Welcome to issue ! Did someone forward this to you? If so, Subscribe here!

James Clear said something really profound in his 3-2-1 newsletter this week.

"It's remarkable how often the real problem is not what happened, but how it was communicated."

Which got me thinking about sales.

And when I think of sales and communication, I think of clarification.

Often what someone says at first isn’t the full truth. It may be a knee jerk reaction or, more times than not, it’s a glazed over formulated response to avoid the real emotion.

And, if we don’t do our jobs to qualify accurately, the problems aren’t big enough or can’t be specified.

Which makes it really hard to tie the problem to an outcome goal or some measured result.

I coach early-stage software founders doing less than $1 million in revenue.

If you came to me and said, “I need to close more business” and I was like, “Great, I can teach you how to close more business” then I’ve done you and myself a disservice.

→ Because “closing more business” is vague.

There are a multitude of questions I could ask to understand you and your business deeper.

→ Why do you need to close more business?

→ What does closing more business do for you?

→ How much business have you closed this year?

→ What was your revenue goal and are you on track to hit it?

→ How many active current clients do you have?

→ What do those clients all have in common? Where do they differ?

→ For your last 10 leads, how many did you close?

→ Where do you get your leads from today?

→ How many leads do you get a month and how many turn into discovery calls?

→ If there was a part of the sales process where deals fall off most of the time, where would it be?

→ When someone doesn’t work with you do they tell you directly or is it indirectly by not responding to your messages?

→ If you got what you wanted, what does your client count, close rate and revenue look like in 12 months?

This is literally the tip of the iceberg.

Because any one of these questions could expose more information that tells the story more clearly.

I need to understand the nuance.

I need to be clear on the driving purpose.

And, I need to make sure we are in complete communication and understanding on what the problems and issues are and the order that they may need to be solved in.

If we are, there’s no question we’d have a successful partnership.

But, if I stop at “I need to close more business” and move on, I’m no different than a book, or a course or some “high-ticket sales” joker I see posting on Instagram.

Everyone wants to close more business.

But, is that even the real problem we need to solve?

Are your calls interrogations of data points or gaining a complete understanding of the whole picture of their situation?

If you want to drastically alter your sales approach, do the latter.

Ask questions that expose clear metrics and emotions.

Remove ambiguity at all costs. (IKYMI: Read the newsletter specific to this topic).

And make the call about identifying their true problem.

Because, nobody really cares about your product or service until they know that you know what they are dealing with and have built the trust that you can solve it.

Until then, you’ll just keep flipping a coin and guessing if it lands you a new client or not.

What surface “problem” do you hear often?

What sorts of questions could you ask to pry deeper and learn more?

Write out at least 10 of them and practice saying them out loud.

You’ll be more prepared next conversation.

And you’ll be pleasantly surprised how it opens up the communication.

Reply with your list of 10 and I’ll review them for you. I read every response.

Need to get a quick W?

I offer one-time sessions to go deep into the specifics of whats happening today.

→ Set up a deal review audit: It’s deep-dive into active deals and how to get them over the finish line.

→ Get a sales call roasted: I review a real sales call and provide an in-depth, tactical overview for immediate improvement.

Want to build a repeatable sales foundation?

These help you build the skills and systems for the long-haul and a foundation to accelerate growth.

→ 90 Day Sales Accelerator: Hands-on coaching built around your pipeline and growth objectives.

→ Team Workshops: Live team training built around real friction points in your sales process.

→ Fractional Sales Leadership: Ongoing leadership for startups growing out of founder-led sales