[00:00:00] Nobody went to school for sale. Each of us has our own journey, a journey that ultimately reveals the two opposing forces, the art versus science, the relationships versus the metrics selling versus sales. What side are you on? This is the love selling hate sales podcast.

[00:00:24] Welcome to another episode of love selling hate sales today, I’m joined by Jordanna Zeldin who is a sales coach and trainer. She’s the co-founder of the practice lab and founder of spring training with two eyes. Thank you for joining the show. Thank you for having me. You’re welcome. So, you know, one of these concepts that I’m always fascinated by, I like to draw parallels between professional sports and sales, because I think there are a lot of parallels, you know, we’re all elite performance.

[00:00:56] Um, whatever, but one of the things that professional athletes do a lot of is practice, right? They are constantly honing their craft over and over and over again. Now that’s where the parallels with sales tends to break down a little bit because in sales, oftentimes we get a new job. We get a list, maybe a phone book, maybe an access to a CRM.

[00:01:18] We get a pat on the back a phone and we go. So, how can you make us more like professional athletes? Jordanna well, it’s actually so interesting. I’ve never thought that there are like, there are all these parallels between the two and then it really does break down in the process. Like we’re such a metrics and results driven field and industry and profession, but the expectation is that we’re going to.

[00:01:49] Uh, achieve those results in absence of any process that is in any way connected to how every other discipline in the world from sports to music or anything else develops their skills. And that like that in itself is just a little crazy. And, and even though, you know, I’m now in a place where I focus so much on practice and talk about practice so much, like it never fails to like, like the gap.

[00:02:14] Between how in sales we think about learning something and then being able to do it never fails to astound. Oh, it’s totally insane. And that’s not a, so the analogy or the story that I told, isn’t a completely untrue story. Right? So my first sales job, I was a sales intern at a radio station in Scottsdale, and it was a referral from my professor at Arizona state.

[00:02:37] He said, Hey, you should go check it out. My friend’s a GM. You need an internship. Anyway. I think you’d be good at sales. Okay, cool. So I show up. GM says, Hey, Josh, nice to meet you. He hands me the white pages for those who remember the white pages says, here’s your desk, here’s the phone and good luck like that was it.

[00:02:55] Right? Well that, that, so it’s getting a little better, but I think industry-wide, that remains the status quo. And what’s interesting is that. I know I came up in a sales and sales training and coaching company before starting my own thing. That was entirely practice-based. So this was a company that was already hip to the idea.

[00:03:22] Deliberately practicing our sales skills. Like every other discipline out there makes us better. And though I had had, you know, a kind of like in, I had not previously had any official coach training. I was a sales kind of like a player coach in my sales, Oregon really got a lot from helping to empower and enable people to perform more effectively and to feel better.

[00:03:44] But. First coach training was in this very specific kind of coaching called, called practice coaching, where it’s akin to, how to, how you know, athletic coaches develop their reps. It’s through a quick explanation, but really the power is in the demonstration and the iterative practice. So. You know, in my work with sales teams at spring training, um, I just launched a program called the practice coaching master class, where I help sales leaders to become more effective practice coaches.

[00:04:13] And then in the practice lab, that is the place where we break down. The typical sales cycle of like an AAE, you know, from disco to close into these like practice stubble, micro behaviors, and folks come together to get their reps in before they get on the phone with a prospect and square everything up because they feel so uncomfortable trying something on for size that they had just learned.

[00:04:36] Interesting. So I did a very brief stint. As a pharma rep. And I would say that that was the closest thing I ever got to like real practice. It wasn’t really in an ongoing fashion, but you know, you fly out with a cohort of new hires to New Jersey. You stay there for a week. You get thrown into training for a bunch of time.

[00:05:04] You do a bunch of mock calls, a bunch of this, a bunch of that. I would say that was maybe the closest thing I ever experienced for practice and sales. But talk to us a little bit more about what practice looks like for salespeople, because the only thing that’s popping in my head is like a mock call, right?

[00:05:22] Right. Yeah. Well, it’s so interesting because it’s true. Like at best, all of the practicing happens on onboarding and training and then like industry wide. And then like, for some reason it never happens again. But what, what Jonathan? My, my co-founder and I have the practice lab have really paid attention to.

[00:05:42] Is the way that every other discipline doesn’t just like practice the whole thing of what they’re doing. If they’re learning the piano concerto, you don’t just like, do the concerto. If you’re on a sports team, you don’t just like play the game. It’s about really breaking it down into these smaller bite size pieces.

[00:06:02] So that’s, you know, that’s how we approach it. You know, we, you know, in the, in the curriculum and in the cohort, you know, we start with the agenda and like, What does a great agenda look like? And what are the components that take an agenda from okay. To really effective, right? Um, to encouraging a transparent and open dialogue to giving your prospect a way out, if they feel like this is not for them, how do you do that?

[00:06:30] And so we start the cohort with practicing really effective agenda. That’s pretty great. And yeah. And then like the second week is about listening, like really attuning yourself to the four levels of effective listening, because one of the most fascinating things that I’ve discovered through identifying how to practice listening, actually with the help of a guest facilitator, Chris Williams, who comes in for that session is that how deeply you listen directly impacts the amount that the person you’re listening to is willing to disclose.

[00:07:06] Oh, wow. So there’s a nice correlation there. Well, if we’re expecting, you know, as sellers that prospects open up to Australia, open up to a total stranger about the deep dark challenges, you know, like w the way to encourage that, or one powerful way to encourage that is through listening really attentively.

