570 – Buyer-First Sales for Business Owners
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Welcome to the How of Business with your host, Henry Lopez. The podcast that helps you start, run, and grow your small business. And now, here is your host. Welcome to this episode of the How of Business. This is Henry Lopez. My guest today is Carol Mahoney. Carol, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me, Henry. I am excited to be here and talk with all of your audience of business owners and about-to-be business owners. Absolutely. This is such a big topic for our show.

most business owners and aspiring business owners. So I'm excited to have Carol on the show today because she's a widely respected sales coach. And so whether you've always hated sales or you're simply looking for a more effective way, an authentic way to connect with buyers, the conversation we're going to have today will help you reframe, I think, not just your mindset, but also your approach to how you do sales.

You can find all of the Howa Business resources, including the show notes page for this episode and information on my one-on-one and group coaching programs at my website, thehowabusiness.com. I also invite you to please consider supporting this show on Patreon and please subscribe wherever you might be listening so you don't miss any new shows.

Let me tell you a little bit more about Carol. Carol Mahoney is an author, a keynote speaker, and a sales mentor who's been changing the way the entire sales industry sees itself and how buyers see it too, very importantly.

She has been called the sales therapist by a Harvard Business School professor. She coaches Harvard Business School entrepreneurial MBA students on sales and has been featured as a top 15 sales influencer in 2020 by LinkedIn, a woman to watch in sales by Sales Hacker, and a top sales coach by Ambition. She's the author, and we're going to chat about her book called Buyer First, Grow Your Business with Collaborative Selling.

So we're going to chat about that book. Carol Mahoney, welcome to the show again. I am so thrilled to share. I never get tired of talking about this, so it's a good thing that I wrote a book on it. Exactly right. Yeah, appropriate topic. You're passionate about it. So tell me, let's talk about the early days. Did you start out your career in sales or take me back to how you got started? Oh, heck no. I did not start my career in sales. I didn't think so.

I mean, I grew up with a family of business owners and my grandmother was my first sales mentor. But, you know, despite the positive image that she left for me about sales, I hated the idea of sales. I thought it was pushy and manipulative, used car salesman, very stereotypical perception of sales.

In fact, I disliked sales so very much that I got a degree in marketing. And when I did first start opening my own business because of the great recession, I didn't really have a choice. I was on a mission to make salespeople obsolete. Like the internet and SEO was brand new. I was going to do such awesome marketing for clients that leads were going to come in. They weren't going to need salespeople.

Long story short, I found that that's not necessarily the case, that we still need people to help us to make decisions, that we trust, that understand our pain points and the best solutions for them, and that we still need salespeople today. But

The problem is that I found with my marketing side is that when we would deliver leads, they didn't know how to interact with today's internet educated buyer. It was still the 1980s sales tactics, the Glenn, Gary, getting Ross, you know, pushy and aggressive tactics. Office foreclosures.

Even if you're not a salesperson, you still have to be able to sell. And I would argue that as a business owner, selling is much more difficult than selling for someone in a company because you're selling yourself, your skills, your expertise, and it's a whole other ballgame. Yeah, because now it's personal. You're putting yourself, your creation out there to be rejected. Yeah. Yep.

And that's, I mean, that's a mindset thing, but it's also, it impacts us is into how we show up in our sales. And the other part of it is as a, as a business owner, if you're also selling you, you're not doing it full time. So you have to be as effective as possible because you have a limited amount of time that you have to do that with. Right. Right. I want to go back to the reference to your grandmother. So what did she sell? Did she sell something formally or she was just a great

salesperson or storyteller? What is it? Yeah. So grandma Mahoney owned the first female owned real estate brokerage in the seventies in my home state of Massachusetts. So she was like the, the thing about grandma Mahoney and everyone would say about her is that

was always on. She had business cards that she carried everywhere with her that she would leave at every dining table, in the restaurant, in the bulletin. She was always a salesperson. Always on. She had the name tag on probably the whole bit. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. She was always on. But for her, it was really about building trust and about building relationships because for her, her passion was helping people that were small time, not small time, but new homeowners that they wanted to be able to get in their home for the first time and start their

