#265: The Role of a Facilitator vs. Salesperson
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:00:00]:
In this episode, you're gonna learn the importance of why you need to take control in the sales process, why you need to be an expert, and why you need to become a facilitator versus a salesperson. And we're back, Dave, for another episode of the how to sell podcast cracking episode this week. It's an episode I think it'll it'll challenge a few a few of you listening to this. We're gonna challenge you a little bit because we're gonna talk a bit about the importance of becoming a facilitator versus a salesperson. So an interesting topic, and we'll talk a bit about why we need to be seen as a facilitator in the eyes of the buyers. So looking forward to diving into this topic, Dave.
David Fastuca [00:00:41]:
I like this one. Like this one here, there's a lot of things that might that might be unspoken during your selling conversations that you really need to be attentive of because they could be the road blockers from you winning a deal in this scenario.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:00:55]:
And let let's set the scene. Right? So, you mean, what does it hold? What does it mean about being a facilitator? And, you know, one of the things that happens to us, and you listening to this, in most cases, we we fall victim to this, is we are selling a certain product or service every day. And we know the process required to go from point of discovery to point of decision and point of implementation. But often what happens is our buyer or or the buying committee, They don't necessarily know the steps, the formula, the recipe, the playbook on how to buy what we sell or how to buy what you sell. In fact, it's not even how to buy what you sell. A lot of them don't know how to implement what you sell. Right? And so if you look at the data, and again we reference Jen Allen's, I mean it's not Jen Allen's quote because it was a it was a study done, but Jan Ellen's a big advocate of the cost of inaction and how to move deals so that they don't get stuck. 40 to 60 percent of deals get stuck in no decision.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:05]:
And one of the reasons that these deals get stuck, Dave, is because the buying committee, they just get it gets they get overwhelmed and they lose confidence. So often, they get stuck because they lose confidence in their own ability to be to to execute on the solution. Yeah? They don't have the right
David Fastuca [00:02:26]:
So this is about, like, onboarding and and using what's been
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:29]:
done through them. Absolutely. Like, they just don't know. They've you know, again, it's not we're not selling a transaction. If you're selling a transactional product, but most of you listening to this selling in a b to b environment are selling something that it's a bit it's a bit complex. There's a bit of complexity behind it. Right? It's not just about implementing a solution and saying, here, the tech's in place or whatever's in place, the product's in place. Then you gotta get user adoption.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:51]:
Then you gotta make sure you're getting the best out of it, etcetera. So, a lot of companies look at this and they go, you know what? Oh, can we actually can we implement this? When we be successful? Think about your own days, day Dave, back in the day when you were selling Locomote. People looked at it, and they're like, well, it makes sense, but why would I go and do a tech model to manage travel, which is far more easier when I can just use a a travel agent, a corporate travel agent. They actually made more
David Fastuca [00:03:19]:
I actually got a really good story, for this one here. One that really sort of, was sort of missed by Ross and I in the early days, at least, was when we were talking with I I won't name the organization, but they were huge. Massive organization that had a $100,000,000, travel budget spend that they were spending annually, give or take, and they had a very manual process, individuals, team members, managing the you know, how it was to go off and get approval for bookings and all that sort of stuff. So we came in with this, you know, dream of a solution that could solve all their problems, yada yada yada. They loved it. But some of the roadblocks, that we encountered, during that selling process was this whole onboarding phase. And the onboarding phase was wasn't just, you know, the time taken to implement our software. It was the team and budget Yep.
David Fastuca [00:04:17]:
That we never thought of. And they came back to us, and they said, look. Your pricing, everything's it's simple. It's nice. It's great, but we can't get budget to take this on internally at that stage because they have put a budget of it was gonna cost them around $1,500,000 to install the software because of the people they needed internally and for the length of time. They need these people on project 4. So this this budget here was, like, a 150 times x what it cost to use our software, but we were like, holy crap. We never thought about it that way.