[00:07:24] So that’s something we practice well, so practicing that, and I know you have more steps to go through, but I think that’s really important, right? We talked about. Listening and everyone says, well, we just need to listen better. This is like an agenda. You didn’t have agendas for your meetings, but nobody defines what that really means.

[00:07:44] So the listening one is super interesting. To me. So recently I had a guest on the show who’s blind, right. And he’s in sales. So in my opinion, he’s an expert listener cause that’s his vehicle. Right? So I asked him a bunch of questions around like, you know, listening, you have to be better at listening than anybody, right?

[00:08:01] If you don’t have the visual cues that the next person has listening to your superpower and he went down that path. But I would love to hear from you, what are some of the key components to. One listening well, but to demonstrating to the person on the other side that you’re listening well. So this is really interesting.

[00:08:21] And you should talk to Chris Williams who runs this thing fast, who facilitates the session. But what he’s done is he’s broken it down into the four levels of listening, where at level one, you are like distracted looking around, not paying attention. Have you ever like had a conversation with someone who’s like on their phone?

[00:08:38] They’re like, oh, How does that make you as the person speaking feel, right. Like angry shut down. Yeah, exactly. And so what we do is we actually kind of work through an exercise where we are progressing through the four levels of listening. We’re at level four, not only is your attention like deeply focused on the person that you’re talking to, but you’re even when inspired to.

[00:09:05] Asking a question or making a comment that deepens their understanding, you’re reading between the lines, right? And that ideally is what you want to be doing when you’re say deepen discovery, right? Shifting perspective by the attentiveness and, and your ability to bring to light things that maybe they hadn’t considered before.

[00:09:25] And what’s really cool about this exercise is that people often say, oh my God, I realized that. So often on my sales calls, I’m a level one or a level, two listener, and they feel that, and they also feel what it feels like to be listened to at that level and how shitty it feels and how untrusting it feels.

[00:09:44] Right. And then when they have that experience of ratcheting it up and developing that awareness of what it feels like both as the listener and the person on the receiving, and they’re then able to take that feeling and bring it right into their next discovery calls for greater effectiveness and more disclosure.

[00:09:58] And it is cool. That’s super cool. And it’s funny because you know, that experience that everyone can relate to of being on the other side of someone not listening to you is still painful to the point now where I I’m fascinated by public speakers, but maybe because I’m an aspiring public speaker and I think it’s really cool, but they even make jokes now at the top of their session about people scrolling on their phones or this and that, just to see who’s listening to them.

[00:10:23] Actually, some people won’t even pop their heads up at the joke that’s being made at their. All right. So it’s crazy. Well, what’s interesting too, is that so often, like discovery is treated as like a qualification checklist. So part of the right, like, it’s just like, it’s like you’re at the doctor’s office, right.

[00:10:42] And it’s like this take rather than this give. So the few sessions that we have around deeper discovery is really meant to kind of flip the script there. And to use discovery as a moment in a conversation that can deepen understanding, give understanding, and build relationship for greater trust. So I’d love to get your take on this because that flipping the scripts to create greater discovery, I personally think is huge, right?

[00:11:11] I think it sets you apart from your competition, other sellers, how you run your process. And I have this feeling that the quality of the questions you ask almost set you up for success more than not. I don’t mean to say you are, what am I trying to say? The quality of the questions that you ask, almost show that, you know, your stuff more than telling them that you know, your stuff million percent.

[00:11:38] Okay. So let’s, let’s talk about that a little bit because I get weird looks sometimes when I say that, like, I don’t need to say anything. I’m just going to ask questions. Let them know. I know what I’m talking about. That is so true. And I think that’s actually, in some ways, no more true. Well, in, in like quote unquote discovery, but also, you know, like the only time that you’re allowed to ask questions is not in discovery.

[00:12:03] Like the entire sales conversation can and should be a dialogue, you know? And one of the kind of skills that we work on in the lab, we call tie down questions and set up statements. And the idea is here is that before you introduce a feature in your pitch, if you feel like you didn’t get the information that you needed in quote, unquote discovery, to determine if what you’re about to bring up as relevant, there’s an opportunity to ask a really effective question right there, or to make a, to make a strong transition.

[00:12:34] Say earlier, you mentioned this, I’m sure. You know, how is this functioning on your team today? And based on what they share, you can say, okay, I think this might be interesting for you. Go about, go, go into your feature, but then don’t just end with your pitch. And then what questions do you have, right? Or like nothing.

[00:12:51] What’s an effective question that you can ask following your explanation of that statement, to get them to imagine how that would function in their organization, to get them to think more deeply. So questioning is a skill that can be employed at every stage in the sales conversation. We feel, what questions do you have is maybe my pet peeve period.

[00:13:15] No, one’s going to answer that. No, one’s sitting there watching you or listening to your pitch, writing down a list of questions that they’re just dying to share with you. It’s your job to draw them in and be very strategic with that question. And put yourself in their world and think about, you need to be able to predict the future.

[00:13:34] That’s the bottom line. Like that’s what questioning is to me in a lot of cases. Like you should be good enough that you can predict a future about what they’re thinking and ask them that question. So they don’t have. Well also I think in discovery too, like people understand that they need to ask questions, but they’re not really sure exactly what questions they should be asking.