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And so she was my first influence. Yeah, so your influence. So you mentioned one, I think, already building that trust, but is there something else that you think back, God, I learned that from her? One thing that I learned from her is that

The close starts well before you ask for the business. The moment you open your mouth to say hello, it has started. That was one of the things that I learned from her. And one of the things that still shows up in the back of my mind is that first impressions will either...

will either help you or hinder you. And so always show up as your best version of yourself. You know, don't be winging it, you know, be groomed and everything like how you show up and make that first impression and say hello. Like she had me going to networking events when I was nine years old. So I could professionally introduce myself at any networking event by the time I was 10. That was one of the things that she always drilled into me, be prepared, prepared to make a good first impression because that will make you or break you.

It's interesting on that point now, just to go off on a quick tangent. Now, as you mentioned, that the internet introduces us first. Right. That is making our first impression to a big extent, right? What people find out about us, about our company, what our website looks like, all of those things are making that first impression. And what other people say even more so.

Like when you talk about the idea of branding and the age of the internet, you know, we still have this concept that somehow we can put out this image and brand of ourselves, but it doesn't take long for people to poke holes in anything that is inauthentic or real or true or against what you, if you do, if you don't do what you say you're going to do, you will be quickly called out on it. And that will make or break any small business owner, no matter how they hear about you, they're going to go online to find out more about you. So how are you showing up there? Right.

Okay. So you had these entrepreneurial influences. You had the grandmother who was the consummate salesperson, at least for that era, certainly. But yet you got turned off to sales. Did you have some negative experiences like all of us do early on? Or did you not like the approach that your grandmother took in some regards? What was it that made you hate sales early on? I think it first started with everyone in my family.

Did not necessarily like grandma Mahoney because she was the epitome of the salesperson and then she was always on and she, I wouldn't say that she was aggressive but she was certainly tenacious. Yeah. And so, the rest of my family had this perception of what she was, I wanted to be just like her but there was this perception of the rest everybody else around her and how they interacted with her.

And then when I was very young, my mom was dating a used car salesman who was literally the worst of the worst, like the worst of the worst. And I was maybe three or four years old. And he was, you know, he was your typical con man that would, you know, try all of the tricks and everything to get people to buy. He didn't really care about his customers or her buyers or any of how any of the tactics that he did influenced him. And I basically grew up with this.

And so I had grandma Mahoney, my family kind of fighting against that. And then I had the, you know, used car salesman that we were living with that. I was like, Nope, don't want anything that it looks like smells like, or sounds like sales in my career. Even when I graduated college with a marketing degree, my career advisor said, you know, you would be a great salesperson. Like if it says sales anywhere in the job description, just cross it off the list.

And they said that because you were probably a really strong communicator and that's a key component of it. Yeah, is that fair? Yes, I think so. And it was a degree in marketing. And so back then when you graduated in marketing, you either went into a marketing department or you went into sales. Right, much more opportunities to make money in sales typically.

Yes. All right. So we fast forward to you start your marketing agency. You figure out that you do need salespeople. You still need to make that human connection for most things that we sell, right? We're not talking about e-commerce, but most of the, especially bigger ticket items, business to business, all of those things still require that human connection. But so was it that realization that then made you think I have to rethink my idea of sales? Yeah.

Well, the realization came when about a year after my business had been going, I was a week before Christmas at the grocery store and my credit card and my debit card, everything was getting declined. Like I was just flat out broke, ready to file for bankruptcy. I had two kids and two mortgages to support. And that was the kind of rock bottom that made me say, well,

What I'm doing is not working. And so I need to face up to the things that are making me uncomfortable that I have been avoiding. And I hired a business coach and it was through that process and working with that coach and several other coaches, even since then, that I really started to address what are my own mindsets towards sales and where do they come from? But even more importantly, how are those mindsets inhibiting me from being able to make real connections with people? I see. And it really came down to when I was,

rock bottom, I decided to go and look for a job, right? The four letter word as an entrepreneur. And my sister introduced me to her boss who was looking to hire someone. And as we went through the interview, the Jack was his name said to me, you know, I'm really having a hard time deciding between you and this other person. And in that moment, I thought, well, I've got to get this job, right? Like I've got a mortgage to pay. I've got groceries I need to buy. I really need this job.

