About Dave Kahle: Dave Kahle is the President of Kahle Way Sales Systems, a company where they help CEOs and VPs of Sales for Wholesale Distributors increase sales, gain market share, and significantly increase the ROI from their salespeople in 15-30 minutes a week. He is a B2B sales expert and Christian business thought leader. Dave helps his clients increase their sales and improve their sales productivity. He’s written twelve books, presented in 47 states and eleven countries, and has helped enrich tens of thousands of salespeople and transform hundreds of sales organizations. Sign up for his free weekly Ezine. Three international entities recognized his book, How to Sell Anything to Anyone Anytime, as “one of the five best English language business books.” Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Dave.
In this episode, Nancy and Dave discuss the following:
- The importance of sales processes
- Importance of sales processes: big picture vs. day-to-day
- Strategies to make prospects comfortable: first impressions, appropriate dressing, sharing personal details, effective questioning
- Investing in sales managers: their impact on salespeople’s behaviors
- Virtual selling: increased need for thorough preparation
- Use of “snippets” in sales conversations and their value in everyday life
Key Takeaways:
- Sharing something personal and unique about yourself breaks the barriers between you and the customer.
- The depth and detail of your question have a lot to do with how you make people comfortable with you.
- The sales managers are the in-between step between management and salespeople.
- Everybody can sell better if they choose to. They can.
“In that book, we talk about two different levels of sales process. The big-picture sales process is what a sales organization and the salesperson do over time. And then what I call the day-to-day or the nitty-gritty sales process is what a salesperson does with a customer or a prospect. […] Let me talk about the nitty-gritty sales process and how it relates to everyday activity. So, the first step in the prospect is to engage with the right people. And that can trump everything else. If you spend your time with the wrong people, no matter how well you do everything else, it’s a waste of time. So, step one is to engage with the right people. Step two is to make them comfortable with you. Because if they’re uncomfortable with you, they won’t react transparently and honestly. Step three: find out what they want. And again, there’s a whole body of content surrounding each of these. I mean, a couple of days’ training for each of these. The next step is to show them what you have given them and what they want. And again, that applies to anything, anywhere, anytime. That’s why it’s the title of the book. Then, you agree on the next step. And again, each one of these can be at least a couple of training days. At that point, you follow up because the decision is typically made in the business-to-business world. The decision to buy is typically made when you’re not there. So, you follow up and leverage satisfaction with this, which salespeople often neglect to do but to leverage satisfaction into additional internal or external opportunities. And then you know what? You’re back where you started from. So that’s the process. That’s the process that an individual salesperson uses to relate and sell anybody, anything. You have to do all those things regardless.” – DAVE
“There’s a whole lot of things, like number one, that is so often overlooked, and that is to make an excellent first impression—to look like you, to sound like someone that people can talk to and relate to. So that’s step one. And then there are so many things, like, for example, how you dress. I have a rule—you should dress like your customer, only a little better. So, if you’re a man wearing a suit and tie, calling on farmers, I mean, your suit and tie is separating you from connecting with that farmer, from making that customer comfortable with you. So, you dress like the customer, only a little bit better. And that’s the rule for everybody. And then, there’s sharing. I like to share something personal. It forces the customer to see you as a human being, not just a role player. You’re not just a salesperson; you’re a real person.- DAVE
“It’s here to stay, and it’s growing, and it has, and it required. It requires not necessarily something new, but the salespeople who are selling virtually have to be much better. For example, you cannot make an appointment to talk with somebody on a Zoom call and not be thoroughly prepared. You know, like so, the pressure to be thoroughly prepared so you’re not wasting time looking foolish on a Zoom call is far greater than if you stop by. You’re just going to stop by and see them, and sometimes you’re not fully prepared, but you cannot do that on a Zoom call. Now, it’s increased by a multiple. So, number one, they must be far more prepared. You know, with agendas and objectives of every sales call. That’s always been a best practice, but many have ignored it. You can’t ignore that anymore. And so, you know, that’s a big one. And then there are lots of things that kind of fall underneath that, things that you need to do when you’re selling virtually that you don’t necessarily need to pay that much attention to when you’re selling live.” – DAVE
Connect with Dave Kahle:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekahle
- Website: https://www.davekahle.com/
- Housing Lessons: http://www.thesalesresourcecenter.com
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
- Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsales
- Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/
- Website:https://oneofakindsales.com
- Phone: 908-879-2911
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/
- Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational selling – the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Dave Kahle, president of Kahle Way Sales Systems, enriching salespeople and transforming sales organizations by creating processes. strategies and systems of substance and delivering them via various media. Dave is a B2B sales guru and a Christian business thought leader. In the 30 years he has been in practice, he’s worked with over 500 individual companies. He’s presented in 11 countries and 47 states and authored 13 books, including the Good Book on Business, and How to Sell Anything to Anyone, Anytime. His books have been translated into eight languages and are available in 20 countries. Wow, Dave, welcome to the show.