[00:13:55] And it’s a part of what we do in the lab is in the exercise on these tie-down questions, which are the questions that you ask to engage your prospect, following the description of the feature. Like. We, uh, we encourage sellers in lab to create a bank of questions that are working for them in practice.

[00:14:13] And their partner is able to say, Hey, that question felt good. Or actually that, that question felt like it’s serving you more than it’s serving me. You know, those questions are like, Hey, how much money could you imagine saving if you employed our solution today versus, you know, like, no, those, those are not tied down questions that serve the buyer on the conversation.

[00:14:31] Right. But I’m curious, like who on your team do you imagine would benefit. From this feature that I’ve just described, that’s a question or participation. That would be a really good tie-down question. What are your thoughts when you’re selling to a committee, which oftentimes you are, especially if you’re in the room and even more so now on zoom calls at addressing specific people with those tie down questions.

[00:14:57] Versus opening it up to the room. Yeah, that, that’s a really interesting question. That’s not one that’s that’s come up. Um, you know, I guess it depends like you have to be. Clear and dialed in on who’s playing what role, you know, so if you have a technical person in the room along with, let’s say someone who’s more client focused.

[00:15:20] If you’re walking through a technical part of the product, that might be an opportunity to do a up pet kind of setup statement and say, Hey, I’m curious, like, There’s this one aspect of our product, like, how are you doing this today? So-and-so right. And then they tell you, and you can say, okay, so, so let me just direct you here.

[00:15:37] Walk them through that aspect of the, of the feature and then follow it up with a question. Right. Um, and it can be. Uh, you know, how different is this and what you’re doing now, it could be who on your team we could benefit from this. It could be, I’m curious, like, as you’re walking through this, what thoughts are coming to mind more of an open-ended question, but those are all, you know, it’s vital that we practice those.

[00:16:01] Those are not the kinds of questions that early on. You can just come up with on the fly and be effective. But if you’re able to. Identify questions that feel good for you that have been vetted by your practice partner. And they can say, yeah, that actually feels like a genuinely curious question. That’s going to deepen my understanding of what you’re showing me.

[00:16:20] You can write those down on your sheet. You can practice them in the lab. You can practice them on yourself so that when you get on the phone with your prospect, it comes out naturally. Right? It feels good. It sounds good. Yeah. Because a lot of this stuff. Well, a lot of stuff that is good sales frankly, is uncomfortable.

[00:16:40] Absolutely. And it should be, it can be very hard if you feel so uncomfortable with the skill that you’re trying to execute, that you’re not only creating that, trying to create that healthy tension, but fumbling through your ability to do it at all. Right. So, so that’s the, that is a big, big benefit of getting your reps in getting your stumbling us and your awkwardness and your app that’s in before the pressure is on so that you can deliver really smooth down on your calls with prospects.

[00:17:11] Well, I’m super curious because you know, one of the things that I always struggle with when it comes to like mock calls in we’ll call it a practice setting is the person playing the prospect always does such a shitty job, right? Like it’s never reality. You, you, to me, you always swing in one of two directions.

[00:17:31] You swing in the direction of just keep the conversation going play. Nice. And, you know, placate, the person that’s practicing or you swing way too far the other way. And you’re complete jerk and it’s just like, objection, objection, objection, objection. Just to see like how they objection, handle. So talk to me about practicing your world.

[00:17:51] Like how do we make it more? Usable more. I don’t know, like more like the real world in practice or is that not the goal at all right. Maybe I’m maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong. Well, I don’t think you’re thinking about it all wrong. I mean, what I’d say is that when I teach managers on sales teams, how to practice coach, I’ve always found it to be really effective for them to position.

[00:18:17] The practice as preparation in the same way that an athlete preps for a game. So you’re not just living in this fantasy world to role-play for role-plays sake, but you really grounded in the person you’re coaching’s reality. And you say, I’m curious, like Josh, what meetings do you have coming up this week?

[00:18:31] Okay. Great. Let’s use this session to prepare for that upcoming meeting. So suddenly it feels like there’s a point try just beyond the futility of repetition. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is when, like in the practice lab, sellers are from different organizations. So doing an exercise around, let’s say like a deep discovery exercise would be really hard to do.

[00:18:54] Effectively if, if you were in the context of role-plays. So for those labs, we take sellers out of the context of selling and into the realm of real conversation. Okay. So we have, uh, folks playing, you know, the, the seller or the questioner that discover, ask their partner about a change they want to make in their life, like a real one, or about a purchase that they’re thinking about making.

[00:19:19] Okay. And then they’re able to use the various aspects that we teach that make for effective discovery around making sure that you’re getting a solid sense of where your partner is at, right where they want to be, why they have not taken action to date, what the impact would be. If they do nothing. What the right, like, so you’re given some guidance about the areas that you need to inquire about, but you’re doing so in the context of a real conversation with a real person who actually has a real change they want to make.

[00:19:51] And that’s where that shift in discovery as a checklist of questions on a sheet and discovery as like genuinely curiosity fueled happens for people. I find this completely fascinating because we’re going to come back to my, my sports analogy because, um, dance. And that’s how I think so cool. My son right now is being coached by a former major leaguer.

[00:20:18] Right. And right up until this point, I coached him dad, coach, right? Uh, T-ball coach pitch, all this kind of stuff. And dad, coach just does what dad coach does. Right? He gets some, some grounders. He tells him to throw to first base introduces a few scenarios. It’s it is what it is, right. It’s practice for that coach.