And then the next thought was, but this is my sister's boss. And so if I'm not the best fit for this and this doesn't go well, it's going to affect her relationship with him and my relationship with her. And so I did what I could only think to do, which was to ask him the question, which was,

What is the most important aspect that someone needs to be successful in this role? And when he told me what it was, and it definitely wasn't something that was in my strong suit. And I knew the other person was, I said, you would be better off actually hiring this person because that is their strong suit where it is not mine. And he looked at me, he's like, thank you so much for making this decision easier for me.

And then he said the thing I didn't expect, which was, I'm going to see who else needs your services so that they can hire you. He facilitated. But in that instance, you flipped the model for yourself. Yeah. From one of selling yourself to listening to what it was that he needed and then deciding, do I have something that's a fit or not? Exactly. Instead of making it about me and what I wanted, which was- And forcing it, whether they need it or can use it or not. Yeah.

I'm focused on them. And so when I went home and told my husband this story, he's like, well, maybe that's what you need to do is to stop trying to sell people. And then I hired a coach and I was like, all right, I need to figure out what it is that's causing this. And.

and took an objective assessment of my skills and my strengths and where those mindset gaps were happening. And then worked with that coach every other day on the conversations that I was having in role-playing and practicing and really challenging the way that I was thinking about things so that I started showing up differently. I started asking better questions. I started listening more. I started saying no to people when they weren't a good fit because I knew that if I said no, then I was going to find the one that was the good fit.

Let me just go off on a tangent on this because this is something that I've had pushed back on me when I've taught or taken or led people on a consultant's approach from a sales perspective is that, well, it takes longer now to get to close. When people say that to you as an objection to this approach, what do you say? There's a saying in the military that if you want to go fast, you need to go slow. In other words, slow is smooth. And I'm sorry, how does it go?

Slow is smooth and fast. I can't remember it now. Yeah, I get what you're saying. But essentially it is when you slow down, you actually speed things up. And because you're smoothing things out. And so like this, for example, with Jack, when I said, you know what, I'm not the best fit for you. His immediate response was to want to refer me to other people. When you ask

And the thing is, is when people think about consultative selling, they make this misnomer of, I need to provide this expertise. I need to consult them. I need to tell them what it is that they need to do. But that is not what buyers want today. They're educated. They have a lot of knowledge about what's going on. They probably have a lot of knowledge about the solutions that are out there. They need someone who's going to collaborate with them to ask them the questions that make them think differently, that come up with new ideas and perceptives.

insights that they hadn't thought of before that really relate to them in their specific situation. They want someone who's, this is what the research, the neuroscience all says is that we want people to collaborate with us, to come up with solutions specifically for us. And so it's not about dragging it out. It's about being concise in the questions in the listening to then be able to get to the heart of the matter quicker. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it also leads me to the point that if we go back to the point of our websites or other collateral or marketing material, one of the roles that it has to play is to help people as they're collecting that information. Because like you said, before they come to me, they've done the research by and large. Especially larger ticket B2B sales. And so I got to make sure that I provide them with the right information so that they can

start to make those decisions. Am I explaining it right? In other words, it can't just be a one-way commercial on any of my marketing materials. I've got to share, you know, that's why, for example, in a lot of scenarios, a case study is so much more powerful than me telling you what my features are. How are people using it is so much more powerful because that's the work they're going to do up front before they even get to me, right? Yeah. Yeah.

My favorite phrase, and this comes from my friend, Brent Adamson, who wrote or co-wrote the challenger sale is that when he, when he says, you know, when he's trying to offer those insights of those case studies, what he often says is, you know, in working with companies like yours, what we've learned is this, that this is how other people in this situation, just like you with these same challenges, this is what we've learned. They've been able to do by applying this thing. The other part of it is that,

You know, we talk a lot about asking a lot of questions in sales, but we also have to examine are the questions that we're asking questions about what we care about understanding so that we can pitch our solution or the questions that we are asking are they tuned into helping buyers get the answers they need to feel comfortable and confident in making the decision that they're making the right decision.