David Fastuca [00:04:51]:
Like, what it takes them to onboard something.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:04:54]:
And and you've picked you know, you've you've highlighted something really important, Dave, and it sometimes goes missed. In the business case that needs to be developed, it's not just about the cost for the product. It's the cost to implement. Right? And so this is why it's super important. The first key takeaway in this episode, we've actually gotta step back from a sales perspective and say, right, our job is not to sell anymore. I love the term facilitator because our role is to facilitate. We're actually facilitating multiple conversations across the sales process. There's multiple people that we're facilitating and we're capturing information and we're bringing it together and trying to help them really assess the entire journey and deliver a framework or a pathway so that they can clearly see what it takes to get something into into their business and for it to be successful.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:05:52]:
And, you know, one of the terms that I've often spoken about, Dave, is the term buyer enablement. And what we need to be doing from a sale selling perspective is enabling our buyers to understand how each step works and showcasing what they should be doing, right? And this connects to the other t key takeaway, which is we absolutely have to be the expert. We are the expert in selling what we sell. We implement our solution into multiple companies. We know what that roadmap looks like. We shouldn't be allowing our buyer or the buying committee to come up with their own road map. Right? Because sometimes they've never implemented what we've sold, what we're selling them. So for them
David Fastuca [00:06:42]:
to come do here?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:06:43]:
Sorry?
David Fastuca [00:06:43]:
Like, did you ask, you know, certain questions during discovery to sort of identify any internal sort of roadblocks and internal sort of costs and time blockers to not not to even pay for the product, but, like, to onboard a new service, new offering. Like, how do you frame that? How do you frame
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:07:01]:
Especially if
David Fastuca [00:07:02]:
Especially if they don't know. I'll say, okay. Let me paint a picture here. You're selling a, like a new CRM marketing service, sorry, technology to a CMO at a new company that hasn't done that it's in their 1st 90 days. They make an impact. They're changing things up, and they haven't done this before. So they don't know internally within this business how long things take, what's the lay of the land. Right? So there's a lot of risk and unknown for them.
David Fastuca [00:07:31]:
How do you remove that from from their sort of mind?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:07:34]:
Well, first things first, you gotta be transparent with them. Right? And if depending on when they're at with the journey, you've gotta say, hey. Typically, what we see with organizations at this stage of the journey, this is what a successful implementation looks like. Like, show them what it looks like post decision. And, again, I see this when I audit deals, Dave. I see a lot of the times, salespeople fail to showcase what the path looks like post acquisition. Yeah? And that's where a lot of the question that's where a lot of the silent objections can kill your deal. Because if you don't raise it for them, they're thinking about it.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:08:15]:
So, again, you wanna have control over the process by saying, hey. These are the things that you need to consider at this step of the process. Typically, what we see with clients who are successful in implementing a b c, this is what the path looks like. These are the things that you consider, should consider. These are the people that you need to get involved. And you might be saying, listening to this and saying, well, actually, I don't want to, add extra complexities to the sales process because it'll stop them from taking action, But if you don't, if you're not proactive in showcasing that path, they're still gonna think about it, but you're not gonna enable them or you're not gonna help them think about what those steps are and influence their thinking around that. They're still gonna raise it. They're still gonna ask questions.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:09:07]:
Somebody in the in the boardroom, Dave, is gonna sit there and go, this sounds great on paper, but how are we gonna implement? And what about our other projects? We've got 4 other key projects on our on our register that we need to implement this quarter and next. How does this align with that? How does this deter those other projects? What impact is it gonna have? So if they're they're gonna be asking those questions, so it's better that you enable them and and serve them up with the right information to say, hey. Based on your other projects and the priorities of other projects, this is how this is what the road map is gonna look like for this. This is a time commitment, and at least you're part of that conversation, seeing how could we fit it in. Yeah? And, again, this is where a lot of deals don't think about the post decision process and why deals get stuck. Because the conversation happens when the seller isn't there, they're not able to influence, and then they get told timing's just not right. We've gone another way. We're gonna put this on hold.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:10:09]:
Right?
David Fastuca [00:10:10]:
Yeah. I love that. Look, see, your competition, a lot of the times, isn't another tool It's not. Another service offering. It's internal It's internal. It's other projects
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:10:20]:
Absolutely.