[00:20:38] Well, former major league baseball player, coach, nothing is happening at game speed. It’s all these micro lessons that build the foundations on one another. Right? There’s these little things. Right. Like Mike, you would never do that in a game. You would never do that in a cave, but all of them put together.

[00:20:58] You never see them practice at game speed, I guess is my point. Whereas we do these mock calls and we like try to mock up games. That’s not the intention. What you’re talking about is getting comfortable in like situations, not in this mock call, right? That these little micro things that build up a foundation that you can use.

[00:21:19] I am so glad you brought that to light for so many reasons. So what you’re describing is called deep and deliberate practice and. The the, the science of behavioral change and skill development, as well as neuroscience backs, everything that you just said, which is that if you go slowly and deeply, uh, making mistakes, stumbling, doubling back, and making corrections, that is where you most effectively develop.

[00:21:46] Your neurological circuitry. Cause it’s not about in practice proving that you can play the game. Right. It’s uh, you know, building the awareness and muddling through so that when things speed up, you’ve got more skill and that’s exactly what we encourage in the lab. So in our objection, handling lab, We have a six step framework that we teach, but we’re really encouraging people to muddle through.

[00:22:11] It starts when you receive an objection by welcoming it and actually connecting with a beat of gratitude that your prospect told you something that’s on their mind. And rather than ghosting. So it’s not just like, okay, I completely understand. It’s like, Hey, I really, really appreciate the transparency or I’m really glad you brought that up.

[00:22:29] Step one. Okay. Step two. This one can be challenging. We empathize, but not validate. And that is a very tough line for people to toe. And I’ll give you a demonstration and this is the one. Okay. So someone, and this is going to be a bit of an exaggerated version, but let someone, so let’s say someone says, you know, uh, I, you know, we’re going to go with your competitor.

[00:22:53] Your price is too high. Right? Validating an example might be, yeah. You know, you’re right. Our price is too high. Right. An empathetic statement might be, it would make sense that as you’re evaluating different options, price is going to be something you’re thinking about. Yeah, it’s a tough, it’s a tough line to tow, right.

[00:23:16] Or we’re going to go with a competitor. I’m trying to think of what a, what a validation of that, but an empathy of an empathizing statement would be, you know, I’ve got to say, I’m, I’m really glad to hear that as you’re thinking so seriously about finding a vendor, you’re talking to a lot of different people.

[00:23:31] Like it’s rewarding. It’s, it’s rewarding what they’re saying in the context of the buying decision. And that is really hard to come up with on the fly. And that is a step. In the practice lab where we’re like, guys, take your time, muddle through like try a couple of bats, see which one feels right. And then when you get to one and your partner says, yeah, that one actually felt real, like write it down.

[00:23:57] Right. And then use that to practice and refine and then turn it into game speed when you’re on the phone with your prospects. But the time in the lab is to slow down and build awareness. That’s so great. I could see myself being a total jerk in that situation. Oh. So this deal is actually real. You’re talking to other people, not just me.

[00:24:14] Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s tricky. You don’t want to go like, go like overly falsely, um, you know, complimentary in that moment, but it’s just taking a beat because cause with objection handling one of the things that people often think somehow is that when they get an objection, as long as they have a really frigging good counterpunch, that’s the moment to bring it up.

[00:24:34] And then somehow they’re going to magically change the prospect perspective, but at the moment of objection, not going to happen. Resistance is high receptive to new ideas is low. So we handle an objection. We’re not just trying to shift their mind. We’re trying to take down the temperature of their resistance so that they’re more receptive to what we have to say.

[00:24:52] And that requires some kid gloves. You’ve got it. Yeah, this is awesome. Let’s uh, let’s shift gears just a little bit since we’re coming up on time here. So where can the audience find you? Where can they find more about the practice lab about spring training? Like what do you want them to know? What are the key takeaways?

[00:25:15] Okay. Here’s what I want them to know. And what’s become really clear to me and my co-founder of, of the lab in the last couple of weeks, which is the practice lab is not for everybody. It is so not for everyone. Like what we’ve come to, to learn about this cohort is that because this is a peer to peer practice based community.

[00:25:37] Yes. Facilitated by us that the quality of the partners they’re genuine growth mindset, like mindedness, their humility, their generosity, like their, their comfort with stumbling and being a little awkward on route to learning something is vital for the success of everyone. And improvement in their abilities.

[00:25:59] So I say that because we just wrapped the last cohort, the Q1 cohort, the next time we’re going to be opening our doors is in Q3. We’re soon going to be opening up applications, both to individuals and teams. And for anyone who is curious about this approach, that feels like a really important disclaimer.

[00:26:21] And if based on what I’ve shared, you’re like, yes, I’m humble. Yes. I’m growth minded. Yes. I’m generous, right? Yes. I’m willing to, to, you know, screw up and, and face Palm in front of a partner, then I would encourage you to apply. And you can, you can do that@thepracticelab.co there’s a wait list right now, but we’ll be opening up applications.

[00:26:41] Very good. Well Jordanna thank you so much for being on the show. It was a pleasure having you. We might have to do it again because it seems like there’s a lot more to unpack here that my little brain is trying to wrap my head around 30 minutes is not enough. No, not to talk about practice, man. In the, in the wise words of Eleanor.

[00:27:01] All right. Thanks for joining. .

