# Sales Calls Don't Need to be Painful

Channel: Rob Walling
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jCmI9WXIMk
Duration: 12 min
Language: English
Words: 2013
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/9jCmI9WXIMk

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[0:11] I know it sounds absurd, but we sell software for guys that install kitchen countertops. Um I know a lot of you think it's crazy or maybe terrifying to do sales calls on the phone. But what I want to tell you is how we do that. Um we actually talk on the phone to all of our prospects and

[0:33] customers. So, why should you listen to me? I'm I don't think of myself as a salesman. I'm an engineer at heart. I'm not super excited to be talking on the phone every day, but it's so incredibly valuable for our company that I'm okay with it. So, we've been doing this, like Rob said, over a decade and I've learned a few things,

[0:57] especially about sales. So, we started our company in 2003 and then there was this thing called the housing crash and we changed to selling software as a service in 2009, which was the best thing we ever did, but that's a whole different talk. Here's a chart of our monthly revenue. At this point, we do a couple million

[1:17] dollars in sales. We keep growing our revenue at a pretty steady rate, but we're trying to keep our company as small as possible. So, there's seven of us at Moraware. Three of us, including me, do customer support and none of us are full-time sales people. So, I'm the most salesy guy at our company and I'll probably on a typical

[1:41] day have three sales conversations. But 100% of our customers talk to us before they buy. So, there's a couple of reasons that works for us and why it's incredibly valuable. I don't know if I actually have to point this thing, but Um so, our price point makes it possible to have that conversation on the phone. Our lowest price product is 50 bucks per month per user. Some of our customers pay us over $1,000 a month, and on average uh people pay us about 200 bucks a

[2:12] month. Our So, our customers sell kitchen countertops. So, they're not super technically savvy. Um maybe they bought something like QuickBooks or a CAD program before, but in general, we need to educate them about software and make sure they're successful. Because if they're successful, then they stay with us forever. So, when we were first getting started, people would hear about us at a trade show, read about us in a magazine, something like that, and call us up and

[2:41] ask for a demo. And we'd give them a demo. And we'd show them feature after feature after feature over the course of an hour, sometimes more. But what we discovered is something was missing. Some of those people, some of those demos, they'd never talk to us again. Other people would avoid us for months, and some people would just give us money, and we had no idea why. Like

[3:03] zero, no idea. So, what we discovered, with a lot of help from other people, is that the demo our customers wanted was not actually what they needed. Um now, over time what we've learned is that we can use that demo as an excuse to have a conversation about their business. And as we're digging in on their business problems, we give them a chance

[3:28] to sell themselves on our software. We can explain whether or not it's a good fit for them, and we tell them how to get started. Um because having that conversation is so important, we want it consistent and meaningful, we actually had to build a sales process. Now, before you think I'm Mr. Process, you should know in real life I'm actually Mr. Half-Ass. You can ask Ted,

[3:53] he's here, too. Um but because having that consistency is so important, the best way to do it is uh by doing that consistently. So, here's our whole process. Um first, we're going to have a conversation with you and understand your business. Then, I'm going to show you our software and we're actually going to talk about things that solve your business

[4:17] problems. And finally, we're going to discuss what it takes to get started. So, I'll I'll talk about each one of those in a little more detail. So, if you're only going to remember one thing from this whole talk, this is it. This is how we understand our customers business. Uh we have four questions and over the years, we've figured out different ways to ask these questions, but this is

[4:41] really the core. What are you doing today? What works about that? What doesn't? And what's the consequence of not changing? So, for example, um I might ask, "How are you scheduling countertop jobs today?" And then, the hardest thing in the world is to just shut up and let them tell me. I've literally talked to thousands of countertop shops. So, as of this

[5:05] morning, uh 1,957. And I know there's only two answers they're going to give me, but that is not the point. As they're describing what they do now, what works about that, what doesn't, and what's the consequence of not changing, they're the ones describing the value of our software, not me. They're the ones making the sale. So, here's some other ways that we ask those questions. Uh can you give me an example of that? Has that been happening

[5:34] long? Uh what's a ballpark of what that costs? The whole idea is to make it easy for them to answer what are they doing now, what works about it, what doesn't, and what's the consequence of not changing. After we understand our customers business problems, then we can actually show them a demo that's short and

