EP159 - The Human Way to Get More Sales with Julie Hutchison & Ian Luckett

INTRO

In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we help you work out how to sell the human way.

Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1,000,000 and if already there get to 5 and go fast. At the end of the day, isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN

So, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, another special show today where we bring in our leadership coach Julie. How you doing today, Julie?

JULIE

I'm fabulous. Thank you. And all very happy to be here.

IAN

Great stuff. Well, look, we're going to be talking about a rather interesting subjects today, taken from one of the trainings that at least our recent two day client events. Julie did some amazing session on selling the human way, now we know as MSP sales is s a bit icky. It's a bit, oh my God, do I need to do this? It doesn't feel comfortable because of your, you know, your technical profiles. It's quite difficult asking for money and let alone this whole marketing thing which can be long expensive waste of time and very, very frustrating. Now we were actually going through our new client runway strategy at the time and Julie said, let me do a session at the end, about how to help people sell the human weight sell without kind of being sold to, and we're going to run through the key points of that today, which is going to be really, really exciting cause it's a very, very different way to approach to building relationships, building rapport. So if you've got a match with someone and you think they can help you and they like you. Then you're going to do business only, which is a sale. So, Julie, before we kind of get in a bit further, if people don't know who you are, you just want to just explain who you are, what you do and who you help.

JULIE

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I'm a team performance and leadership specialist, coach and trainer and I work with technical experts who want to build their business because your business is only going to grow as big as you and your mindset as a leader and your behavior as a leader because you neethe team and so I particularly work on helping you to grow yourself, so grow you grow your team grow your business.

IAN

Brilliant stuff and what are we going to cover off in this session today. What's the what's the kind of content why are we talking about selling the human way? What's it all about?

JULIE

Because even though we've got this great technical knowledge, people don't buy unless that you meet the need that they have. And that's not just about a technical need. That's about a human need and it's about trust. And so if we want people to buy it, we have to build trust because we know that we could go down the road and get something from Sainsbury's or Waitrose or wherever we want to be, but we don't, but we choose to go in certain places and we and even though you can buy a loaf of bread from all of those places, you'll choose to go to a certain place and that's what we're talking about here. Why is it that somebody will choose you over and above somebody else even if you have the same technical product and we want to be able to understand that so that we can utilise that so that people will choose you because you are the prize, you are the one that they think actually you know what I want to be around. I want to be with you because I trust you to give me what I want.

IAN

And this color links in really nicely with some of the things we talk about, the marketing, isn't it because a lot of MSPs think well, look guys, we all do the same. We all provide the same service. And if you think of that mindset, then it's just going to be a race to the bottom on price, whereas what we're saying here is let's put a bit of thought. Into how you project yourself, how you come across, how you say things, and we're going to be coming onto one of my I think it's one of my favorite favorite trainings apart from other Stuart’s needs. Obviously on the six human needs that we're going to talk about today. So it's around differentiating, isn't it and really and I guess communicating how you're different isn't it, is that the challenge really that most people now?

JULIE

Well, I think it's more about listening it. Yes, it is. But you're different because you're listening to what that person needs, so you can adapt. Let's say is, how do I understand what, what that person needs? How do I build trust and rapport with that person? How do I understand what they need so that I can appeal to even more people. Yeah. And so that I, if I know what people need. I build the rapport I build the trust, and therefore they want to come to me directly and it's so, so it's much more about listening and and watching and understanding people, understanding ourselves and then picking the right approach. Because then you can appeal to more people.

IAN

And you know, some people might be thinking this might be a little bit woo woo, which is it isn't. It isn't really. But it's not kind of like standard sales stuff. But why is it important that both parties feel comfortable when they're going through a sales transaction or sales process?

JULIE

Well, two things. If from the person who's buying. If you're not comfortable, you're not going to buy, you're going to go somewhere else where you feel comfortable. That's it's that's as simple as that, you know, You know, years ago used to buy a loaf of bread for 19 P you're not going to go down that that shop if you don't feel comfortable being in that shop you want to go where you feel comfortable? So that's one, but from the other perspective and you mentioned it before, people, especially in this field, you know, often feel more comfortable with the technical. And the unfortunate thing is if you talk tech at somebody, your client is probably not on the same level as you now the minute they're not on the same level with you, I use an analogy sometimes say like we're in the locker pants and Ian, and what I mean by that I think I know what I mean by that is imagine that you imagine that you're really good at running Ian, I don't if you are,

IAN

Are you even, before I got, I got old.

JULIE

Imagine that. Okay, cool. And you're out there with your special trainers, you know that cost £200.

IAN

Yeah.