Episode 78 – Jordana Zeldin

[00:00:00] Nobody went to school for sale. Each of us has our own journey, a journey that ultimately reveals the two opposing forces, the art versus science, the relationships versus the metrics selling versus sales. What side are you on? This is the love selling hate sales podcast.

[00:00:24] Welcome to another episode of love selling hate sales today, I’m joined by Jordanna Zeldin who is a sales coach and trainer. She’s the co-founder of the practice lab and founder of spring training with two eyes. Thank you for joining the show. Thank you for having me. You’re welcome. So, you know, one of these concepts that I’m always fascinated by, I like to draw parallels between professional sports and sales, because I think there are a lot of parallels, you know, we’re all elite performance.

[00:00:56] Um, whatever, but one of the things that professional athletes do a lot of is practice, right? They are constantly honing their craft over and over and over again. Now that’s where the parallels with sales tends to break down a little bit because in sales, oftentimes we get a new job. We get a list, maybe a phone book, maybe an access to a CRM.

[00:01:18] We get a pat on the back a phone and we go. So, how can you make us more like professional athletes? Jordanna well, it’s actually so interesting. I’ve never thought that there are like, there are all these parallels between the two and then it really does break down in the process. Like we’re such a metrics and results driven field and industry and profession, but the expectation is that we’re going to.

[00:01:49] Uh, achieve those results in absence of any process that is in any way connected to how every other discipline in the world from sports to music or anything else develops their skills. And that like that in itself is just a little crazy. And, and even though, you know, I’m now in a place where I focus so much on practice and talk about practice so much, like it never fails to like, like the gap.

[00:02:14] Between how in sales we think about learning something and then being able to do it never fails to astound. Oh, it’s totally insane. And that’s not a, so the analogy or the story that I told, isn’t a completely untrue story. Right? So my first sales job, I was a sales intern at a radio station in Scottsdale, and it was a referral from my professor at Arizona state.

[00:02:37] He said, Hey, you should go check it out. My friend’s a GM. You need an internship. Anyway. I think you’d be good at sales. Okay, cool. So I show up. GM says, Hey, Josh, nice to meet you. He hands me the white pages for those who remember the white pages says, here’s your desk, here’s the phone and good luck like that was it.

[00:02:55] Right? Well that, that, so it’s getting a little better, but I think industry-wide, that remains the status quo. And what’s interesting is that. I know I came up in a sales and sales training and coaching company before starting my own thing. That was entirely practice-based. So this was a company that was already hip to the idea.

[00:03:22] Deliberately practicing our sales skills. Like every other discipline out there makes us better. And though I had had, you know, a kind of like in, I had not previously had any official coach training. I was a sales kind of like a player coach in my sales, Oregon really got a lot from helping to empower and enable people to perform more effectively and to feel better.

[00:03:44] But. First coach training was in this very specific kind of coaching called, called practice coaching, where it’s akin to, how to, how you know, athletic coaches develop their reps. It’s through a quick explanation, but really the power is in the demonstration and the iterative practice. So. You know, in my work with sales teams at spring training, um, I just launched a program called the practice coaching master class, where I help sales leaders to become more effective practice coaches.

[00:04:13] And then in the practice lab, that is the place where we break down. The typical sales cycle of like an AAE, you know, from disco to close into these like practice stubble, micro behaviors, and folks come together to get their reps in before they get on the phone with a prospect and square everything up because they feel so uncomfortable trying something on for size that they had just learned.

[00:04:36] Interesting. So I did a very brief stint. As a pharma rep. And I would say that that was the closest thing I ever got to like real practice. It wasn’t really in an ongoing fashion, but you know, you fly out with a cohort of new hires to New Jersey. You stay there for a week. You get thrown into training for a bunch of time.

[00:05:04] You do a bunch of mock calls, a bunch of this, a bunch of that. I would say that was maybe the closest thing I ever experienced for practice and sales. But talk to us a little bit more about what practice looks like for salespeople, because the only thing that’s popping in my head is like a mock call, right?

[00:05:22] Right. Yeah. Well, it’s so interesting because it’s true. Like at best, all of the practicing happens on onboarding and training and then like industry wide. And then like, for some reason it never happens again. But what, what Jonathan? My, my co-founder and I have the practice lab have really paid attention to.

[00:05:42] Is the way that every other discipline doesn’t just like practice the whole thing of what they’re doing. If they’re learning the piano concerto, you don’t just like, do the concerto. If you’re on a sports team, you don’t just like play the game. It’s about really breaking it down into these smaller bite size pieces.

[00:06:02] So that’s, you know, that’s how we approach it. You know, we, you know, in the, in the curriculum and in the cohort, you know, we start with the agenda and like, What does a great agenda look like? And what are the components that take an agenda from okay. To really effective, right? Um, to encouraging a transparent and open dialogue to giving your prospect a way out, if they feel like this is not for them, how do you do that?

[00:06:30] And so we start the cohort with practicing really effective agenda. That’s pretty great. And yeah. And then like the second week is about listening, like really attuning yourself to the four levels of effective listening, because one of the most fascinating things that I’ve discovered through identifying how to practice listening, actually with the help of a guest facilitator, Chris Williams, who comes in for that session is that how deeply you listen directly impacts the amount that the person you’re listening to is willing to disclose.