Dave Kahle: Thank you, Nancy. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be here. [1:25]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, I’m delighted. I just want to jump right in. So how do you sell anything to anyone anytime?
Dave Kahle:Yeah, it’s about process, it’s about a sales process. And in that book, we talk about two different levels of sales process. The big picture sales process, which is what a sales organization and the salesperson does over time. And then what I call the day to day or the nitty gritty sales process, which is what a salesperson does with a customer or a prospect. [2:01]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay. Well, let’s talk about day to day a little bit. What activities should a salesperson do each day to keep their pipeline filled with qualified prospects and keep their clients happy?
Dave Kahle: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let me answer that in a roundabout way. First, let me talk about the nitty -gritty sales process and then how it relates to everyday activity. So, the first step in the prospect is to engage with the right people. And that can trump everything else. If you’re spending your time with the wrong people, then no matter how well you do everything else, it’s a waste of time. So, step one is to engage with the right people. Step two is to make them comfortable with you. Because if they’re not comfortable with you, then they’re not going to react transparently and honestly. Step three, find out what they want. And again, there’s a whole body of content surrounding each of these. I mean, a couple days training for each of these. The next step is to show them how what you have given them what they want. And again, that applies to anything, anywhere, anytime. That’s why it’s the title of the book. Then you agree on the next step. And again, each one of these can be a whole couple day of training, at least. And then at that point, you follow up because the decision is typically made in the business-to-business world. Decision to buy is typically made when you’re not there. So, you follow up and leverage satisfaction with this, which is something salespeople often neglect to do, but to leverage satisfaction into additional opportunities, either internal or external. And then you know what? You’re back where you started from. So that’s the process. That’s the process that an individual salesperson uses to relate and sell anybody, anything. You have to do all those things regardless. So now back to the question of filling up your pipeline. It depends on your sales situation. There are some situations where you’re constantly looking for new customers, but I’ve had a number of clients who everybody knows all the customers already. There’s not an issue of finding new customers because they know them all in the industry that they’re in. So, it really depends. A lot of those very specific things depend on the individual industry and your sales process, your specific sales process. [4:41]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. So how do you make your prospects or your clients comfortable with you? What are some of your tricks?
Dave Kahle: Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I, you know, I guess I’m a little uncomfortable with the word tricks. I would say, you know, tactics, but, but of course, uh, there’s, you know, this is, this is an area that’s been researched and studied for a long time. And, and there’s a whole, I mean, there’s a whole lot of things like number one, you know, this is so often, uh, overlooked and that is to make a good first impression, you know, to look like you, to look like you’re someone or sound like you’re someone that people can talk to and relate to. So that’s step one. And then there are so many things like, for example, how you dress, you know, the state of your dress, you should, and I have a rule, you should dress like your customer, only a little better. You know, so if you’re wearing, if you’re a man wearing a suit and tie, calling on farmers, I mean, your suit and tie is separating you from connecting with that farmer, from making that customer comfortable with you. So, you dress like the customer only a little bit better. And that’s the rule for everybody. And then, you know, there’s sharing, I like to say share something personal, you know, because when you share something personal and unique about yourself, it breaks the barriers between you and the customer. So, it forces the customer to see you as a human being and not just a role player. You know, you’re not just a salesperson, you’re a real person. [6:16]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Dave Kahle: And then of course, and this was subject to one of my books, it’s called Question Your Way to Sales Success. One way is the depth and detail of your questions. It has a lot to do with how you make people comfortable with you. And again, there’s all kinds of things. So typically, in this body of content that we’re talking about here, there’s the whole idea of matching personality styles, reading personality styles, and people use the DISC format, you know, DSE. And so matching or something I call the chameleon salesperson, changing your style to fit the style of the person that you’re working with. So, I mean, you know, there’s, again, that’s a very specific, well -researched, powerful strategy that can be applied over time. I mean, you learn to do that over time. So that’s just the beginning of what is just a whole lot of strategies and tactics and habits that can be developed to make the person comfortable with you. [7:27]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. You know, I, I love that you brought up DISC and matching your prospects or client style. And that’s why I find sales so fascinating because you must become more like them and be less of you. Right. And you must figure it out as soon as possible. Yeah. In a conversation. Huh? Um, you are a big believer in investing in sales managers. Why is that important?
