[E280] Special Episode of TSEP

What's going on? Welcome to the sales experience podcast. My name again is Jason Cutter and this is episode 280. So glad that you're here. Today's episode is going to be a little bit different. So it's going to be part sales tip, which I'm going to go into now and then part ideas for the show. Now, if you're new to listening to this podcast, if this happens to be the very first episode of the show that you decide to listen to, keep in mind that this is going to be a little bit weird because normally it's filled with content, sales value, some fun things with guests or by myself. And so make sure to check out other episodes and don't judge the whole show on this. But first let's get to the sales. Tip the sales kind of focus the value I'm going to give you today, no matter what. And it's that you should not ever be afraid to tell the prospect what they should do. Now, theoretically, we're all told that people want to buy. They don't want to be sold to, they don't like being sold to. Actually, they do want to be sold to the caveat is, though, is they want to be sold to buy a professional, not a manipulator, not a scam artist or a self centered person, not someone with commission breath where the motivation is clear, right? It's clearly not about the prospects long term success. Prospects want to be sold to, they want someone to diagnose their issue and then prescribe the custom solution. If they didn't want to be sold to, they would just order it online or from a catalog or call into customer service and sign up. They wouldn't want to talk to a salesperson. And so they know that part of that process is being helped. They want to feel like somebody cares about them. They want to feel heard. They want to feel understood. And I've said this before. It's your duty to help prospects get to a better place. And if they qualify as a potential customer for your business, and you've gone through your discovery steps, you figured out that they would be a good fit, then you actually. Oh, it to them to tell them what to do. And they want that. And again, I know this goes against what a lot of people might say, but they truly want to be told what to do when it's a good fit. Now you have to use empathy and you have to know two things. One, what their specific problem is you're solving or their goal that you are helping them achieve. You've got to know that. The second part is what you're talking about. You have to know what you're talking about and how your product will actually benefit them. Know these two things and tell your prospect what to do. They will appreciate it for you. being a professional and they might not always agree and they might not always do what you tell them to do or say that they should do. But if you tell them what they should do and it's coming from a place of caring about their success from you, then you should also move forward with the sales process by assuming they will agree. You will close more deals if you follow this formula. Just remember, tell them what to do. Be that professional and then move forward and assume again, I use this example a lot, but imagine that somebody goes into the emergency room with a broken leg. The doctor is going to tell them what they should do and what should be done to fix it. And then they're going to assume that person wants to be. Better and wants to get it fixed and wants to be healthy, right? They actually tell them what to do. They don't do their exam. They don't tell them, Hey, okay, here's the diagnosis. Your leg is broke. What would you like to do about it? The implied impression is they came to the doctor because it's broken and they want help and they want relief. You view your prospects the same way and then assume if you can help them that you're the one that's going to get them to either a better state by solving their problems or avoiding pain or a better state by helping them achieve their goals or their desires. So make sure you focus on that, make sure they're qualified, tell them what to do, move forward with it and solve their problems, help them achieve their goals and move them to a better place. All right, so that's it for the sales portion. Hopefully that helps whatever you're selling. It doesn't matter. Direct to consumer business to business. It's all applicable when you follow that process. Now for the topic of the podcast. Again, if this is your first time listening to this show, make sure to check out other episodes because this next portion is going to be weird. Like a roundtable discussion, if you will. And here's the thing, and I want to explain what is going on, and then I want to ask for your feedback. So the expectation I originally set when I started this show last year was that it would be five days a week. 10 to 15 minute episodes. My goal is to keep it under 10, but I get going and sometimes I get excited and I just push those limits. Do my best to keep them under 15. Then in season 2 and season 3 with guest conversations, I love having a free flowing, action packed, fun, valuable chat with guests. And those would go 30 to 45 minutes, and I would make those into two, three or four part mini series. And I like the idea of this format because it keeps the episodes short on your end, and you can either listen to them every day and then come back the next day to find out how the conversation continues. Kind of like a TV show where they want you to come back and tune in next week. For what happens in the next episode, or you could be like some people, which is save up the episodes and binge your way through them back to back. Now, I know this is a very interesting format that there's not a lot of shows that do this. The regular format is one longer, continuous conversation, whatever that length is. And just putting that out there. I also know from chatting with people over the past year, that it's come up several times where people don't like the format that I have of breaking up, let's say a conversation into four parts, because then they have to either wait for the episodes or skip intros and outros to get to the meat. I do that when I listen to podcasts regularly, skipping to the good stuff, so I totally understand. And. There's always the argument that some people say that you have to keep things short because attention span is short. And I say that's actually not correct. If something is valuable to the person, to the listener, to the user of the content, to the one who's absorbing it, they will listen and or watch it no matter how long it is. My podcast friend, Hardy Haberland. Out of Germany, he's got a great show in German and in English. His episodes are one, two, or three hours long. And I know for me, having been on this show, but then also listening to his show, when he has a guest that I think is truly