(888) 815-0802Why You Should Flip the Sales Script, with Oren Klaff [Episode 731]
Oren Klaff, Managing Director of Intersection Capital and bestselling author of “Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal” and “Flip the Script: Getting People to Think Your Idea is Their Idea,” joins me on this episode.
Key Takeaways
- Buyers have become increasingly empowered in the years since Oren wrote Pitch Anything. Now, buyers receive your proposal and then can search everywhere online to find the lowest price.
- Buying options reduce conversion rates and take the margin out of selling. That’s why Oren wrote Flip the Script. When the buyer chases you, you close sales deals.
- Andy and Oren discuss maximizers and satisficers. Anyone who asks you for a proposal plans to ask you for a discount when they compare proposals.
- Oren finds from his consulting that when buyers are motivated and decide to work with you, that decision is resilient throughout negotiations and distance. But when buyers have many objections, you don’t close deals.
- Objections come from two reasons: 1. Your status as a salesperson isn’t high enough; 2. You’re not perceived as an expert. Status measures your trustworthiness and credibility. Expertise provides certainty for the buyer.
- When the buyer assigns you trust and certainty, they want you to do business with them.
- Oren says the basis of feeling like or being an insider wins deals. It involves being able to talk to someone in their language about their business. People are skeptical of outsiders and their promises.
- Inception (with credit to the movie) refers to the writing a storyline to ensure that the audience deduces the solution before the characters do. That aha moment makes you feel good. Oren applies that to selling.
- Oren discounts decision-making theories. Oren does not recommend storytelling in spite of the storytelling culture in which he was raised. Storytelling is too hard for most people to use effectively.
- Oren explains the Flash Roll. Give the buyer details about your business, their problem, and the probable solution, in their technical language, told quickly, in under 30 seconds, as if you have delivered the solution 1,000 times.
- Andy recommends listeners to get Oren’s book, FLIP THE SCRIPT.
- Most of Oren’s customers are respected, technical people of high status who are not interested in cheesy tactics and don’t want to sell. The book shows you how to get your buyer to want and need to buy from you.
Episode Transcript
Andy Paul
It’s time to accelerate. Hey friends, this is Andy. Welcome to Episode 731 of Accelerate, the sales podcast of record. Have another excellent episode lined up for you this week. Joining me as my guest is Oren klaff. Oren, you may know, is the best selling author of a book Anything, an innovative method of presenting, persuading and winning the deal. And in this week’s episode, I’ll be talking with Oren about his new book, flip the script, getting people to think your idea is their idea. And in this no holds barred and sometimes rock conversation. Oren and I dive into why you need to flip the script on today’s empowered buyers and have them chase you versus you pursuing them, how to develop resilient buyers that are motivated to work with you, how to level up your status. And so the concept Oren writes about in the book, How to level up your status to earn trust and minimize objections, what a flash roll is and why you need one, how to be perceived as an insider in your buyers business. And we’ll also talk about his Inception method that he writes about in this book, and how you can use that to help the buyer think your idea is their idea. All this and much, much more. Alright, let’s jump into it. Oren, welcome to the show.
Oren Klaff
Shortest welcome I’ve ever had but it felt warm.
Andy Paul
It’s very warm. So fellow San Diego, and I mean, hey, we’re on the same team. So yeah. Just we’re going to talk today about your book, flip the script, getting people to think of your ideas, their ideas. And I have to admit, I said before we started recording, I really enjoyed reading it. And I think people enjoy reading because you make such good use of stories to illustrate your points. I can certainly recommend it to people that are listening. So you certainly have a book saying that we’ve grown resistant to sales persuasions, in your mind, is this a new phenomenon? Or it’s something that’s always been or is just a function of?