JULIE

And you have locker pants that looks super super flat. And you say to all your clients, like I tell you what I’m going to show you how to how to get fit and go running. And they're like, oh, my. God. Okay, right. Well, I need to get fit, alright and you say brilliant. We'll meet me on the track at 6:00 in th morning, and and then you show up. They're there and they're, you know, I don't know, Tesco trainers. And they're the old tracksuit bottoms, feeling really awkward and you turn up. I've got this picture in my head now you know, I don't know why I'm talking about this, but.

IAN

I'm. I'm really sorry to everybody who can’t and unsee. What? Julie, I didn't. Know this was going to look like this, but.

JULIE

No, I know neither did I. But anyway, so there you are. And you're doing, you're stretching and your knees up and you're like, you know, like, ohh, fabulous. And they look at you and then, you know, they're standing on that start line and you say to them right, ready. We're going to do 100 meter dash to see how you are. Let's go. And you start running off at that pace. And they stand there now, half of them probably will turn around, run the other way. The other half stand there awkwardly, thinking I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm not really comfortable and I don't really want to do this. And there might be one that comes with you because they're really super keen and they understand what you're talking about. And the point is, is, is that none of them are ready for what you have to give when you showing up in your life your locker pants. And so you're not meeting them where they are. Okay, if alternately you turn around and realise that their needs are that they're not very fit or they don't know what to do and they don't know how to get the right gear or whatever the thing is you don't need. And you said, you know what today what we're going to do all we're going to do is I'm going to walk next to you. I'm ggoing to walk you down this track, and we're just going to walk to start with and let's just get let's just see how it feels to be on this tack in the first place and I'm going to, then show you, I'm ggoing towalk past that. I'm going to build rapport with you. I'm goint to understand your needs. I'm going to see that you're not going to be able to run off and you haven't got the equipment and maybe we'll just do a little bit of a run, a little bit like a couple 100 feet or something and or even 50 feet and then we're ggoing to walk again and then I'm going to show you going to build it up. And I'm going to, I'm going to take you in the direction of how it's going to work for you. Now you've got somebody who trusts you. Now you've got rapport with somebody. You've met them where they are and you've matched them. You're pacing and you'll lead with them when you lead somebody where they need to go, they will trust you. They will buy from you because now you don't make them feel bad. You understand them. You understand their needs. They don't feel like an idiot for not understanding all this technical enough and there will be a loyal fan. You don't have to sell to them.

IAN

And this is actually and I've really, really do apologise to everybody listening to this about the whole like pants thing.

JULIE

Yeah, sorry.

IAN

Just I didn't know it was going to go there and I'm even frightened about it myself now. But in actual fact, just listening to your talking there, Julie, we're talking about how to, you know, use the human way to get more cells. This is exactly the same as engaging with your team. Getting your team to do things ohh good. You know having difficult conversations and building it in so that you if you've got someone who's you know who who's not where you're at, you haven't built that rapport. You haven't built that relationship.

JULIE

Oh, gotcha.

IAN

You know, I'm sorry. Don't put your locker pants on and you lead them around the track. Ohh, no. This is going to be a thing now. I'll wait till Stuart hears this. I'm never going to hear the end of it. Wait till the clients hear about this. I'm never going to hear the end of.

JULIE

It's not safe, yeah.

IAN

They say that so, but anyway, brilliant explanation. Julile, I think that was really key about understanding the human you know, the needs, the rapport, the trust and everything like that. What are the six human needs we talk about the 6 human needs. What, give us an explanation on what they are, and why they're important in this in this.

JULIE

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So 6 human needs is just something a guy called a very famous guy called Tony Robbins, who's very big on Neurolinguistic programming NLP. If we really want to get there. And I'm sure you sure, you know, if you don't look you up. And what he said was is that. You know, 6 human needs are, but when we have a need, it drives our behaviour. It drives our thinking, it drives our behaviour. And if we don't have a need yet, then we have an emotional response to that. OK, that could be, you know, throw our teams at the crib or whatever it might be. But but we have these new humanists. And he said there were six and maybe there's more, I don't know. But I think these are really good starter for 10. OK and what that means is if we start to understand what those are for that person because everybody will be different, imagine it like a series of like. Like a mixing desk in that, you know we've got six and I'll be 10 out of 10 on one and not out 10 on another but I mixing. And So what they are, first of all, the 1st 2 certainty and uncertainty like the opposites, and what that means is that we all have a level of need for certainty. You know, we want, we want to be sure we want to be safe.

