technology now. But I had incredible chicken training from the Bell Telephone Company to really with the most proactive, you know, selling techniques, and I learned early art and the concept of questioning and listening. Okay, and I was exposed to every type of business from the you know, the guy who’s wrenching with the plumber with the ranch to a fortune 500 company, you know, in selling directories because they didn’t have technology. But that’s what allowed me to write and I was selling tangibles. I was selling advertising concepts. I’m so grateful and thankful that I had five years with the Bell Telephone Company because today I’m wired to think conceptually. Okay, yeah. So you’ll see yellow pages. Directories is a product. SEO is a product. Okay. But it’s about how do I kind of help you be more successful, profitable and have a more competitive edge that differentiate yourself? Okay. Yeah. See, conceptual?

Pete Thornton 22:23
Yeah, I love it. I do love that. Yes. Very helpful. Kind of just understand, like, how you got there and how it does actually apply to and I’m still having Pete,

Paul Cherry 22:31
let me tell you, I can tell you a lot of horror stories where I screwed up and where I wanted to get right to the, you know, the presentation, General, let’s shorten that. Let’s speed things up. Let’s close. I get it. We’re all that temptation. And then I look back and say, How did I lose that opportunity? I teach this stuff, Pat. And so we all but that’s what I love about this is that constantly evolving and wanting to get better? So all of us are not alone on this. Okay. It’s a fun journey and process.

Pete Thornton 22:58
Awesome. We had some different things to focus on. You mentioned four things that all customers are working on. You mentioned three things that we want to ask the right questions about, and opportunities. Yes, identify people and things like that. So it’s just a short podcast. And so if somebody’s listening, and they’re trying to, they’re trying to like to hone in on one thing, maybe they’re driving indoors, if that still happens with anybody. And they were just like, hey, I’d love to have one thing just give a shot today, or one thing to focus on today, this week, this month, or even for like their next fiscal year that will quickly roll into Is there any one thing a topic you’re like, hey, if you focus on this one thing, you probably can’t go wrong, but you might, right.

Paul Cherry 23:37
Oh, yeah. So why don’t we just talk about questions, questions. Here’s the biggest challenge that one is going to face and I faced that when I learned about questions. My first call was a Socratic selling Martin Rocklands book back in the late 80s. And she was like, I devoured this book and absorbed this crazy thing with it. And so I went to meet with the President and I asked, it was one of the two of these questions and the value of information just started flowing out. I’m like, somebody vomiting on me. I apologize. But really, it was just like, the thing is, when you ask great questions, be prepared, because you’re going to get a ton of information, the real and we didn’t even touch upon this, maybe at a future podcast, the ability to listen, to listen to understand what somebody is saying what they’re not saying. Motivation. Okay. So step back and absorb and comprehend. And if it’s too much for you to say, slow down, tell me more. Tell me. Oh, really. Okay. It’s really about really doing a deeper dive in terms of understanding where that person is coming from, because the question is really this: pulling the lever of the floodgate information will flow and that’s what I want. Okay. Does that help? Yeah, that does. That’s what so is, yes, you’re gonna

Pete Thornton 24:56
focus on questions. You’re gonna ask those and then the flip side. That is you must be prepared for the answers that come and like even an ability to kind of handle these things. So you can stay present with all the information coming your way.

Paul Cherry 25:09
Yes, Pete, that’s my big thing. Today, you know, I look at this, and my next book is gonna be a lesson, because they know I’ve written books on questions. But it’s like, what do I do with the information? So it’s a two prong Street. And that is where we just that’s where I said, talk about, people understand it about how we do that that is, it’s like, it’s called a lock on technique. So when somebody is saying, you know, we’re thinking about making some upgrades. We’re thinking about making some grades. So they lock some of these questions, so they have to be complicated. And the lock on his ascent? Oh, really, it’s here. Here’s the worst thing. He says, Oh, let me tell you how it can help you. You just shut the conversation down. Whereas I want your people to take away said, oh, wait a minute. You mentioned the word thinking. Pete, tell me more about your thought process here.

Pete Thornton 25:57
So you’re behind. Yeah, yep.

Paul Cherry 25:59
You see that? So lock on. gasp simple question. Eat a lot of the constant complicated strategic questions. And most people never get this though. Because I’m gonna say we’re thinking about upgrades, see, oh, really? Okay. What kind of upgrades you thinking about, and they never get locked onto the word we, which says, you mentioned the word we tell me who else is involved, when

Pete Thornton 26:23
we’re going to have other things going on? There’s a process in play where it’s thought of as the first couple of yeah, oh, God.

Paul Cherry 26:31
Think of a question. Your clients give you questions past. That’s why I say selling is not complicated. Okay. But people that I have fun in our training sessions, because people just goof it up. They go through the checklist of the questions, but I would say yes, it’s a combination that you know, your people to keep this as simple as possible. Think about one great question, you could be asking in a typical Hall, and then sit back and really, really take the time to listen.