Oren Klaff
Yeah, I think my first book Pitch Anything covered persuasion selling influence fairly thoroughly. Things have changed over the last 10 years, in the last five years, dramatically, in my experience, and that’s I think, why flip the script was needed is that today, buyers have gotten in control before they felt in control. And they felt empowered, and they would say, hey, submit a proposal. I’ll take a look at Got it, I got to get it up to the committee, the CFO, the CEO, my partner, the Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch, have to look at this, you know, because they approve all my budgets. And that was a problem. But there were ways to do that. Today, the buyer is functionally empowered, right, in which they once they know the price, and know the features, they know the benefits and they know the ROI. They know the value proposition they have, thanks. Very interesting. We’re super excited, I got to show this to my partner, Board of Directors, you know, get some approval on this. Then they put you in a box up on the shelf, right and you’re there as an option. Now, their business has become to find what you offer cheaper or for free. And because it’s now possible to do that, see before it used to be about negotiation and grinding, and that was a process to reduce your margin, but you still had a decent shot at getting the deal today. They are going to look for a replacement option for whatever it is you sell accounting services you know physical products, laptop security, consulting, you know healthcare medical devices, it doesn’t matter. They’re looking for it. And I use this example. I’ve started running pretty aggressively. I’ve always worked out um, but I need these things called Norma tech. It’s a compression device you go to Norma tech COMM And it’s 20 $500 Okay, click to buy Wait a second. Let me check on Amazon 20 $300 Oh, that was good. right let me because I buy a lot of cars and motorcycles and stuff. I hop over to eBay Oh, use it twice on eBay. 1900 dollars, right. Ah cooked about, you know what, let me just check Craigslist 1700 dollars. Us two times. I’m a truck retiring triathlete, come get him. So for eight I don’t need $800 right. But the buyer at all levels and this is a consumer experience has been gamified to the reprice, you find another option and they’re in total Control. And if you can’t have what you want, what you have and say we should be in business together, how do I get it, then you’re constantly chasing them. And so this sense of sending an email going checking in status update and and making a pitch or sale proposal sending over proposal and then trying to get when that business. It does happen people do in business, we’re an $18 trillion economy, right? However, it’s taking the margin out of the business. That’s where we are today is a low conversion and near marginal its business. And that’s why the script was needed.
Andy Paul
So you find that as prevalent in b2b and b2c?
Oren Klaff
It’s extremely prevalent. Give me an image, you know, because our stories in the book, you read or you watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, hmm. So in the end, the Lost Ark, the Ark of the Covenant has the ability to save mankind and humanity and make the world a better place for all peoples of the earth. And the US government puts in a crate in a warehouse next to 10,000 other crates exactly the same. That’s what b2b buyers do to you. They put you in a box up on the shelf and say if I need it, I’ll take it down.
Andy Paul
Well, but that’s but that speaks to the fact that the salesperson is going online horrible job of qualifying the prospect if the prospects just could put them on a box, no shelf means they weren’t qualified to be entering into the buying process.
Oren Klaff
I don’t, iin my experience, in b2b, the buyers are qualified, they have budget, right, but they have far more ability to find other options. The sales cycle goes much longer, and much more repricing or discount is needed to close things.
Andy Paul
Yeah, actually, I find that’s certainly true. In some cases, I think this was more there’s the failure qualifying the part of the rep is that oftentimes I’m a huge believer and I’ve certainly experienced it in my careers. Yeah, Herbert Simon wrote about the difference between satisficers maximizers and certainly maximizers, that they personify what you’re talking about, right? We’re going to look at every option that we can to make sure we get the absolute best deal. But I find increasingly in b2b sales, at least that the buyers are saying, look, we’ve only put so much effort into making this decision at some point, we make the good enough decision and then move on, right? Because we’re gonna always be looking to your point precisely, we’re always gonna be looking, because yeah, we’re gonna get a better deal at some point. But for now, yeah, we put enough time into this, we’re gonna move forward.
Oren Klaff
I think buyers, you know, are looking to solve their problems. They are looking to really leverage price and discounting today using the tools they have. And so if you’re in a situation where you give a presentation, the buyer says, send me a proposal, you can win that business, you might win that business, maybe you should win that business. It’s gonna get repriced, to you know, today very aggressively.
