“What we need to do when they give feedback is really lean in and be curious instead of getting defensive.” – Jason Bay in today’s Tip 508
Are you being honest?
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Think Outside the Script Summer Virtual Tour
Scott Ingram on Summer Virtual Tour
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Jason Bay is back. Jason is the Chief Prospecting Officer at Blissful Prospecting and he’s also hosting the Think Outside the Script Summer Virtual Tour which you’ll hear about more in just a couple of minutes. Here’s Jason.
Jason Bay: Be honest with me. You ever said that to someone and felt like they weren’t being honest with you. It’s kind of funny how that works. And it’s something I’ve said to my wife a lot over the last couple of years, you know, “Hey, I’m open to feedback. Tell me what you need.” And the only problem with how I was going about that was that she didn’t actually feel comfortable giving me candid feedback. And this is the first year of our marriage. This is a couple of years ago, but I just couldn’t figure out why, because I’m like, I’m telling you that you can be honest with me. Like, tell me what you need. I’m open to feedback.
So I was saying all the right things, but then, and it helped to have a therapist with this over the last couple of years, but I figured out what the issue was. And it had nothing to do with me telling her that I was open to the feedback. It had more to do with how I responded to her feedback and because of my own insecurities, I often responded with inpatient sarcasm. So she reminded me to do something for example, and I forgot to do it. I would take this cause I was insecure about myself as well. “Hey, you can’t be trusted, Jason.” And my response was this inpatient sarcasm like, “Well, okay. You know, like getting angry kind of thing.” Right? My classic response when I feel inadequate. And when I asked her to be more honest with me, I was actually making it harder for her to do so because when she did open up, I didn’t respond in a very good way.
The reason why I bring this up is that we can do the same thing through our prospects. I was just coaching one of our clients the other day on cold calling. And I was giving him some objections at the beginning and he’d be like, “Hey, you know, this is so and so with ABC company, have you been?” and I said,” Not interested.” In his immediate stance, there was one of defensiveness he’s he responded like this. He said, “Well, you don’t even know like what I have to say, because how could you possibly be not interested in” and it turned into this like battle back and forth instead of like, really thinking about like, what is this other person feeling, right? Like what are they feeling that would make them respond in this way? And this is really, really important to do when someone gives you feedback on something. So if someone says your price is too high, or they’re giving you an objection, and they’re just being honest about, “Hey, I don’t like your product” or “I think your competitor’s product is better.”
What we need to do when they give feedback is really lean in and be curious instead of getting defensive. So really lean in and think about where are they coming from instead of focusing on how we feel. Because prospects really don’t want to hurt your feelings. I really believe that most people don’t want to hurt you as a salesperson, your feelings.
So you have to show them that you won’t take things too personally. So here’s something that you can try when someone starts to give you feedback and you could tell like maybe it was something that was very hard for them to say, or they had to say no to you.
What you can say is, “Hey, thanks for that. I imagine that wasn’t the easiest thing to share. So I really appreciate it. If you’re comfortable with it. Would you mind sharing more about that.” And what you’re doing thereby thinking them is you’re acknowledging that they gave you feedback and they didn’t have to buy a saying,” I imagine that wasn’t the easiest thing to say, that’s empathy.” Right? You’re thinking about what it was like for them to give you that feedback. And I love this line here. I use this line all the time, if you’re comfortable.
So anytime you’re asking for feedback or asking someone to do something or asking someone even for an intro, or if it’s your champion you’re working with and you want them to bring more people into the decision-making process, if you’re comfortable with it, would you mind doing this or is that something you’d be comfortable with?
Try that line and see how it goes. But again, acknowledge, thank them. Let them know that that probably wasn’t easy for them to say a little bit of empathy and ask them if they wouldn’t mind sharing more about that. Lesson here. A tiny bit of empathy goes a long ways.
So that’s my tip for today. I have one quick invite for you. We’re throwing a summer virtual tour called Think Outside the Script. And the concept here is instead of a virtual summit where you have like 15 or 20 speakers condensed down into two or three days, you just get bombarded with content and it becomes really hard to keep up. And it’s all prerecorded. We’re spreading something out over the entire summer and we have 40 speakers. So some of the big names in sales that you’ve probably heard of your Mark Hunters or Deb Calverts or John Barrows, Morgan Ingram, people like that are going to be participating in. It’s all focused on prospecting.
You can check that out at tour. So that’s TOUR.blissfulprospecting.com. It’s free. It’s live. Check it out tour.blissfulprospecting.com. And thanks for listening to my tip. We’ll talk to you soon.
Scott Ingram: Of course we’ll also have a link to the virtual tour for you at DailySales.Tips/508, and I’ll be presenting on June 25th, so I hope you’ll join us.
Once you’ve gotten yourself signed-up, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!