That's what makes sales cycles longer. Not that we are asking so many questions. It's that we're not asking enough deep questions that help people to really understand what is going on, that makes sense of all of the information that's out there, all of the research that they've done. We need to help them to make sense of what they know and what they don't know and help them to frame how is the best way to make this decision? What's important to consider based on what we've learned and working with hundreds or thousands of people just like you in the decades of experience that we have in doing that.

So that's what I mean by the military saying that, you know, slow is smooth and smooth is fast, is that when you go deep enough into those questions to really understand, and that's what most people don't do. They ask the surface level questions about what they care about. How much is your budget? When do you want to make a decision by? The self-serving questions that are just obvious to this. Yeah. Brilliantly said. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

This is Henry Lopez, briefly pausing this episode to invite you to schedule a free coaching consultation with me. I welcome the opportunity to chat with you about your business plans and offer the guidance and accountability that we all need to achieve success. As an experienced small business owner myself, I understand the challenges you're experiencing and often it's about helping you ask the right questions to help you make progress towards achieving your goals.

Whether it's getting started with your first business or growing and maybe exiting your existing small business, I can help you get there. To find out more about my business coaching services and to schedule your free coaching consultation, please visit thehowabusiness.com. Take that next step today towards finally realizing your business ownership dreams. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

All right. So speaking of books, your book, Buyer First, Grow Your Business with Collaborative Selling. I always ask, well, why did you write it? What brings you to writing it? And who is it for, ideally?

So the why I wrote it, what I told my husband is that I, over the 20 years in being a business for myself, have learned a lot based on the mistakes that I've made. And so if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, this is my insurance policy that the rest of the world can learn from my mistakes. And he just goes like, that's morbid, hon. But the real reason was I wrote it for business owners who, like me, had tried all of the tips and tricks and hacks and processes that are typically written books that are written for people who work in corporations and

And we already know that selling as a business owner is different than selling as a company. And what I was finding is that when I tried to figure out sales for myself, the books, all of the ones that you see on my shelf behind me here, they didn't actually dig into what I was struggling with and how I was going to be able to take action on this as a business owner. And so on top of the fact that I wanted everyone to learn from my mistakes, but I also wanted people to be able to see as a business owner, here's how you can be most effective in sales.

And the third reason was, is that most of the sales books out there, first of all, there's little to no sales books written for specifically business owners.

And the third part of it is those that are typically marketing techniques where you're not actually having a conversation with someone. And they're also based on one person's experience. They're not based on academic research and studies and neuroscience and data specific to sales. Because how we did it here or how someone made six figures in six months, why doesn't that work for us? Because the science doesn't line up. Right.

So I wanted something based on not just my experience, but research and science for business owners. And that answers the questions that not only the mistakes that I make, but I think every business owner makes at some point. So tell me a little bit more about the research that you did conduct for this book. So for the research, I have a partnership with a data company that we have established.

data performance metrics on two and a half million sales professionals. And that includes the mindsets and the impact that those mindsets have on behaviors and the results that that has. I also started digging into psychological research. So the theory of reasoned action, which is how you think about something becomes how you behave in that particular situation, which becomes the results that we get. So our mindsets towards sales impact our behaviors impacts our results.

And then finally was the psychological sciences and the neurosciences and the social sciences on how we make buying decisions. And what are the things that buyers are looking to be able to do in their buying decision process? What questions do they ask themselves? How do they answer that? How do they want to interact with a salesperson? I took research from Harvard, research from Stanford, research from other psychological institutions because I wanted to be able to not just say, here's how you should do it,

But here's how it works so that people could then start to test an experiment based on research and science and not just, all right, this didn't work for me, on to the next thing. So at a high level, what generally do buyers want from a salesperson or the business owner who is the salesperson? So the hint is in the title. They want collaboration.