Andy Paul
Right. So I’d say that sort of the central thesis of the book is that buyers don’t put trust in you and your ideas. There’s a quote, however, everyone trusts their own ideas, which I think is right on. But it’s sort of interesting as well. Tell me more about that first, then I want to talk about the dive in that a little bit further. Because Yeah, there’s also a trend that says, actually, given the internet’s people are actually more open to other people’s ideas. But I think I think you’re right on this, but I just want to see how you square this. All right. Tell us more about this idea if people put more trust in their own ideas.
Oren Klaff
Yeah. And so and by the way, just put some context you know, I have a program online that prizes 5000 people in it and real businesses now, you know, not consumers, b2b and CFOs CEOs real companies, so I might have the biggest negotiation and sales petri dish out there. And so this is not stuff that you know, in my opinion, these are things that we’ve told CEOs of companies to do and they’ve gone out and told their 500 reps to do and then they come back and go to work. So, uh, you know, scientific or quasi scientific. So here’s what we find when buyers go You know what, I love this How do we work together? It’s my idea. And I am motivating the decision that I want to work with you. I want to buy with you, I want to deal with you. That decision is incredibly resilient. It withstands lots of contract negotiation. It withstands distance movie, we just closed a three and a half million dollar deal never met any of the parties on it. It goes on a shorter sales cycle. And it’s incredibly resilient to retreating, repricing and failure to close. And it’s not price sensitive, when the idea comes within them that they want to work with you when you have tied them down into a yes, through the various, you know, tech techniques that are suggested in sales books since the 1950s. Those are before there’s before I mean, but But look, I think that’s the thing about flip the script that I would say almost every sales book I read is written based on the sales book to the right of it with just a different author and different nuance to overcoming objections. When you get to a situation where objections are flooding out, and you’re trying to overcome them. And it leads to argumentation today with buyers, those deals don’t close, right burger experience. And so every book that’s sent to me, or I read, and I buy lots of books on sales, because I want to know what’s out there are about overcoming objections to the satisfaction of the deal that you can’t do it, right? It’s like, but today, it’s like Ray Charles swinging at incoming tennis balls with a lightsaber. Right? It’s just a never ending process with some hits and some misses. And it’s chaotic, doesn’t work that well.
Andy Paul
So, again, so dive into it, and I think that’s a great point as is. So why are all these objections coming up in the first place?
Oren Klaff
I think we have a short time here. It’s a longer question. But but the Yeah, the objections are coming up for two reasons that I cover in book number one, and its status, your status as a salesperson isn’t high enough. And number two, you’re not perceived as an expert. And if you really unpack, flip the script as you know your sharp mind is doing. that’s at the heart of it. There’s eight techniques in it. How do you have a high enough status coming in? Get from the low status position salespeople have the low status position.
Andy Paul
Well, okay, well, let’s unpack that. Because Gartner has done research, Forrester has done research saying that 80% of CEOs find no value in interaction with sales reps. Yeah. And so if I were to look at that through the lens of your book, what we’re saying is, you know, there’s not they don’t have credibility. They don’t have the status you call it but I’ll call it credibility that I have the bona fide ease, whatever for the CEO to take. Sales Rep. Seriously.
Oren Klaff
So, words are very meaningful here. You know, we’re hearing all this stuff in the Trump government, you know, today that very specific words sound innocuous, but to certain groups like me, right? So, I want to take the word credibility. And, and I want to be careful of that because credibility is like the word charisma. Right? It seems to represent something, but it’s made up of many different things that have appeared. So for me when I unpack but influence and persuasion in sales are the two factors. Status gives you trust, okay, it is proof that you are respected. You have credibility. There’s a whole composite of things that go with status, but it implies trust in this trust in the system. The system trusts you, right? in an industry, the industry trusts You, the government trusts you, friends and the company. There’s trust.
Andy Paul
Well, let me ask the question about that. Yeah. And this is, you know, not to say throughout the point itself, but it’s Yeah, yeah. But there’s credibility and trust in my mind, our staff status and credibility, in my mind is that status seems to be a bestowed state, right. Whereas credibility as an earned state.