[00:07:06] Oh, wow. So there’s a nice correlation there. Well, if we’re expecting, you know, as sellers that prospects open up to Australia, open up to a total stranger about the deep dark challenges, you know, like w the way to encourage that, or one powerful way to encourage that is through listening really attentively.

[00:07:24] So that’s something we practice well, so practicing that, and I know you have more steps to go through, but I think that’s really important, right? We talked about. Listening and everyone says, well, we just need to listen better. This is like an agenda. You didn’t have agendas for your meetings, but nobody defines what that really means.

[00:07:44] So the listening one is super interesting. To me. So recently I had a guest on the show who’s blind, right. And he’s in sales. So in my opinion, he’s an expert listener cause that’s his vehicle. Right? So I asked him a bunch of questions around like, you know, listening, you have to be better at listening than anybody, right?

[00:08:01] If you don’t have the visual cues that the next person has listening to your superpower and he went down that path. But I would love to hear from you, what are some of the key components to. One listening well, but to demonstrating to the person on the other side that you’re listening well. So this is really interesting.

[00:08:21] And you should talk to Chris Williams who runs this thing fast, who facilitates the session. But what he’s done is he’s broken it down into the four levels of listening, where at level one, you are like distracted looking around, not paying attention. Have you ever like had a conversation with someone who’s like on their phone?

[00:08:38] They’re like, oh, How does that make you as the person speaking feel, right. Like angry shut down. Yeah, exactly. And so what we do is we actually kind of work through an exercise where we are progressing through the four levels of listening. We’re at level four, not only is your attention like deeply focused on the person that you’re talking to, but you’re even when inspired to.

[00:09:05] Asking a question or making a comment that deepens their understanding, you’re reading between the lines, right? And that ideally is what you want to be doing when you’re say deepen discovery, right? Shifting perspective by the attentiveness and, and your ability to bring to light things that maybe they hadn’t considered before.

[00:09:25] And what’s really cool about this exercise is that people often say, oh my God, I realized that. So often on my sales calls, I’m a level one or a level, two listener, and they feel that, and they also feel what it feels like to be listened to at that level and how shitty it feels and how untrusting it feels.

[00:09:44] Right. And then when they have that experience of ratcheting it up and developing that awareness of what it feels like both as the listener and the person on the receiving, and they’re then able to take that feeling and bring it right into their next discovery calls for greater effectiveness and more disclosure.

[00:09:58] And it is cool. That’s super cool. And it’s funny because you know, that experience that everyone can relate to of being on the other side of someone not listening to you is still painful to the point now where I I’m fascinated by public speakers, but maybe because I’m an aspiring public speaker and I think it’s really cool, but they even make jokes now at the top of their session about people scrolling on their phones or this and that, just to see who’s listening to them.

[00:10:23] Actually, some people won’t even pop their heads up at the joke that’s being made at their. All right. So it’s crazy. Well, what’s interesting too, is that so often, like discovery is treated as like a qualification checklist. So part of the right, like, it’s just like, it’s like you’re at the doctor’s office, right.

[00:10:42] And it’s like this take rather than this give. So the few sessions that we have around deeper discovery is really meant to kind of flip the script there. And to use discovery as a moment in a conversation that can deepen understanding, give understanding, and build relationship for greater trust. So I’d love to get your take on this because that flipping the scripts to create greater discovery, I personally think is huge, right?

[00:11:11] I think it sets you apart from your competition, other sellers, how you run your process. And I have this feeling that the quality of the questions you ask almost set you up for success more than not. I don’t mean to say you are, what am I trying to say? The quality of the questions that you ask, almost show that, you know, your stuff more than telling them that you know, your stuff million percent.

[00:11:38] Okay. So let’s, let’s talk about that a little bit because I get weird looks sometimes when I say that, like, I don’t need to say anything. I’m just going to ask questions. Let them know. I know what I’m talking about. That is so true. And I think that’s actually, in some ways, no more true. Well, in, in like quote unquote discovery, but also, you know, like the only time that you’re allowed to ask questions is not in discovery.

[00:12:03] Like the entire sales conversation can and should be a dialogue, you know? And one of the kind of skills that we work on in the lab, we call tie down questions and set up statements. And the idea is here is that before you introduce a feature in your pitch, if you feel like you didn’t get the information that you needed in quote, unquote discovery, to determine if what you’re about to bring up as relevant, there’s an opportunity to ask a really effective question right there, or to make a, to make a strong transition.

[00:12:34] Say earlier, you mentioned this, I’m sure. You know, how is this functioning on your team today? And based on what they share, you can say, okay, I think this might be interesting for you. Go about, go, go into your feature, but then don’t just end with your pitch. And then what questions do you have, right? Or like nothing.

[00:12:51] What’s an effective question that you can ask following your explanation of that statement, to get them to imagine how that would function in their organization, to get them to think more deeply. So questioning is a skill that can be employed at every stage in the sales conversation. We feel, what questions do you have is maybe my pet peeve period.

[00:13:15] No, one’s going to answer that. No, one’s sitting there watching you or listening to your pitch, writing down a list of questions that they’re just dying to share with you. It’s your job to draw them in and be very strategic with that question. And put yourself in their world and think about, you need to be able to predict the future.

[00:13:34] That’s the bottom line. Like that’s what questioning is to me in a lot of cases. Like you should be good enough that you can predict a future about what they’re thinking and ask them that question. So they don’t have. Well also I think in discovery too, like people understand that they need to ask questions, but they’re not really sure exactly what questions they should be asking.