There are studies that show one is called the IKEA effect that was done from Harvard Business School, which showed that when people put effort and collaboration into something that they place more value on that. Other studies that were done at Stanford were also showed that when people ask

get asked open-ended questions, you know, the what, who, when, where, and why to really understand something that not only does the person asking the question understand them better. And that's one of the things that buyers complained about with salespeople is that they don't understand us and our pain points. They're just pitching products. But the other thing it showed is that when we answer those types of questions that we start to change our own minds about our problems and our issues and our, and the things that we have. And,

And other studies that were done that on buyers of what is it that you actually value in salespeople and those studies showed that we want people to collaborate with us who help us to come up with different insights and ideas because we have our echo changer inside of our business, we need the outside perspective that is truly going to help us to make the right decision. Yeah.

And so that all combined together is what I now call collaborative selling, where you're not just pitching or asking questions you care about, but they're actually trying to collaborate to understand them, have empathy for them. Why is this a problem for you right now? And what is the impact that it's having and what kind of results do you want later on? Those are the kinds of conversations that really help buyers to feel comfortable in decisions. Yeah, it makes sense. And of course, it ties back to what you were talking about earlier about

they've done a lot of gathering information. They need you to help guide them through how do we make sense of this and how do we apply this here, right? And then that's why it's so powerful if I can share with them, you know, other customers, clients, companies similar to yours have done ABC with our product. And so that provides that proof that it's not just me as a salesperson telling you

But I can share with you how it's being used by a similar company, right? Yeah. And we often hear like, we need to have, you know, ROI. Buyers today don't believe whatever ROI that you're going to pontificate about. Okay. But when you can tell them a story. Right. Is it helpful if I share how somebody else saved money? Is that valuable? I'm assuming still or not as much? Not as much.

Not as much because then what happens is you are so, so-and-so got 150 return on investment from this. And the first thoughts that come to your mind is, well, who are they? Are their situation the same as mine? Like we're a little bit different than that. So is this really an apples to apples comparison? And we start to try to poke holes in it versus here's the situation that you're in. We find then have learned that a lot of companies are really struggling with hiring their first salesperson and that they often don't have the systems in place to do that.

When you use our system, you have the data of two and a half million sales professionals so that you don't have to compromise quality and fit. And then you can have a more than 70% chance of hiring the right salesperson versus a 50-50 shot of getting the right salesperson. That's a story that relates to an ROI without saying you're gonna get 150 return on investment in six months with this. It raises doubt.

All right, I've got a question I'm going to ask in two different ways. One is more generally speaking, in your experience, what are some of the key things, attributes, skills, abilities that makes for a good salesperson? So there are five mindsets that we evaluate for that will help or hinder someone in any skill. So one is the need for approval.

We all have one, right? We all want people to like us and we believe that people need to like us in order to buy from us. But the problem with that is that when your need for approval is out of control, you're making it all about yourself. And do they like me? And you won't ask those tougher questions that you need to ask that are actually the questions that will build trust.

You won't ask to reach decision makers or talk to someone's boss because you don't want to upset them. You won't go out and do more prospecting because you don't want to be rejected or told that you're being annoying or something. I don't want to follow up because I think I'm being, I'm pestering. I'm being a pest if I follow up too much, all the tied back to that need for approval. And so we have to make those conscious efforts in our, both our everyday lives, especially, but also in our sales conversations of making sure that we're not

letting our need for approval get in the way of asking the tough questions. And what's one way that you potentially identify that when you're interviewing a salesperson?

Well, so what we do is we actually have them take an evaluation so that it shows up in their assessment report. But in an interview, say that they do the assessment and it shows that they have a need for approval. Then I'm going to ask them behavioral questions of, you know, tell me about the last time that you had to say no to someone and it upset them. And how did that make you feel? And or when you said yes to someone, when you should have said no to someone or when you disagreed with someone, but you didn't say anything.

And how, what impact did that have later on? Those are the kinds of things that I'm going to share with, you know, someone who's interviewing that they need to be asking those things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Related to that, I might ask, you know, so how, tell me, walk me through how you feel when you lose a deal. Yeah. And I think I'm listening for there. How do you feel when you have to get to the boss? When you have to ask. Exactly. When you have to ask for access to, to, to decision maker. Exactly. How do you feel about that?

And I think I'm listening, therefore, I want to hear a competitiveness. I want them to hate losing, but not because it was a need for approval personally. In other words, I also want to hear, but then I move on to the next opportunity and I learn and I move on. Right? Right. Right.