And some people you'll know of those people where they would do anything or do they they'd rather be, be bored and have a. You know, a business that doesn't grow or a job they don't like, as long as they're getting paid a certain amount of money and they know their bills are paid or whatever. So they're safe in that in that area. And that is the highest one for them, let's say now the problem with that is I said there is that you get bored if you have too much certainty. So there, everybody needs a level of uncertainty or should we say variety. Which means we need something to keep us going. Keep us interested. Keep us alive, you know. And again, some people will need that and will be driven by, you know, newness and change. And so there's a balance to be had against that certainty and uncertainty cause too much newness, too much change means everything's unstable. You get too much of that. You want to float. Certainty. OK. So when we're looking at people, we can start to see what are they really are they, are they needing to tick the box of certainty or are an uncertainty, so you. See certainty might be. Oh, that sounds risky. I don't think I want to do that. How is that? Has it been tried and tested or uncertainty. Ohh it's a new thing. Wonderful. We want to be first. Let's have a go, you know. So you start to hear what people are saying and then tell you what their needs are without you having to say, are you needing certainty or uncertainty.

The next one is significance. And what we mean by that is I need I need to have, I need to know my place in the world. I need to kind of feel like I'm important in, you know, to matter. And 10 out of 10 significance might be, you know, erring on the side of you. Know everybody needs. To be it's all about me, let's say. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about that every single person. No matter how you know where they're coming from needs some level of significance and some less than others, but we all need it, so we need to feel like we matter so. When you're talking to somebody. If you're seeing that, they need to be heard and they need to be noticed. If you don't notice or hear them, guess what you are not going to sell to them.

IAN

Is that is that the same as the purpose and the why, you know, we talk about people,we talk about the purpose of your life and what you're trying to is that the same?

JULIE

As that it might come from that, then why it might come from significance, but it also might come from something else. I'm going to talk about in a minute. I'll come from some of these.

IAN

Right. OK. Yeah.

JULIE

Imagine you know my why is look, we've only done three of these so far, but imagine my why might be. Well, I want to create a really safe place. My way is I want, I want safety. Yeah, that's about certainty. So it could come from any of them. But your wife will probably come from these, Okay? So next one then for what significance say we we've got connection and love or should I say belonging cause it sometimes when we say love it scares people off. So what I mean by that is that. This one is my big one really is that people need to be around people. Yeah, some less than others. But is this a driver for the person that? You're in front of so, in other words, if they feel a big sense of connection and wanted to be part of something. And you don't have that and you're not offering something like that where it's like, oh, this, you know, we're one big family or and that means something to them. Then great. If if it doesn't mean anything to them then you're not going to talk about it. So if you're listening to this person and hearing whether they are talking about belonging or connection or being part of a team or something like that. Then utilize that information. In a genuine way, not not manipulating situation but really understanding is that something that they need to hear if I am to build rapport with them, to build trust with them, and therefore they feel like, yeah, I love being part of Ian's team because actually they make me feel good when I when I when I growing up because I feel like I really belong as a customer you know. Part of their gang. Yeah, and that that means that they'll want to come to you now, again, if somebody's super not interested in that, then you don't need to mention it. Yeah, they might think that you're just wasting their time, so you need to know the answer to that the next one is around growth, which is around you know how somebody needs to learn and grow. Again in, in sales that might be, uh, you know, are we going to be doing something that's going to develop person they if they're really keen for that then then great, maybe not so much in terms of sales, but that might come up.

The next one is contribution, okay, contribution is different, different from significance. This is about somebody wanting to give back and somebody wants to do goodin the world. So imagine that you're working with a company or your customer in front of you is a a company or a person. That that is really, really keen on how they're giving back and what it's all about, maybe they do buy one, give one or something like that, or just hearing how that they find that important in their own life or whatever it is finding about that human and really understanding that. Then maybe you can point out how you know. You know well, that's great because we do buy one, give one too, or oh, this is how we do some work for charity or something that but that gives a connection and build that rapport for you so you can feel that need. So specifically, I think are really, really important here is that certainty uncertainty and significant along those side of things. But all of these will be really important to just be listening out for when you're trying to build a pool because. If somebody, let's say, really wants to be you know, ahead of the game and wants to do something new and wants to see the new technology and everything else. And you don't talk about that, then they're going to go somewhere else. Even you could provide it. You just didn't, didn't really fulfill that need for them. You didn't make them certain that you were going to be able to fulfill that need. Perhaps that's more like it so you don't actually have to fulfill the need right there and then, but they need to think that you're going to, they need to trust. That you are going to meet these needs. Yeah. Because when these needs are not met. That's when people start throwing their teddies out. The prime they start acting differently, they start complaining or they start not wanting to be around you and therefore you're going to lose out. You're going to lose a customer.

IAN

And and you mentioned it right at the top of the top of the show. This is actually about listening. It's about listening so that you can build the pool so that you can then build back connection and if you just understand what their key drivers are and their key, you know where they're at. By using this just the six human needs then. That's going to help you bring that forward. How do we then apply this then in the sales environment? How do we, you know, we've got all of this all of this, this information about this person and what we think they want and what we think they need, and all of that personally as well as in the business. How do we then apply that to help us close more business well.