[00:13:55] And it’s a part of what we do in the lab is in the exercise on these tie-down questions, which are the questions that you ask to engage your prospect, following the description of the feature. Like. We, uh, we encourage sellers in lab to create a bank of questions that are working for them in practice.

[00:14:13] And their partner is able to say, Hey, that question felt good. Or actually that, that question felt like it’s serving you more than it’s serving me. You know, those questions are like, Hey, how much money could you imagine saving if you employed our solution today versus, you know, like, no, those, those are not tied down questions that serve the buyer on the conversation.

[00:14:31] Right. But I’m curious, like who on your team do you imagine would benefit. From this feature that I’ve just described, that’s a question or participation. That would be a really good tie-down question. What are your thoughts when you’re selling to a committee, which oftentimes you are, especially if you’re in the room and even more so now on zoom calls at addressing specific people with those tie down questions.

[00:14:57] Versus opening it up to the room. Yeah, that, that’s a really interesting question. That’s not one that’s that’s come up. Um, you know, I guess it depends like you have to be. Clear and dialed in on who’s playing what role, you know, so if you have a technical person in the room along with, let’s say someone who’s more client focused.

[00:15:20] If you’re walking through a technical part of the product, that might be an opportunity to do a up pet kind of setup statement and say, Hey, I’m curious, like, There’s this one aspect of our product, like, how are you doing this today? So-and-so right. And then they tell you, and you can say, okay, so, so let me just direct you here.

[00:15:37] Walk them through that aspect of the, of the feature and then follow it up with a question. Right. Um, and it can be. Uh, you know, how different is this and what you’re doing now, it could be who on your team we could benefit from this. It could be, I’m curious, like, as you’re walking through this, what thoughts are coming to mind more of an open-ended question, but those are all, you know, it’s vital that we practice those.

[00:16:01] Those are not the kinds of questions that early on. You can just come up with on the fly and be effective. But if you’re able to. Identify questions that feel good for you that have been vetted by your practice partner. And they can say, yeah, that actually feels like a genuinely curious question. That’s going to deepen my understanding of what you’re showing me.

[00:16:20] You can write those down on your sheet. You can practice them in the lab. You can practice them on yourself so that when you get on the phone with your prospect, it comes out naturally. Right? It feels good. It sounds good. Yeah. Because a lot of this stuff. Well, a lot of stuff that is good sales frankly, is uncomfortable.

[00:16:40] Absolutely. And it should be, it can be very hard if you feel so uncomfortable with the skill that you’re trying to execute, that you’re not only creating that, trying to create that healthy tension, but fumbling through your ability to do it at all. Right. So, so that’s the, that is a big, big benefit of getting your reps in getting your stumbling us and your awkwardness and your app that’s in before the pressure is on so that you can deliver really smooth down on your calls with prospects.

[00:17:11] Well, I’m super curious because you know, one of the things that I always struggle with when it comes to like mock calls in we’ll call it a practice setting is the person playing the prospect always does such a shitty job, right? Like it’s never reality. You, you, to me, you always swing in one of two directions.

[00:17:31] You swing in the direction of just keep the conversation going play. Nice. And, you know, placate, the person that’s practicing or you swing way too far the other way. And you’re complete jerk and it’s just like, objection, objection, objection, objection. Just to see like how they objection, handle. So talk to me about practicing your world.

[00:17:51] Like how do we make it more? Usable more. I don’t know, like more like the real world in practice or is that not the goal at all right. Maybe I’m maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong. Well, I don’t think you’re thinking about it all wrong. I mean, what I’d say is that when I teach managers on sales teams, how to practice coach, I’ve always found it to be really effective for them to position.

[00:18:17] The practice as preparation in the same way that an athlete preps for a game. So you’re not just living in this fantasy world to role-play for role-plays sake, but you really grounded in the person you’re coaching’s reality. And you say, I’m curious, like Josh, what meetings do you have coming up this week?

[00:18:31] Okay. Great. Let’s use this session to prepare for that upcoming meeting. So suddenly it feels like there’s a point try just beyond the futility of repetition. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is when, like in the practice lab, sellers are from different organizations. So doing an exercise around, let’s say like a deep discovery exercise would be really hard to do.

[00:18:54] Effectively if, if you were in the context of role-plays. So for those labs, we take sellers out of the context of selling and into the realm of real conversation. Okay. So we have, uh, folks playing, you know, the, the seller or the questioner that discover, ask their partner about a change they want to make in their life, like a real one, or about a purchase that they’re thinking about making.

[00:19:19] Okay. And then they’re able to use the various aspects that we teach that make for effective discovery around making sure that you’re getting a solid sense of where your partner is at, right where they want to be, why they have not taken action to date, what the impact would be. If they do nothing. What the right, like, so you’re given some guidance about the areas that you need to inquire about, but you’re doing so in the context of a real conversation with a real person who actually has a real change they want to make.

[00:19:51] And that’s where that shift in discovery as a checklist of questions on a sheet and discovery as like genuinely curiosity fueled happens for people. I find this completely fascinating because we’re going to come back to my, my sports analogy because, um, dance. And that’s how I think so cool. My son right now is being coached by a former major leaguer.

[00:20:18] Right. And right up until this point, I coached him dad, coach, right? Uh, T-ball coach pitch, all this kind of stuff. And dad, coach just does what dad coach does. Right? He gets some, some grounders. He tells him to throw to first base introduces a few scenarios. It’s it is what it is, right. It’s practice for that coach.