And so managing your own emotions in that moment will allow you to be one present. It enables you to actively listen. It enables you to think of what that next question should be because you're actively listening to someone. You're genuinely curious when we're emotionally wrapped up in something. We have to win this deal or we're not going to make our numbers for the month. I'm not going to be able to pay my bills.

When we're so wrapped up in that, we're so busy listening to the words in our head. We're not hearing the words that our buyers are saying. Okay, but that's often the scenario for a small business owner, right? It's early days or I've gone through a slump. So what's a technique that as a business owner I can use to make sure that I try to keep that at bay and I go about the sales process the right way and not let it be influenced by that desperation? Yeah.

So one of the things that I wrote in the book, and I think I wrote it over 15 times was meditation. Because meditation has been proven that neuroscience wise, that it has been proven after 15 minutes of meditation that you're more emotionally regulated, you're better to make, you're better able to make decisions, you are more tuned into what's going on around you.

And so not only that, but it also helps you to handle the stress of just being a business owner. And so things like self-care, taking care of yourself, meditation, walks, eating well, all of these are the things that are going to enable you to regulate your emotions in high stress situations, which as a business owner is 24 seven. Okay. Right. So, so do, but do what I also apply it. I'm about to go into a high risk or high level call and,

Do I do a little bit of it in a car before I go in? Do I do my breathing exercises before I go in? In addition to what I might have not done or done this morning? Is that what you're saying? That's part of it. Yes. One of the things that I will coach my salespeople and business owners to do is that when you're about to go into a meeting five minutes before, don't be running into the meeting. But five minutes before, you can do a box breathing exercise where you breathe in before, hold it before, do that four times. Mm-hmm.

Another thing is that I encourage people to do like tense up your body and then relax it. That also will regulate your emotions and turn that cortisol down. And if you're in the conversation, right, like you're one-on-one, the conversation is going in and you suddenly realize that you've checked out, like you haven't heard the last 30 seconds of what they said.

One thing that you can do is, is I encourage people to, I used to have elastics on my wrist and I would snap them, which would be a physical reminder to bring me back in the present moment. Or I've had other clients that they said that they would actually press their forefinger and their thumb together as another physical reminder to stay in the moment. And if you still haven't gotten what it is that they said, then the question that you can ask is, so can you tell me a little bit more about that?

And then that allows you to like get back into the conversation. To recover and because they're probably going to recap and continue to elaborate. It gives me the ability to catch up and recenter, refocus. Right. Pausing is such a powerful thing. Such a powerful thing, yeah. Because they will fill in the gaps for you. Yeah. Well, it's such a powerful thing in any negotiation and listening and all of it. Okay. So low need for approval, managing your emotions. What else stands out that you think makes for a good salesperson?

How you buy is how you will sell. We call it the supportive or non-supportive buy cycle. So if you are someone, and I get it as a business owner, you've got to, you know, budgets, you've got to, you've got to research, you've got to get the best price for things. But if you are excessive about that, I had someone who had a massive Excel spreadsheet to figure out how to buy sneakers, right? Took him six months to figure out by they were out of stock by the time he made his decision. Yeah.

And he also struggled with giving, you know, when people would give you objection, oh, I need to think this over, or can you do better on the price? Because we make our decisions that way, then we're going to be empathetic to them making their decisions that way and nothing's going to happen.

So it's almost like a bad form of empathy. And so if you can change the way you make your buying decisions, then you're going to be less susceptible to people in that objection of I need to think it over. I need to get a better price. I need to go and check with so-and-so. Because then your need for approval will support you in being able to then ask a tough question. Mm-hmm.

All right. Speaking of objections, I know you cover this in the book as well, but would help me here at a high level overcoming objections without using those traditional sales pressures. What are some techniques or tips that you can share? Well, so whenever you're getting an objection, most people react emotionally and defensively. They want to defend their stance and why that person's objection is incorrect, which all that does is further alienate your buyer and tell them that what they think is unimportant.

Instead, take a pause. And what you want to do ultimately is ask a question about that objection so that you can better understand that.