JULIE

The biggest thing that we need to do is that once we've heard those things is think about well, what is it? They're telling me and then feed that back. You know, it's a, you know, when I talk about meeting the way. They are before. , it's about saying, Okay, well, for example, if somebody saying I, you know, I don't want anything risky is noting that and thinking how can I deliver what I'm selling in in terms of what they're talking about. So in in their language, in mentioning the things that they mention in, in covering off all of those signals that they're telling you. And that's about really listening to them. And I know that, you know, in what you teach in terms of your sales training in terms of how you, how you go through things, it's about really listening to what they're saying and and then coming back with that. So, so for example, if they're talking about risk. Then you can say and the brilliant thing about what we can do for you is that we make sure that we cover off, you know, we close all those holes or we're very secure or whatever it is. So you can tailor your delivery of what you offer to their needs.

IAN

Right. OK, got it. So can we apply this to frameworks to then help with that process to make it easy for people to understand?

JULIE

Yeah. In terms of your frameworks, I know that you have your decision maker map. You've got that one which which really, it helps to identify you've got, you know who's in the room. So first of all, you know, like, because this is just one thing, the six human needs is one thing. You've got other tools. So you're talking about, let's look at the type of person that I've got in the room. Let's look at maybe we've talked previously about disc around behavioural profiling of people and understanding your self and you also have your call framework where you can utilise that as well. And I think that's really important to to use this within your normal frameworks of how you talk to your customers.

IAN

Yeah, yeah. That's brilliant, Julie. Thanks. Thanks very much for all of that. It's really, really interesting so. And we did this when we delivered this training, we delivered this session to the clients three or four weeks ago. Now what feedback did you get from people afterwards? How did this resonate with the MSPs we had in the room.

JULIE

I think that the biggest thing was about tha they realized that they were unconscious of this area and they needed to get conscious of it because they were putting themselves under pressure and so they were thinking, I need to know more. I need to be more, I need to show my technical prowess. Or the, you know everything it needs to be technically perfect for everything to be able to sell, which puts them under pressure. And what I think they realised was actually this isn't it's not all. It's a bit, but it's not all about me. Yeah, it's not all about the technical stuff. It's about them. And therefore, if I meet them where they are. If I start to, you know, go to that race track at the very start and walk with them and listen to them, then actually, this isn't as hard. You said it before. A lot of people don't like sales, this isn't as hard as they were making it. It's much easier if you do this because you're going to get so much good information about that what they need. What's important to them, and all we've got to do is look at how your product and your service and your company can give that them.

IAN

Brilliant. Brilliant. That's great. Thank you, Julie, for that. We're going to wrap up in a minute. But just before we do, I just want to remind you guys of Episode 123 of the podcast where I shared the kind of secrets to helping you sell on value rther than on price, which kind of links in with this podcast really well to understand. It's not just about the price. It's not just about the technology, it's about what's the business outcomes you're solving, what is in it for me from your, from your prospects, from your customers and it kind of links in with this so, Julie top tip, what's the big, big summary of the take away from this show.

JULIE

Don't wear your locker pants, I think.

IAN

Of men was gonna come up again.

JULIE

Is the first one. But it's a good thing to think about, so don't wear. Your like pants.

IAN

It's not a good thing to think about at all. It's not a good thing to think about.

JULIE

It is and the and then listen to your customers, listen for the clues, play Detective and listen to what they're actually telling you about what they need. Not the stuff on the surface but underneath. And when you do. That life will be easier for you because all you got to do is give.

IAN

Fantastic. Thank you very much, Julie. And if you're curious about how this particular element fits in within our scale with confidence model to help you build that MSP, that works for you rather than you for it, then you know we always invite you to come and take the MSP mastery quiz. And in just three minutes you get a 360° scan of your business. And you can see exactly what it is you need to focus on right now to help you build that business, build that profitable leveraged and business that you know that we all deserve. So thank you very much, Julie. The link for the quiz, by the way, will be in the show notes. But thanks again for your time with us, Julie. I'm not going to thank you for the analogy and the running track. But we shall see where that goes.

JULIE

It's never going to leave.

IAN

I look forward to some vendors sending me some light pants with their logos printed across. Anyway, thanks very much. Again. Have a great day and we'll catch up with you guys on the. Next one. Cheers now.

OUTRO

So, I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, I'd love it if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to learn more about how to take your MSP to a million, or if you're already there, go faster, then come and join Stuart Warwick and myself in the Scale with Confidence Facebook group, the link is in the show notes. You can enjoy the rest of your day and I look forward to connecting with you soon.