Oren Klaff
So I’m getting to that, right. So I think credibility is packing together a lot of concepts underneath it, right. But it’s something you earn, where again, status to me sounds like a class. I know you’re not making that argument. But other people read it, it could sound like a class argument, right?
Oren Klaff
It is a class argument darkweb right, because when you are in the same class, you have imputed and implied and in place trust. The second thing is expertise. And expertise provides certainty. So now If you have trust and certainty, then you have a deal. That’s why status and expertise are the functions of getting trust and certainty when you have trust. And when you have certainty that the things you say will happen. They’re there. The bond yield you say is gonna happen, the return on equity, you say it’s gonna happen. lawn mower is gonna last, you know, 10 years and cut the lawn 50% better, you know, in b2b, that the accounting software is going to reduce expenses across the organization, that the HR plan is going to reduce HR expects to make the employees happier, right? That this is the problem in sales. I am not certain that the things you say will happen will actually happen on your watch on the budget. That’s why you have objections.
Andy Paul
Not so the questions about risk.
Oren Klaff
Yes, absolutely. So once you when you combine and you know, as the book Serve takes you through the process of raising your status. So you have trust and become an expert. Oh, yeah. So you have so there’s certainty that the problem that the buyer has is easy for you to solve 1000 times, right. It’s not a push up. It’s boring. Right? When my buyers, people, you know, and you know, people ultimately end up paying me a million and a half $2 million $500,000. You know, sometimes $1 sometimes, sometimes negative 50,000.
Andy Paul
But are you making that comment to someone else off camera?
Oren Klaff
Somebody in the room? No.
So when somebody works with us, we’re making assertions about what is going to happen in the future and when they feel like I have done it 1000 times again, it’s not a push up. It’s it’s day to day business for us. Right and They have visibility, you know this, my status is high enough, then they feel comfortable. And that is when they feel comfortable. And when they hit that point, what we observe is they go, hey, how do we work together? When can we get started? Right? When those elements that when they feel like, this is an easy problem for you to solve, then people want to work with you.
Andy Paul
Okay, so I’m gonna break that down for people because I think it’s a key takeaway from the book and you talk about your story at the altitude group and the valet.
Oren Klaff
It’s great. Yeah, I mean, that was a real, real, breakthrough, sort of mental moment for me,
Andy Paul
right? So whether with that story or giving other examples, so tell people to mean about how you align your status with the people you’re selling to.
Oren Klaff
Yeah. We win or lose deals on the basis of feeling and being an insider being able to talk to someone in their own language of their business, huh? This is really relevant for folks who sell b2b horizontally. So insurance, financial services, you know, if you sell, you know, truck repair equipment to the trucking industry, you know, you’re gonna have this insider knowledge and believe you’re an insider, it’s not that big of a problem. But most of us sell to companies that we’re not in specifically in their business. And so, in that, when a semiconductor company comes in, we have to be able to communicate to them that we’re an insider and we’re at their level in their industry. If we don’t, we don’t win the account. So be respected in the industry, known in the industry, knowing the language that people in that business talk to each other in is the easiest way that we’ve found to immediately raise your credibility, raise your status. raise the awareness that you’re an insider and sukhram. Without that people perceive you as an outsider. And they’re constantly skeptical of the things that you are promising to do.
Andy Paul
And does that. And this is an interesting point because there’s a broad divide in b2b sales. People think that sellers need to be specialists versus more generalists. And I think you’re making the argument that people need to have some specialized knowledge certainly in the industry they serve if they want to get the status alignment.
Oren Klaff
I think if you read the chapter, you’ll see you almost don’t need you know, if you’re working with semiconductor, if you’re working with trucking, if you’re working in you know, within a SaaS company or accounting software or consulting or government, he can’t be up to speed completely on what they’re doing in their product set in their product mix, right? But until they hear you talk in their language, they know that you speak at some level they’re language, uncomfortable with you, that is just a basic function of opinion. Selling. And, and you know, that’s what that whole chapter is for is how to get alignment with someone that you speak their business language. Okay.
Andy Paul
So you go on and talk, one of the key things you talk about your book is this idea of inception, which I think he took from the movie of the same name.