And sometimes what we need to do is we need to reframe that objection. So that question, tell me a little bit more about that, or where does that come from for you? Like I've had an objection recently that someone had worked with recruiters before and it never worked out really well with them. And they didn't want to go down that path again. Now I have a partner with a recruiter when we're hiring salespeople. And so instead I asked him that question, well, so tell me about what happened the last time you worked with a recruiter and what you felt went wrong, but also maybe what you felt went right. And

And then I was able to reframe his objection and saying, you know, I totally understand that in the past that you had recruiters that gave you people that weren't necessarily qualified, which is why we're going to make sure that we use this data assessment so that we're objectively evaluating candidates who come in. We're only talking to the ones who are most qualified. And you've also shared with me that because you've just taken people who were available in the past, that that's led to you getting these bad recruits. This time, what we're going to do is we're going to seek out people who might not actively be looking, but be the best fits for you.

So that we can reframe the objection by one validating what they think. I totally understand you've been in this situation before. These bad things have happened. You shared with me that this is why it's important to you. And here's how we're going to do it differently. Mm-hmm.

Excellent. Great structure. What about the most common objection, which is price? Okay. Recommend there. I totally understand that this seems like a big investment to you right now, but based on what you've shared with me in the past, that you're the failed sales hires that you've had in the past have cost you a $250,000 in recruitment fees. Is it worth spending $1,500 per hire now to avoid wasting that $250,000 later?

So you're helping them do the math. Right. To justify. And, you know, of course, you know, hopefully you've built a value along the way and you're selling something that the only differentiator is in price, right? If that's the only differentiator, you got a bigger problem. But at that point in time, because risk always goes up at the end of the sales cycle from the perception of the buyer, in my experience, you're helping them if they haven't already do that math to explain why the price and see it from a different frame.

But none of these frameworks will work if you haven't done good question asking throughout the conversation to uncover what kind of results do they need to see? When do they need to see them by? Why is that date important? Like, what are the consequences of the inaction? And what is the impact of the actual goals that they're trying to reach? Without that, you're

You're not going to, you're selling on price. You're just going to have to discount is all you're going to have to do. And that's a race to the bottom. And for a business owner, that is the kiss of death. Exactly right. Well said, well said. All right, we'll kind of wrap it up on these questions with this one. You talk about it in the book, the importance of aligning. And I think we've touched on it already. The importance of aligning your sales strategy with your personal values and strengths. In your words, what do you mean by that?

So in other words, you started your business for a reason. You wanted to solve a particular problem for a particular person because of the impact that you believe that that has.

And so I'll use my own business as an example. I have a lot of inbound that comes to me from the book and from everything else. But when I look at going after clients that I'm going to put the effort into going after as an opportunity, I want to understand what are the values that are important to me. And so by setting goals that are personally meaningful to me and understanding what is valuable to me. So for me, it is...

I live in the Maine woods. I live on a lake. I have hiking trails all around me. I'm an environmentalist dead at heart because it's like we have one planet, right? Like let's take care of it. And so when I'm looking at how do I want to spend my days? How do I want to spend my money? But who are the people that I also want to work with that align with my values of making the world better than the way we left it or found it?

And so companies who have sustainability initiatives or that have green initiatives or energy initiatives, those are the companies that I actively am seeking to work with because I believe in what it is that they're doing. And I want to put more of that out into the world. And if you find those prospective buyers-

you're going to have a better opportunity to align with them and to collaborate with them. Yes, because we have values that align together versus, you know, I really, I'm really going to have a hard time working for a chemical company who's trying to figure out easy ways to dump something somewhere. That's not going to be my thing, but it has to somehow make the world a better place. And so that's the companies that I'm focusing on for myself.

But the other part of it is looking at what is the lifestyle that you want for yourself? Do you want the hustle and grind? Or maybe you're like me and you want to be able to spend a couple of hours in the morning with your dog and in the garden and doing yoga and things like that and starting your day at a certain time and talking with certain types of people because this is the daily lifestyle that you want to create for yourself.

And then how does that then turn into how many clients do you need to get of the values that align with yours? And what does it take to get those clients? How many calls? How many meetings? Where are they? What connections do you have that then aligns to your sales strategy? Like, you know, I could go out and do advertising on LinkedIn, or I can look to the communities and the people who trust me that know these types of people at these companies as a way for me to develop my sales strategy.