David Fastuca [00:10:20]:
That are going on there. People movements is so much things that can, work in there potentially against you, that you need to deal with and help. And that's where your thing where we spoke about the other week about why you shouldn't be feature dumping
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:10:35]:
No.
David Fastuca [00:10:35]:
Is an important factor because sometimes it's not the features that that, you know obviously, you need to have the parity of what the system works and you have the service offering there, but it's all these other outliers that can help you become Correct. The the brand to go with.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:10:49]:
And it's, again, it's it's the term facilitator. Right? Because you're facilitating conversations. You're trying to capture information. We go discovery is about, you know, that whole pain, that problem pain sale model. I get it, but the premise for me to do a discovery is to understand, okay, what are the other things that are what what are the other projects that they're working on as a business? I've gotta know that. If I don't know that, then I'm not able to deliver a business case that's compelling enough for them to take action, that factors in the other projects they've got going in their business statement. And that's the key thing, you know? It's if we know that they've got 3, 4 other key initiatives, it's our job to ask the question in the discovery stage to say, Hey, based on the other projects that you're running at the moment, where would this rank with the executive team? Right? Would it rank top or would it get knocked down to the middle or the bottom of the of the list? And then if it is middle, well, what do you need to see so that that becomes a priority? Look, don't dance around this topic. Hit it head on.
David Fastuca [00:11:59]:
Pardon the interruption, but I just want to let you know about a special course that Luigi and I have put together that we've given away for free. It's a sales OS 5 part email course. To get access, just visit growforum.i0forward/newsletter and sign up today. So okay. So let let me just stop you there quickly. Question you know, selfish question here for me. Do you then try and fight to push this project higher up on the level, or do you accept where it is and, put them into a nurture type process? Well, what have you done here?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:12:32]:
It it and I hate this answer, but it depends, Dave.
David Fastuca [00:12:35]:
If you say it depends, you're on this. We're not
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:12:37]:
Because there are a few factors when thinking about how hard do you push here. Right?
David Fastuca [00:12:42]:
Okay.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:12:43]:
Now knowing if you've done your research and you're in the business and you're you're coming up with a business case and you've got multiple stakeholders involved in this in the process, and you you got a good sense of what's happening, and you're building strong relationship, you can sense check. You can sort of push to see, okay, what's the appetite for them to maybe change some of their projects, their register of priority, but that, like, project priority. We've seen this with our with our great client in Germany. They actually elevated our project from, like, 3 or 4 in a list to top of the list. Yeah? But we had the right stakeholders, and we were able to get them to reconsider based on their quarterly targets, based on other things that were happening. We asked the question, and then they made it a priority. Right?
David Fastuca [00:13:34]:
Yeah. What's that been about price? It wasn't about price
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:13:36]:
to do with price. They actually paused all purchases because they were recently acquired. They paused all purchases except ours because the level of priority they placed on it was significant. Right? So you've gotta sense check it a little bit, and and you've also gotta make a judgment call that, you know what? It's looking like this might create too much tension, so I'm just gonna now massage it and actually say to them there's nothing wrong. This is why it's important to have a healthy pipeline. There's nothing wrong with saying to your client, hey. Look. Based on everything you have going on right now, it seems that timing on this particular project might not be right for you to look at implementing today.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:14:26]:
Right? Put it out there, Dave.
David Fastuca [00:14:29]:
A quiet walk away.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:14:30]:
Yeah. Like, put it out there and say, would it make sense for us to maybe put this on hold until a, b, c, and then we can look at regrouping in 3 months, 4 weeks, 8 weeks? Now I know a lot of experts will say, oh, Luigi. You know, there's other closing tactics you can use and blah blah blah blah. Right? And you can try to push your deal across the line, but I can tell you, Dave, this is coming from a place of empathy. Right? Empathy builds trust. Sometimes you'll create that, no. No. No.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:14:59]:
We don't wanna put it off. So it creates it creates, more drive and energy and determination from their perspective to progress. But in some cases, it's kind of you're killing, you're deflating that tension, and they're feeling like, oh, yeah. Because with everything we've got and then you can reposition and say, great. Why don't we use the time the next 2 months, 3 months to really nail our project plan so that as you're embarking down this path and getting that sorted, in 3 months' time, we can have our project plan nailed so we can really tackle this properly with the right resources. How does that sound? Sounds amazing. So, again, you've this is where the intuition part of selling needs to kick in, Dave. Right? This is playbooks are fantastic.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:15:45]:
I love them, but you cannot script everything. You've gotta use your gut and know when to push and when to pull. Right?