[00:20:38] Well, former major league baseball player, coach, nothing is happening at game speed. It’s all these micro lessons that build the foundations on one another. Right? There’s these little things. Right. Like Mike, you would never do that in a game. You would never do that in a cave, but all of them put together.

[00:20:58] You never see them practice at game speed, I guess is my point. Whereas we do these mock calls and we like try to mock up games. That’s not the intention. What you’re talking about is getting comfortable in like situations, not in this mock call, right? That these little micro things that build up a foundation that you can use.

[00:21:19] I am so glad you brought that to light for so many reasons. So what you’re describing is called deep and deliberate practice and. The the, the science of behavioral change and skill development, as well as neuroscience backs, everything that you just said, which is that if you go slowly and deeply, uh, making mistakes, stumbling, doubling back, and making corrections, that is where you most effectively develop.

[00:21:46] Your neurological circuitry. Cause it’s not about in practice proving that you can play the game. Right. It’s uh, you know, building the awareness and muddling through so that when things speed up, you’ve got more skill and that’s exactly what we encourage in the lab. So in our objection, handling lab, We have a six step framework that we teach, but we’re really encouraging people to muddle through.

[00:22:11] It starts when you receive an objection by welcoming it and actually connecting with a beat of gratitude that your prospect told you something that’s on their mind. And rather than ghosting. So it’s not just like, okay, I completely understand. It’s like, Hey, I really, really appreciate the transparency or I’m really glad you brought that up.

[00:22:29] Step one. Okay. Step two. This one can be challenging. We empathize, but not validate. And that is a very tough line for people to toe. And I’ll give you a demonstration and this is the one. Okay. So someone, and this is going to be a bit of an exaggerated version, but let someone, so let’s say someone says, you know, uh, I, you know, we’re going to go with your competitor.

[00:22:53] Your price is too high. Right? Validating an example might be, yeah. You know, you’re right. Our price is too high. Right. An empathetic statement might be, it would make sense that as you’re evaluating different options, price is going to be something you’re thinking about. Yeah, it’s a tough, it’s a tough line to tow, right.

[00:23:16] Or we’re going to go with a competitor. I’m trying to think of what a, what a validation of that, but an empathy of an empathizing statement would be, you know, I’ve got to say, I’m, I’m really glad to hear that as you’re thinking so seriously about finding a vendor, you’re talking to a lot of different people.

[00:23:31] Like it’s rewarding. It’s, it’s rewarding what they’re saying in the context of the buying decision. And that is really hard to come up with on the fly. And that is a step. In the practice lab where we’re like, guys, take your time, muddle through like try a couple of bats, see which one feels right. And then when you get to one and your partner says, yeah, that one actually felt real, like write it down.

[00:23:57] Right. And then use that to practice and refine and then turn it into game speed when you’re on the phone with your prospects. But the time in the lab is to slow down and build awareness. That’s so great. I could see myself being a total jerk in that situation. Oh. So this deal is actually real. You’re talking to other people, not just me.

[00:24:14] Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s tricky. You don’t want to go like, go like overly falsely, um, you know, complimentary in that moment, but it’s just taking a beat because cause with objection handling one of the things that people often think somehow is that when they get an objection, as long as they have a really frigging good counterpunch, that’s the moment to bring it up.

[00:24:34] And then somehow they’re going to magically change the prospect perspective, but at the moment of objection, not going to happen. Resistance is high receptive to new ideas is low. So we handle an objection. We’re not just trying to shift their mind. We’re trying to take down the temperature of their resistance so that they’re more receptive to what we have to say.

[00:24:52] And that requires some kid gloves. You’ve got it. Yeah, this is awesome. Let’s uh, let’s shift gears just a little bit since we’re coming up on time here. So where can the audience find you? Where can they find more about the practice lab about spring training? Like what do you want them to know? What are the key takeaways?

[00:25:15] Okay. Here’s what I want them to know. And what’s become really clear to me and my co-founder of, of the lab in the last couple of weeks, which is the practice lab is not for everybody. It is so not for everyone. Like what we’ve come to, to learn about this cohort is that because this is a peer to peer practice based community.

[00:25:37] Yes. Facilitated by us that the quality of the partners they’re genuine growth mindset, like mindedness, their humility, their generosity, like their, their comfort with stumbling and being a little awkward on route to learning something is vital for the success of everyone. And improvement in their abilities.

[00:25:59] So I say that because we just wrapped the last cohort, the Q1 cohort, the next time we’re going to be opening our doors is in Q3. We’re soon going to be opening up applications, both to individuals and teams. And for anyone who is curious about this approach, that feels like a really important disclaimer.

[00:26:21] And if based on what I’ve shared, you’re like, yes, I’m humble. Yes. I’m growth minded. Yes. I’m generous, right? Yes. I’m willing to, to, you know, screw up and, and face Palm in front of a partner, then I would encourage you to apply. And you can, you can do that@thepracticelab.co there’s a wait list right now, but we’ll be opening up applications.

[00:26:41] Very good. Well Jordanna thank you so much for being on the show. It was a pleasure having you. We might have to do it again because it seems like there’s a lot more to unpack here that my little brain is trying to wrap my head around 30 minutes is not enough. No, not to talk about practice, man. In the, in the wise words of Eleanor.

[00:27:01] All right. Thanks for joining. .

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