Oren Klaff
Credit, we gave credit to the movie. That’s right.
Andy Paul
And I’d loved your analogy or using about watching crime procedurals on TV. So tell me tell people what Inception is and take them through this analogy, because I think that’s a good way for sellers to think about the concept.
Oren Klaff
I think it is, and normally I don’t like to read people the book, but you bring up a good point that’s worth discussing. So when you’re watching Criminal Minds or those style of shows, or whatever, right on a murder, right, you get to a point at 41 minutes, 39 minutes, 38 minutes, 42 minutes. I don’t know what it is right? Right where you go, you have outsmarted the writers, the actors, the real life situation that is based on your the other people sitting in the room and all of Hollywood, you, you did it in your own little mind. That’s incredible. What we don’t realize and my wife always arrives at this point where she knows who did it. It’s the proudest point and you know, I don’t I don’t take it away from her and in any way know what’s really going on. You are meant to discover that because it makes you feel good and proud. And it raises your in, you know, endorphins in your chemistry and, and, and that’s why you sit down and watch those shows over and over again because they make you feel good that you’ve deduced ahead of everybody else, and you’ve solved the equation nobody else has solved and you’re meant to feel that way it’s written. So you do feel that way.
Andy Paul
That’s the hero’s journey. You’re telling the story for you
Oren Klaff
I try to stay you know that I don’t think you can find the word hero in it. any of my books because that you know this Hero’s Journey metaphor I think really for for day to day you know for academics and sales as we are it’s you know he kind of story brand and you know all the hero’s journey and I’m much familiar with this stuff is anywhere but it is a difficult to apply to day to day selling for executives and people just need to go on sell stuff and think about the hero’s journey in my village idiot Am I the walking down the woods and then a monster appears and I’d find the wizard and the wizard takes me to the cave and in the cave. I change myself and then I come out in the night. It is the change within myself. That’s interesting for readers. I can’t follow it. I don’t I don’t know what the hero’s journey
Andy Paul
Is there a sense that when they write when they’re writing those procedurals they’re bringing you in you’re You are the hero of that story. You are that detective that’s why you watch it because you are identifying with that tech you don’t that’s the reason Plato talked about storytelling 35 years ago.
Oren Klaff
I don’t disagree, but my pea mind and the P mind of the, you know, executives that I work with, at, you know, companies, it’s hard to internalize, you know, the hero’s journey. But what is easy to understand is that you come to the conclusion, and then that moment bubbles up, there’s no logic process, it just, it just bubbles up within you and you go, aha, and you reach an aha moment where you just know what happened. You don’t go to the maid and the policeman and the blood drop and the genetic test and the letter and the May you know, the, the taxi driver, none of that you don’t follow that logic from your just go, aha, I know what happened here. And that’s what we try to create and do successfully in sales where the buyer goes, I don’t know what’s going on with me. I don’t have a logical connection here. This isn’t about pricing. It’s about ROI and about value. proposition it’s not about delivery timeline or discounting or margin. I just know these guys are right for me to work with guys. Forget about all this. Let’s get started and, you know, the proof is we’ve just seen it hundreds of times. I mean, we had a deal we signed and the venture group who is classically the most buttoned up, lawyered up difficult to work with kind of organizations wired $6.1 million to our account without signed documentation. And that is a real anomaly but, and I thought it was an anomaly but we do it over and over again with a buyer just goes, You know what, you’re right for us. Forget all other processes and charge forward. There’s no other solution for us. We love you. And in fact, you know, if you want to, and I really appreciate this, this show is a very interesting show for me to be in. I could do this for hours because most people go, why did you write the book? What is sales? But I’m not arguing with you or yelling at you.