Yeah, what comes to mind here is that perhaps one of the reasons we might hate sales as a business owner is we really don't believe in what we're selling, what we're offering. So that's something to look at as you begin to start a business or choose what kind of business you've got to go into. You know, I'm not a big believer that you have to be passionate about what your business is, but I think you do have to be passionate about serving that customer, that client. Right.

and serving them in the way that you would want to be served. So I think that this speaks to that as well. And it also speaks to, you know, as Seth Godin says, who's our tribe? And we're not trying to be the next Walmart, at least most of us are not.

We want to serve the people that see value in what we have to offer. And to your point, it's even better if they align with our values. Yeah. I look at it this way, especially if you're a services-based business. You're going to be talking with these people on a regular basis for months and years to come. If you're going to wake up in the morning, and I was at this point in my business early on where I woke up in the morning dreading my client call. Dreading those conversations, yeah.

You know, it's like, why am I working with this type of person? And it's like, oh, right. I have a business. I get to decide who it is that I work with. I don't have to work with anyone who's willing to pay me. Well said.

All right. The book again, Buyer First, Grow Your Business with Collaborative Selling. I know I can get it at your website as well as on Amazon, but where do you want people to go online to learn more about you and all of the services that you offer? You can go to my speaking website and the book's website, which is carolmahoney.com. Don't forget the E at the end of Carol and the E in Mahoney. And then my corporate training website, which is where I also have a lot of programs for small business owners is at unboundgrowth.com.

Perfect. Perfect. We'll have a link to that on the show notes page of this episode at thehowabusiness.com. Is there another book or resource that comes to mind, particularly maybe perhaps doesn't have to be, but as it relates to maybe helping with sales and learning sales from a small business owner perspective, what would you recommend?

So I have a tough time coming up with another one that's specific for small business owners. But one of the books that really had a huge impact on me in my business was Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. Because one of the mistakes that I find that people make is they think, "I just need to get more business in. I just need to get more sales in." And they don't take thought and consideration to how am I handling the money that is actually coming in? And am I actually being profitable? Am I actually pricing things that are right that I can actually be profitable?

I think that's a lesson that I learned too late in my business. And I would have everyone as you're starting out in sales, because I think that creates that kind of sales desperation when you keep having to refill your bank account because you're not managing it well. Well said. Yeah. Great recommendation. I've had the pleasure of having Mike on the show. And so that is a fantastic book and a fantastic approach to managing the money. Thanks for that recommendation.

I will wrap it up here. What, Carol, is one thing that you want us to take away from this conversation we had about buyer-first selling or collaborative selling?

One thing, the one thing I would have everyone understand is that sales and selling is not something you do to other people. It is something that you do with them. And that if you remember that it's not about you, it's about them, it actually will give you a sense of freedom in the sales conversations and release you from the stranglehold of the need for approval and the fear of rejection. Well said. Something we do together, not that I do to them. I think that encapsulates it extremely well. Tell us again where you want us to go online to learn more.

So you can go to carolmahoney.com or unboundgrowth.com. If you find me on LinkedIn, please reach out to connect. Let me know that you saw me here or heard me here on Henry's podcast. I love hearing from everyone and what their thoughts and takeaways are. Wonderful. Carol, thanks for taking the time to be with me today. Thanks for sharing the book and these very specific insights, which is what we always look for. Thanks for sharing today.

Thank you so much, Henry. I can't wait to hear how everyone applies this and changes their business. My favorite emails are the ones that they say, you saved my business. You changed my life. That is the whole reason I did it. Huge.

All right, this is Henry Lopez, and thanks for joining us on this episode of The How of Business. My guest today again is Carol Mahoney. I release new episodes every Monday morning. You can find the show anywhere you listen to podcasts, Spotify, YouTube at my YouTube channel, The How of Business YouTube channel, and at my website, thehowofbusiness.com. Thanks again for listening.

Thank you for listening to The How of Business. For more information about our coaching programs, online courses, show notes pages, links, and other resources, please visit thehowofbusiness.com.