David Fastuca [00:15:55]:
I love that, Louis. Look. When you when you pitch this to them and you're building out, you know, that's work on the next few months, what does that look like? Are are you pushing in, like, a fortnightly, monthly sorta catch up? Are you locking that in? Let let's get tactical here. Look. What what are you doing in place?
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:16:11]:
You're putting it put put as many like, you know, again, I can only talk from experience. And if I look at one of these larger deals, Dave, that we've been facilitating, we actually put a standing calendar, a weekly calendar catch up. It was only for I think it was half an hour. In some cases, some weeks, we only did 15 minutes, but we were just touching base. It was in there recurring over that 3 month period just to connect, see if there's any movement, get some feedback. And what you're trying to do, you're trying to move yourself away from that I'm selling to you to I'm now working with you. Yeah? I'm your colleague. It's like our weekly stand up.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:16:51]:
Right? Our our work in progress meeting. Yeah? And that's a very simple way to keep the communication, the lines of communication open. The other item to consider is how are you nurturing them during that phase? Right? What social proof are you sending them around how others are tackling x problem and what others have done to achieve x outcome? The nurturing, aspect of this process is critical. Yeah? We don't give it enough time and we don't give it enough attention. And, again, when you're looking at your sales process and you wanna align your sales process to the buying process, and we've spoken about this many times, think about the stages that your buyer needs to go through and what information can you provide them to give them confidence to go from stage a to b to c to d. It's a very simple process. Yeah? And the enablement tools that they need. Right? Again, this is the premise of your facilitating your control.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:17:56]:
Now, again, we can't control the decisions our buyers make, but we can control the level of information that we distribute to them. Okay? We we have to be we have to change our mindset from I'm not selling to you. I'm guiding and facilitating. I'm gonna repeat this topic and this term multiple times. A great sales professional is one who simply guides, facilitates, and brings everything together, wraps it up nicely for them to consider what life would look like if they take action and what the outcome would be for them. And even if it's, as Jen talks about, the cost of inaction, even if they get to a point where they say, we don't wanna do this, as long as you've been clear about, well, what's the cost if you don't take action? And are you happy to weigh that cost if you don't take action? Right? Because, again, that could trigger them to say, you know what, Dave? You're right. If we look at this, we look at what the impact's gonna be. We can't afford not to do this.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:19:00]:
Thank you for helping me consider that. You're not gonna achieve that if you're not the guide and facilitator. If you're just selling, you're just gonna be trying to handle any objection that comes up. You're gonna be responding constantly, and you're gonna be reactive to the process. Yeah?
David Fastuca [00:19:15]:
And you're not doing that, like, within the first call. This is happening over a duration of time to understand Correct. You know, the risk of them leaving. Otherwise, on the first call the first time you're meeting them, the rapport hasn't been built there. You haven't earned the trust. You haven't earned the right to ask those questions.
Luigi Prestinenzi [00:19:30]:
It's not a one call close. In most cases, b two b, not a one call close. And we've gotta we've gotta just shift our focus here. And and that's why I I I you know, the the the assembly line model that's been adopted by so many tech companies of SDR or BDR, whichever top of funnel, books an appointment, has a chat, books a demo, do the demo, Sent, like For me, that's at risk with a lot of go to market plans because the discovery aspect in every sales process is constantly happening. The rapport building process is constantly happening. Yeah? You're meeting new stakeholders. You're starting relationships from 0 every time you meet somebody for the first time. Right? So it's a holistic process that's happening and this is why it's so important for you listening to this, the mindset of I'm a facilitator, I'm a guide, and I'm bringing this together for them and helping them confidently move to that point where they can make a decision.