Oren Klaff
But, what I was gonna say is from in terms of tactics, you know, we pitch and we’re talking and everything like that. And the buyer finally goes, Hey, listen, this sounds good. You know, we want you to raise $10 million for our company. So why don’t we get started? I will say no, what is that? What did you just say to me? Like, that makes no sense. Do you know how hard it is to raise $10 million? Unless you could say, Oren I love you, or whatever your ability to say is, I love you. This is awesome. We’re so excited to do this. You’re never going to have a more committed partner. And by the way, if we get in a fight, we’re not gonna disappear and get mad cuz I know we’re going to get in a fight, right? We’re going to work hard as you are harder to get on the other side of it and keep going right and there’s not going to be a better partner. Because as much you can’t be working harder on our deal than we will And you’re going to see we’re going to work on this together until you can say that to me, I’m not interested. And and that’s, you know, that’s a tactic, an additional one of many. But that is, and that’s what the book allows you to do. It frees you up to have these totally honest conversations, which are Listen, as much as you’re evaluating us, and you want to see what we can do. Well, you know, can we produce ROI? What is our track record? What is our capability? Have we done this before? Are we familiar with it? Can we do it in your industry? As much as you’re evaluating us? We’re also evaluating you, and that’s the time we have to spend together today.
Andy Paul
Yeah, well, I think that I agree. And I thought maybe it’s the wrong word early with the hero’s journey but I think that there’s way too much being talked about storytelling today.
Oren Klaff
Insight drives me mad. I’m the best storyteller. If you read my emails, read the book. You’re gonna find a better storyteller. I don’t talk about storytelling, right, because it’s too hard. Well, it’s too hard for Joe Bagga doughnuts. Right, which I am during parts of the day. Yeah, like this is the problem with NLP. This is a problem of storytelling. There’s a problem with hypnosis. There’s a problem with whatever, right? You work in Dan Ariely lab. Oh really 17 college students decided to buy the coffee cup. Right? And nine of them decided to buy the one with the blue ribbon on it really didn’t really have to show a million dollars of accounting software by the end of the month. So this is like we actually do this. So part of the day I am Joe bag of doughnuts sales guy. What can I actually do when there’s a guy in my conference room? Who’s making a decision on a million dollar account? And Opie Dan Ariely? Daniel Kahneman decision making no there are certain just basic processes that I can do under that kind of stressful situation as a human being to just keep myself out of neediness and supplication because I want the money need the account,
Andy Paul
The point is getting to storytelling…
Oren Klaff
I can start the rant again, triggering me. This is great. You know, you would not be a good marriage counselor. Trigger people
Andy Paul
I like the book that aligns with what, what I believe is what goes on is I think there’s only one story you tell and say yes. And that is the buyer story. Yeah. And so through the whole thing, you talk with Inception and make your ideas, their ideas and so on, and leaving clues, you’re building their story. That’s all they want to know what it’s gonna be like, when they do business with you, and what they’re gonna get out of it. At the end of the day, what it’s gonna mean for them personally, what’s coming for their business. And that’s, that’s all they want to know in order to make a decision. And yeah, yeah, we have people write books about what those tests You need to be able to tell. And to your point, salespeople can hardly remember one, right? I mean, and to get the heat of the moment you’re not to be pulling out story number eight, to tell somebody
Oren Klaff
Listen,. Yeah you know, my parents are from South Africa. I don’t know if you know South Africans but they just have this incredibly rich story, got this accent and the storytelling culture and my mom was a degree in drama. She’s a clinical psychologist, right? I grew up in that household, in an academic household and we’d love stories and I you know, I eventually became a writer. I am a, you know, one of the preeminent read the book storytellers. In our culture. It’s hard, right? And it’s 3040 years in the making, as a salesperson, card carrying bag carrying SAS selling salesperson, you are not you should not try and tell stories. And I want to make this point. Watch. I don’t have a clip here to show you. But if we were together, watch a comedian online. You know, one of the