[5:52] highlights the points they care about. Um So, remember how our software demos used to take an hour, sometimes more? Um I've seen hour-long software demos and they suck. Um what's important is before you fall asleep, I need to show you how our software lets you keep the things that work about your business and

[6:13] fixes the things that are broken. And um at every opportunity during this demo, we want to keep turning it around and asking more probing questions and keep that conversation going. So, for example, here's our calendar. Uh you said this kind of looks like the whiteboard you have in your office today. How are you um scheduling things when a customer changes their appointment from

[6:34] Tuesday to Wednesday? What works about that? What doesn't? What's the consequence of not changing? So, after we've shown how our demo our software can uh actually solve their business problems, then uh it's time to wrap things up. And so, traditionally, you might think of this as closing the deal. But actually, for us, much more important is adding a dose

[6:56] of reality about getting started. Um what we found is that that whole that whole process of having that conversation is trying to figure out if what we do is a good fit for our customers. And we actually call that always be leaving. And I did not include a slide of Alec Baldwin. Um so, it's okay to say no to people who

[7:17] are not a good fit for your software. Um so, what's really important is I need to make sure that people are successfully implemented because then they're going to give us money long term. And so, we explain during the sales process that they need uninterrupted time and we explain the steps of getting started. We also um I I guess maybe as salesy as I get is something like uh if you're ready to get started today, all we need is a credit card and about half an hour you'll get an email from us, and then we'll call you tomorrow, make sure you got everything, and we're also going to schedule support calls

[7:52] ahead of time. And then what's really cool is what happens next. Most of the time, this ends in a sale. And I didn't really have to be obnoxious or aggressive about it. The whole point is we built this process in a way where it's obvious what the next step should be. It's more expensive not to buy our

[8:10] software than it is to buy it.

[8:17] So, um like I said before, it's really important for us to make sure our customers are successfully implemented. And so, as part of that, we have to explain what's involved in getting started. So, um like I said, uninterrupted time to have a business start using our software is the number one thing for us. And um like I said before, we actually call and schedule support ahead of time proactively. It's actually a little bit of a trick because um it doesn't take a ton of our help to get started with our software, but it because it's so important for our customers to set aside time, it just

[8:53] gives them a really easy way to do that.

[9:00] So, um that's what we do when we're talking to our customers. Um but we have to keep working on this sales process because it's not natural to ask, "What are you doing now? What works about that? What doesn't? And what's the consequence of not changing?" So, we do three things to keep getting better at it. The first one is role-playing. So, it feels super cheesy to be acting, you know, and pretend you're the customer, but it's so much better to practice on your friends, your family, your coworkers, rather than practicing on the

[9:32] people who might give you money. The other thing we do is we listen in on each other's calls. Um we also have a virtual phone system called Virtual PBX that lets us record every call. Um it's super painful to listen to yourself screw up when you're talking on the phone. So, it's really important to concentrate

[9:50] on the things you're doing well. Over time, those good parts of your conversation are going to keep getting better um and there's going to be more and more of those good parts. And then the final thing we do is we write down our entire process. So, we use our internal wiki, we use uh Atlassian Confluence. And um by having it all written down, over time, it's easier to anticipate your customer's

[10:12] answers to your questions. But, the important thing is to let them to do do the talking. So, um we made a lot of changes to our business over the years, right? We've been doing this 11 years. And one of the key things is having this repeatable sales process uh because not just the business is

[10:32] better, but actually life is better. It used to take us over 30 man hours over the course of months, sometimes years to get a sale. We actually had two full-time sales people doing just that. And it was a black hole of follow-up. You'd leave endless voicemails, emails, and it was uh painful and demoralizing. And if you're afraid of doing sales calls, it's probably that part of it

[10:55] that is the most terrifying. I know that that's what scared me. So, now on average, it takes about 3 hours over the course of days, sometimes weeks to get that same result. Um the other benefit is I don't have to be the guy. So, anyone who answers the phone at our company knows exactly what to say because our process is really simple. All you have to do is remember what are you doing now? What works about that? What doesn't? And what's the

[11:22] consequence of not changing? So, uh feel free to ask me about this anytime. I'm happy to talk about our business. I even showed the uh x-axis on my uh revenue chart. So, uh and next year um I hope I can give a presentation about how my business partner tricked me into doing a MicroConf talk.

[11:42] Thanks. Thank you.

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