Pete Thornton 26:59
Really good. I watched this happen one time, more than once, but it’s the first time I did, I was a young seller. And we were at a place called San Francisco with a thing called Dreamforce. It was the Salesforce conference meeting with a lot of potential clients. And so I brought in somebody very technical because I was a very technical customer. And I said, Hey, come on, help me have this conversation, because there’s going to be some of the pieces I don’t understand. But this person was so adept at both Solutions Engineering. So the technical piece as well as selling, hear from one open ended question at the beginning. And then for the next 45 minutes, he either just said, Tell me more about that. What did that mean, exactly? I’m curious about that last part. Could you say it again,

Paul Cherry 27:38
Thank you. And he never gives thank you notes. I’m

Pete Thornton 27:39
like, Man, I think I could have handled this one had I done it like that, because I wouldn’t have had to be like, we’re not going to talk about a SQL database. Now. We’re not going to talk about some kind of Cloud software that I don’t have yet. Thank you. So it was beautiful. Watching it like this is genius.

Paul Cherry 27:54
It is. And I say that’s where we have to be genuine, we have to be inquisitive. And that when I say tell me more I’ll have freedom I’m really doing is helping the people to really articulate their story, their needs, their frustrations, their values, and see the therapy behind that. That’s what it is. Let’s get those things out on the table. Because I really want to make sure we are a good fit. So when people really start talking about those needs, the emotional issues start to really come to the surface. Okay, we’re developing that connection. It really can be a win win. Yeah. Okay to do that. So thanks for that example. Great example is

Pete Thornton 28:30
cool. Yeah, I love it when it converges with your own experience. Oh, yeah, I’ve seen this happen. I’ve seen this work. There’s some things that I would personally like to do myself. You can do it on an interview basis. Of course you because you’re supposed to be asking those questions and then taking in the answer. So it’s, this is all great stuff. Paul, I appreciate it.

Paul Cherry 28:45
It really is. And you see it in VR when I’m listening to NPR when I’m driving for National Public Radio. Some of the most gifted, you know, those reporters are always asking him for a descriptive opener. So tell me, share with me, explain to me, help me understand and clarify. And that because they want to get the interviewee really just open to talking and telling their story. It’s the same premise and selling that we’re adept to do. So let’s move beyond the traditional who’s what’s Where’s when’s wise? The salespeople. 95% of the questions are the five W’s move beyond. Okay, let’s be better. Let’s be more effective. Let’s differentiate ourselves.

Pete Thornton 29:21
Competitive Edge 2023 Go slow. Go fast with Paul ter. Yes, thank you. It was good. Really good stuff. This is performance based results. Call yourself PBR. The links to LinkedIn and the website should be in the show notes below. This has been fantastic, Paul, if you have one more question, and that’s, we mentioned it before because it’s the little plug for the podcast. So this is SaaS rant podcasts offers a service ramp podcast, you’re in a slightly different space than some of the heads of sales that I speak to some of the enablement leaders that I speak to, from your standpoint. What the SaaS ramp means: That was it.

Paul Cherry 30:00
This is a people business, this is a relationship business. So really going back in terms of what I said before is that you cannot rush the relationships. And I’ve been exposed to some of the traditional selling models of Jim Ron, you know, Dale Carnegie processes, and so many other processes y’all rockin? You know, we’d like to think that the world is so different today. The reality is there’s some premise that things don’t change to suit the Socratic method philosopher of Socrates, when I, you know, when I’m teaching is really something that’s been around 2000 plus years. So let’s go back to those basics of the Socratic method. Because that’s truly when you know, when you’re trying to develop, manage and motivate your team. It’s really about getting them to indent, engage their team as well. So I’m sorry to be so long winded about that. That would be my premise. Let’s be the people who engage.

Pete Thornton 30:55
Okay, yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s a great message. It’s so fantastic. Because we go further and further with technology. But there’s this: all it does is push that relationship piece a little further along the spectrum. Thank you. And then you have to be very good at it by that time, because if they could have done it without that relationship piece, they would have done it in an automated fashion up to that point. That’s the kind of that’s why you are here today.

Paul Cherry 31:19
That’s right. And they need your salespeople. So your salespeople are so important to make that happen. And they have that window of time when you can’t do it as email. Okay. Let’s do it live. Let’s do this, we’ll have these questions that are often valuable questions, and the immune engagements. Yeah. People are trying to bypass that. How can I use these questions in an email? a strategic question. Let’s have the eye boss guy. Come on

Pete Thornton 31:46
a little shopping lab. Yeah. Well, one thing that the cyborgs can’t do for us yet. Let’s do that then. Yeah, that’s fantastic. Good point, Paul. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I really appreciate it. And if people need to reach out, we’ll put that in the show notes and everything. Had Paul Terry today founder at PBR and getting some insights and how to go slow to go fast, how to use deep open ended questions to really drive some interesting answers and how to kind of lock in and go further and further with those. So I learned a bunch of the audience did as well. I’m sure they did. So thanks so much,

Paul Cherry 32:19
Paul. Thank you for bringing me today. I thoroughly enjoyed it with you. Thank you. Cheers.