Jeez. Right? And, and they have a limited number of stories, three or four stories will tell in 18 minutes, right? And they go, yeah, you know, me and my buddy, Hank decided to jump in the car and we thought, hey, what should we do? And we just kept driving and drank a couple beers. And we stopped off at the bar, and we said, Hey, I want to go to Florida. I don’t know I’m not gonna go without Joe. So Meet Joe and Hank, start heading to Florida, right for no reason, no rain, you’re hearing the story. And it’s going somewhere, and you realize, it sounds like it’s the first time he’s ever told it. And, and he’s practiced it for 500 times to make it sound like that. This is an orchestrated story, which has a punchline, right? Well, you know, told by a professional when you see how much energy actors, comedians, presenters, TED talks in our day and age put into storytelling, and so we see those on the web. And some salespeople think like, Hey, I’m going to go into a conference room and tell a story. No, you’re not right. The standard Storytelling is so high and the entertainment is so high. You I, I have thousands I’ve trained 80,000 to be you, you know, unless you’re the exception, and I understand some do, but the story you think you’re telling is that, you know, doesn’t have the correct dramatic components to be a real story. Right. And so we don’t try and tell them at all, because, you know, the training to become a storyteller, who really knows the apex, the Daniel Mont, the protagonist, the antagonist. You know, the reveal is, is a real skill set the most So, to your point, yeah, the story has to build inside the buyer. Yep. So he needs to tell that story to him. So I mean, you’re feeding it you’re feeding a bear, right? Do not you know, you’re feeding a bear which is dangerous and you’re giving the food right and and the story builds within him until he’s satisfied. In the metaphor of the bear which I just made up and isn’t a real metaphor. The bear takes a nap but The metaphor the buyer, the buyer just rolls over and goes, Yeah, just you know, right. Where’s the contract? Take my hand and sign it. But you actually
Andy Paul
You actually do have a story in the book, though. And it’s the type that I’ve trained. Yes, thousand salespeople on, which is your flash roll. Yeah, this flash roll is a story. It’s 120 seconds, Max, I teach it. So it should be 45 seconds max, but it’s still basically the same idea. You want to know that? Thank you. Yeah. And that is a story. And that’s, that’s what they need. That’s a sub-story someone needs to hear so explain what the flash role is. So
Oren Klaff
If you can indulge me for a moment, I can tell you where it came from, is that other investment banks would call me up and say, Hey, we have a client, they’re tough clients, can you do your thing? Right? And so the thing is, I get on the phone, you know, I help other our competitors out, convert, and then give me a little spiff for doing it. So the CEO of a company would come on, and they want to sign in to banking services. And that would say, you know, hey, what’s the story? company, and then let the CEO go on. Oh, you know, we’re a SaaS software company and you know, we started my garage and we grew to $20 million. And then we landed an account where $40 million. And now we, you know, we have 60 people, we’re growing really fast when acquiring CA, and I say, and then go for four minutes. He goes, stop. Carlos, are you kidding me? Right? You have four people on the phone right now, each of us could put a billion dollars of capital in front of you this afternoon. But none of us would do that. Because what you’re saying makes no sense to anybody in institutional finance, right? It’s right. Why I have a question for you. Why aren’t you saying this? Based on last year’s results we achieved $20 million in sales through q three of last year. We are accelerating at a 35% year over year growth which is beating our CAGR you know by 15%. And compared to the competition, where at least four times in sales revenue growth however, we are burning through cash based on the cost of media we do feel like media will be accelerating cost as we reach upward You know, tipping point that the $50 million in $10 million, will probably get us to 100 million dollars, two years sooner than we would otherwise organically. And that’s why we’ve priced our deal at 100 million dollars. And we’re looking to seek a small round and top of the last round we did last quarter of 5,000,010 million. And that’s about where we are. That’s, that’s probably 25 seconds. If I Carlos, if I let you go on for the next hour, you’re not going to say that. Why aren’t you saying that? Because that is the language of Finance. Oh, yeah. Hold on. Can you say that again?
Andy Paul
Let me write it out.