Dave Kahle: Yes. Yeah. Because one of the things I do for a living is I work with sales forces from the top down. So, the chief sales officer or the CEO, whoever is the chief sales decision maker. And typically, we look at the system first and arrange for changes to be made in the structure of the sales system. So, things like compensation plans and does your compensation plan reward the people for doing what you want them to do? Typically, it doesn’t. And typically, the decisions that have been made about structure are decisions that have been made in an earlier generation and people have them, they don’t even know why they have it. So first we work with structure and then we work with the sales managers because the sales managers, their routines, and the things that they do with their salespeople have a tremendous impact on what the salesperson does. So first the structure, then the sales managers, and then finally we work with the sales team itself to instill some of the behaviors that we’re talking about here. So, the sales managers are the in -between step between management and salespeople. [9:11]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, huh. Talk about your sales management system.
Dave Kahle: Hmm. Yeah. So, so this is a system we’ve created over the years, and you know, we’ve taught it to over 2 ,400 sales managers. We have it. We have two cohorts going on right now. It’s a, it’s a, it’s an eight-part, eight module courses. And people, people take the coursework online and then we get together for a zoom meeting with all, with all the people in the course. And we keep it. We keep it no more than 15 in each group so that people can relate to one another and talk with one another and so on. But it instills a system for sales management because what the sales manager does and what he requires and the kind of relationship that he has with his people is just incredibly important. So, we have created a system. We instill the system, say, do these things. And we have a whole series of what I call best, the best practices of the best sales managers that we teach sales managers in the system. [10:24]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay. You also mentioned you believe that there are principles or practices that will make the greatest impact on a person’s sales performance. What are they?
Dave Kahle: Yes. Well, you know, so I’m asking, I’m often asked, Dave, is there, is there one, if there’s only one thing you could do with a business-to-business Salesforce to improve their sales, what would it be? And I answer typically there’s, there’s two things, but the number one thing, you know, if there’s only one place, I can make some changes in a sales team’s behavior and their routines. The number one thing I would do now, again, we’re talking about business-to-business salespeople. The number one thing I would do would be to teach them how to rank and prioritize their accounts based on their potential. And it sounds so simple. Doesn’t everybody do that? No, no, they don’t. They go where it’s comfortable. They go where people are calling them. Instead of doing a real formal, and again, we have a system that we teach people to do, but it begins with looking for two issues. And one is what I call partner ability. So, we rate every prospect and every customer on their partner ability, which is subjective. It’s who the customer is, not how big they are. And then number two, we look for something we call QPC, which is Quantified purchasing capacity and that one says if they bought everything, they could from me in the next 12 months How much would that be? So, we create we create some boundaries around that number so we can compare one to the other Because we know we’re talking about again everything if they bought everything, they could for me in the next 12 months How much would it be? So, it’s an annual purchase and We take both those we turn those into numbers, so there’s a number for QPC and a number for partner ability, we put them together and the highest ranking are the highest potential. I mean, it’s straightforward, although there’s quite a bit of detail to it, but it’s straightforward. And the issue is, and again, the biggest issue is getting people to understand we’re ranking prospects and customers based on their potential, not on their history. And a lot of salespeople just really have a hard time getting their heads around that. [13:03]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Dave Kahle: Because if I ask, if I ask, show me your best accounts, everyone will go give me a computer printout, show me how much they bought last year. And I would say, well, that’s fine, that’s fine, but nobody cares. That’s not the question. The question is not how much they bought last year. The question is how much could they buy this year? That’s a whole different question. And it gets people thinking about the future, not the past. So, there’s a whole lot of stuff around that. But I will say this, when we instill that system of ranking and prioritizing your accounts, and people do it. Typically we see dramatic impacts on performance within six months and the most common, I know this is going to sound crazy, the most common testimonial that I get from people who’ve done this, you know, used our system for a couple years, the most common thing I hear, and you’re not going to believe this, but the most common thing I hear is triple, triple. Dave, we haven’t increased our business by 15 % or 20, we’ve tripled it. This is the single most impactful, most powerful practice to instill in a business-to-business sales force that will get the biggest bang for the buck. [14:15]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. But how do you figure out what a company is going to purchase in the 12 months? How do you do that?