fascinating, if it's a three hour show, I have no problem because it's exciting and I want to hear from That person, plus what Hardy has to add to it. And so three hours to me is nothing. Same thing. If you absorb anyone's content, like a Gary Vaynerchuk, where he does some long format hour and a half long videos on YouTube, keynote speeches, podcasts. If it's valuable, you'll listen to it. And so I don't think the short is always the issue. It's more of just the overall time and attention people have in general. And so here are the options that I'm considering for the show where I want to go and I want to. Try something different or feel like it needs some kind of change. And I've thought about making this change on my own with what I want to do, but I really want to open it to feedback for people out there, for you listening to the show. I would love to find out what you would like may or may not pick what it is that people are saying. It depends on what that feedback is, but I want to look at that. And of course, part of this is there's over what 800, 000 podcasts now. And I think most of those feel like their sales are motivation related. And the fact that you listen to mine, you download even one episode of this podcast is an honor. And I appreciate it. And I respect your time and I would love to get your feedback. So as I go through these things, keep this in mind. But what I want to do is have you email me. The simplest email I have is Jason at Jason cutter.com. Whether you're driving or walking, maybe multitasking, doing other stuff while you listen to podcasts, especially in this pandemic work from home. Having family, kids, everybody's around all the time. Who knows when you're listening to this, when you can steal this time. But please email me at jason at jasoncutter.com. So let's get into the idea. So one possible idea is to switch to the more standard single conversational guest episode format. So like most shows do. My goal would be to keep it to about 20 to 30 minutes max. because I'm ambitious. I want to do two to three days a week of that format. So have some episodes. I would love people to listen to every episode, but there might be some guests that appeal to you more than others. And the format would be a little more structured because there's actually questions I want to ask each guest to hear. how they feel about sales or business and just basically have this comparison of various people in different industries, different roles, business owners, marketers, suppliers to the sales industry, like vendors and tech companies. And so part of that is I want to go structured and you know me, I don't like interview format. I don't tell me about your life history so that we can then talk about it. But I do like a structured format where if I ask. The same questions to everybody. Then it gives you this kind of interesting comparison across this narrow band of kind of ideas and topics. So that's one idea, which is the single episode, whether it's one, two or three times a week, 20, 30 minutes, one shot. Here you go. You download it, right? Another option is to keep the daily shorter format, but I now have an ability through my podcast hosting provider. Is that I can make a private members only podcast feed. So for right now it would be free and basically you would just need to sign up online with your email, get access, and then you would have a members only podcast feed link that would allow you to listen to the podcast on various platforms, but just in a private form. It's not public. You can't search for it. You can't find it only if you have that link. And so what would happen on that format, I would put the full guest episodes on the public one. It would keep the same 10 to 15 minute a day format. guest episodes broken up into two, three or four parts, and then the full episodes, 30 to 50 minutes of those long form conversations available in single episodes in the private section. Also, I've thought about doing additional podcast episodes, tips, what I started out this show with, and so doing more of that would be in the kind of member sign, and again, that would be free. It's just an option because in case I want to keep doing what I've been doing now. So that's on the format. So the next part would be tell me your feedback. Do you like the guest episodes? I know that's very popular in podcast is to do lots of guest episodes. It makes it easy for creating content. Do you like those or do you want more episodes of me sharing sales tips and information? Like I did at the beginning of this and other episodes that I've done, especially in the first season. And if it's episodes with me talking, would you like me to share more of my current journey as I navigate business, being an author and so on that document mode or the sales tips? And is there a specific ratio that you would get excited about downloading and listening to the show and subscribing maybe three days of guests and two days of me, or. Two days of guests and three days of me and various tips. I listened to a lot of podcasts, so I know what I like and what I get excited about, what I tune in, but I'm sure if I take everybody who listens to this show and then look at everything they're listening to, it's going to be a much wider and or deeper perspective on. What's out there in the world, right? I only listen to so many podcasts. So please email me at Jason cutter. com or you can go to Jason cutter. com and click on the button to contact me through there, whichever is easiest for you, whichever one you're going to remember if you aren't able to do it right now. And again, just email me. You can say podcast feedback. Let me know your thoughts. Let me know what you like. What you think would be better, what would appeal to you more. And over the next couple of weeks, what I'll do is I'll take that information and figure it out. No matter what, please know my goal is to help you become a more effective salesperson, sales leader, or business owner through the power of building. Amazing sales operations and using authentic persuasion to close more sales. That's it for another episode of the sales experience podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you find yourself on iTunes, can you leave the show a rating and a review? It helps. Other salespeople and sales leaders find the show and please subscribe to the show and share episodes. You find valuable with anyone, in sales, help me on my mission of changing the way sales is done. And if you're ready to work together, go to Jason cutter. com. Again, that's Jason cutter. com. To find out how I can help you or your company create scalable sales success. I will see you on the next sales experience podcast episode and keep in mind that everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them.