Oren Klaff
Let me write it down. I’ve heard that 1000 times. Can you say that again? Let me write. So that is a flash roll. giving somebody information about your product, your service, their problem, and the probable solution. As if you have done this 1000 times yesterday. It’s the most boring thing in the world. You actually don’t really want to do it again, but you will on their behalf. And the To deliver that is you’re talking about a problem. You’re talking about the probable solution, in very technical terms when most people are afraid to do it. You’re not talking about it for comprehension. They don’t need to understand what you’re saying they need to know that you know, what’s going on. And I arrived at that when we pitch venture firms, right. And they always have a question about, Hey, tell us about the competition. That is, it’s a 20 minute meeting, that is a two hour conversation, it’s not possible to do it. So they’re not actually asking you to waste, you know, 10 minutes of a 20 minute meeting on the competition. They just want to know that you know where every single competitor is. And there are two nine year olds in their mom’s basement in Sweden, doing the same thing tomorrow and putting you out of business. That’s all they want to know. And as fast as possible. So it’s just putting as rapidly as possible at a pace that is two or three times faster than anybody could be making it up in very technical terms to Put your knowledge in context that you know this better than anybody else and giving it you know if that’s not enough, I can give you an example. But I don’t know, should we explore it further? You want to give me your flash?
Andy Paul
I think I think people need to go read the book. So yeah, we’re actually we’re a little bit out of time, but we could
Oren Klaff
know the students for two hours you’re awesome.
Well, I don’t really get to talk about this stuff at this level of depth, right? No, this by the way, if you’re listening, you know Don’t let these ideas scare you the book. I think you’ll agree. Mechanically. Here’s, let me say one more thing. I saw the reviews online. And so we got a great book. I love it. Oren did it again. This is a great you know, one thing that he left off or you know, he didn’t he didn’t talk anything about emotional anchoring. I don’t do emotions.
Andy Paul
You do but yes.
Oren Klaff
Well, maybe I do the motion of angry you know and hungry but I don’t feel I don’t have a plot and emotional plot for the buyer or I don’t think about emotional anchoring or making them feel good or feel bad. I think about what is a blueprint that whether you’re from China and you just landed in the United States yesterday and you barely have command of the English language, which happens a lot, that you can just go through this process. Because I think people look at salespeople of the past and they think of Don Draper and you know, the backslapping frat boy type who’s you know, at the bar and and, you know, telling jokes and buying people bears, people love him and he’s closing the business. I’m not that type. Most of the people, I may appear to, but if I do, it’s because it’s manufactured. Most of the people that I work with, don’t want sales lines, they don’t want to feel cheesy. They don’t want to feel like they’re selling. They’re in some ways academic. There are many ways technical. They have a high status. They’re well regarded. They don’t Want to sell? And so the book is the process of selling without selling and that’s why it’s inception making the other guy without any overt visibility of sales feel like he wants to buy from you. So it is , it is a flowing, easygoing process that is mechanical, I believe in mechanical selling processes, not in emotional sales processes.
Andy Paul
Okay. Well, I mean, we’ll have to have your back. And we’ll explore that further. Because I think, actually, there’s a fair amount of emotion, even what you’re talking about in the book. But it’s not, it’s not overt, as you said, it’s not a line. It’s not the technique, but it does play on it and it’s worth exploring. So I’d love to have you back and do that again. Okay,
Oren Klaff
I yeah, I have to get a cup of coffee. I’ll be back in 20.
Andy Paul
I wish.
Oren Klaff
We got to talk about humor. We got to talk about the use of humor, we got to talk about deal size, we got to talk about deal control. We got to talk about power, performance versus information. There’s a lot more To discuss
Andy Paul
Performance versus productivity, I’d love to get into that with you. So yeah, we’ll get together in San Diego sometime to say okay, please come by Yeah. Are you? What are your hobbies you had when the kids are grown now? So what are you doing? running, biking, swimming?
Oren Klaff
What do you write? What are your runs?
Andy Paul
Uh, well, so we’re downtown. So I know this is exciting for people listening. But
Oren Klaff
I got to this point, they don’t care
Andy Paul
where I run along the waterfront, San Diego and here at Central Park in New York. My bikes are in San Diego. So we do Point Loma and Fiesta Island, all those rights are easily accessible. So, and people in San Diego if your members are coming to San Diego from there, bring your bike. We’ll go for a run. We’ll go for a ride. away we go. Yeah. All right. Well, Oren, thank you very much for joining us and we look forward to talking about it shortly. Okay.