Dave Kahle: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, well, the first group, first, the simplest, sometimes the simplest ideas are the best, you know, you ask, you ask now, now, and, you know, some people won’t tell you because they don’t know or they don’t think, you know, but when you ask, you’ll probably knock off about 50 % of them. Okay. So, what do you, so what do you do with the other 50 %? Well, you, you, you get some measurable number in that organization that you can use to compare with them with something else. So, it could, and it’s almost anything, you know, so it could be numbers of employees. So, here’s a manufacturer of X with 200 employees. And here’s a manufacturer of X, same thing with a hundred employees. You know, the hundreds number, the 200, you can, you just do a little formula, you know, and you put some number on it. You know, for here’s an example. So, I have worked with a number of HVAC distributors. So, they’re selling. There’s selling to the people who fix your air conditioning furnace. So, if you say how much are you going to buy this year, how much will you buy in total of this category? And they say, well, I don’t know. You say, OK, how many trucks do you have on the road? Because there is a number for trucks. So, if they say, well, we have 15 trucks. And you know that every truck equals $50 ,000, just 15 times 50. And you got it. There it is. So, there’s almost always some collectible, accessible measurement that you can use and put a formula on it. And again, the formula’s gotta take a little work, but you create the formula, put it on some measurement, and there you go. [16:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, you know, let’s talk about virtual selling because that’s the way the world has become. I think it’s here to stay. What are your thoughts on that?
Dave Kahle: Yeah Absolutely, it’s here to stay and it’s growing and it has and it required it requires Not necessarily something new but the salespeople who are selling virtue have to be better much better for for example You cannot make an appointment just to talk with somebody on a zoom call and not be thoroughly prepared You know like so the pressure? to be thoroughly prepared so you’re not wasting time looking foolish on a Zoom call is far greater than if you stop by, you’re just going to stop by and see them and sometimes you’re not fully prepared, but you cannot do that on a Zoom call. So, you must be, the pressure to be prepared, well, it was always there. Now it’s increased by a multiple. So, number one, they must be far more prepared. You know, with agendas, objectives of every sales call. Like that’s always been a best practice, but a lot of people have ignored it. You can’t ignore that anymore. And so, you know, so that’s a big one. And then there’s lots of things that kind of fall underneath that things that you need to do when you’re selling virtually that you don’t necessarily need to pay that much attention to when you’re selling live. [17:31]
Nancy Calabrese: You know, I never thought of it that way. Are you a big fan of scripts in sales?
Dave Kahle: Yeah. You know, I’m a fan of what I call snippets. So, snippets are pieces of conversation that you use repeatedly. And you take the time to prepare them and do them as well as you can. And then you memorize them. So, things like, I mean, you know, the best example is probably what we’ve all talked about an elevator speech. Okay, so this is who you are, what your company is, why the customer should care. And so, you’re going to say that, you know, you’re going to use that piece of conversation hundreds of times. So why not prepare it? Why not sit down, put it together as best you can and then memorize it. And then when somebody says, hi, so what do you do? It comes out in a, in a powerful confident way because you prepare to be forehand so snippets of Conversation that you find yourself using over and over again those things ought to be prepared Memorized and used over and over and so I so I believe in snippets not necessarily scripts. [18:57]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, I’m in your corner and I think the key is once you really, if you’re saying the same thing repeatedly, it becomes a part of you. You’re not reading anything and it also grounds you, right? So, you’re not winging the conversation. Dave, I can’t believe we’re up in time already. You are fascinating. What is the one takeaway you want to leave the audience with?
Dave Kahle: Everybody can sell better if you choose to. You can. There are principles and practices that have been proven to help people sell better and everybody can. [19:44]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, I agree with you again, 100%. So how can my audience find you?
Dave Kahle: Go to my website, https://www.davekahle.com/. And we’ve got bunches and bunches of resources, free resources, and we do webinars and just all kinds of stuff there. But the starting point is just the front page of DaveKale .com. And click on stuff that you’re interested in. For example, I do a weekly, what I call an E -zine called Sell Better. It goes to thousands of business-to-business salespeople and their bosses every week. So, you can sign up for that. I do podcast shows a little different. I do a 10-minute sort of lesson every week. And so, you know, there’s all kinds of stuff like that. Just go to the website page and connect with something and take it from there. [20:39]
Nancy Calabrese: Awesome, awesome, awesome. Hey folks, you heard it right from the expert here. Reach out to Dave, take advantage of his resources. Let’s all learn how to sell better, you know, each and every day. Dave, thanks so much for spending time with us. Again, you’re entertaining. And to all of you out there, I wish you an amazing sales day. Until next time, go get going. Reach out to Dave. Take care. [21:15]
