About Jake Stahl: Jake Stahl is a Fractional Chief Learning Officer who mixes innovation and mind science to redefine training and skill-building. The Chief Learning Officer (CLO) is the linchpin for organizational learning and development initiatives. Collaborating closely with key executives such as the Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Marketing Officer, the CLO crafts and executes comprehensive training programs. With over 10,000 professionals trained in six countries, he has created more than 100 proprietary courses, facilitated thousands of workshops, and navigated the complexities of leadership development. His approach transcends traditional training, integrating value-based selling with the latest psychological techniques and neurolinguistic programming to offer personalized, high-impact solutions like his Adaptive Conversational Blueprint. Throughout his extensive career, he has doubled and tripled sales, sculpted award-winning sales representatives, and ignited leadership potential across ten distinct industries. His seven patents in the field force technology arena, the prestigious International Gold Award for Instructional Design, and invitations to speak nationally and globally on training and development highlight his dedication to excellence. With him, one isn’t just investing in a program; they’re embracing a custom-made experience that caters to specific needs, fueling growth and reimagining success. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Jake.
In this episode, Nancy and Jake discuss the following:
- How does a fractional Chief Learning Officer differ from other traditional roles in sales
- Difference between adaptive conversational blueprint and standard sales scripts
- Jake’s 2-10 rule
- How neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) can be used to adapt to a customer’s communication style quickly
- The power of establishing trust and matching a prospect’s communication style
- Not selling is the best way to sell
Key Takeaways:
- I teach representatives how to adapt to that quickly in a conversation so they don’t need a sales script.
- If I could eliminate any phrase from the English language, it would probably be, “Hi, how are you?”
- Two five-year-olds are the best conversationalists on the planet.
- Remember, everybody wants to be heard.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years across six countries. I’ve trained over 10,000 people. And to me, the baseline of a good conversation will be trust. I think our flaw is that we don’t take time to build that trust in the beginning by listening, understanding the situation a person is in, and then being able to adapt our conversation accordingly. These factors are things like emotional intelligence and the company’s perception of your company, and you are taking a lot into play. But conditioning and perception, to me, are huge. If we can understand the other person’s position when it comes to conditioning and perception, and we can build trust, the sale typically follows.” – JAKE
“Yeah, when most people have a conversation or start with somebody for the first time, they’re anxious to tell them about themselves because that’s always our favorite topic, right? We talk about ourselves. So, when you get into that conversation, my theory—and it’s really shown itself to be true over the past 30 years—is that the more time I can give you at the beginning of a conversation to talk about you, the more receptive you’re going to be to me. And the more I check in with you during a conversation, the more receptive you’ll be to me. So, I established something called the 2-10 rule, which says every two minutes, check in with the person you’re talking to in some way, shape, or form. Make a statement, ask a question. So, every two minutes, you do this. And I have some of my clients set a stopwatch because this is really tough for some people to get a hold of. At the end of 10 minutes, regroup. So, Nancy, I’ve been talking for the past 10 minutes. I’ve really been let loose. Do you have any questions about what we’ve talked about so far? Is there anything you don’t understand? So, every 10 minutes, you do that. And when you do that, it takes care of one basic thing: the Q&A people typically have at the end. This whole premise, Nancy, is based on the fact that for every 10 minutes you talk, you generate two minutes’ worth of questions in the other person’s head. So, the 2-10 rule flips it on its head and says every two minutes check-in, every 10 minutes summarize and ask for questions, and your call and your trust level will go through the roof.” – JAKE
“How it works is by being interested versus interesting. So, when I get on the phone with a potential client, let me give you a great example. When I reach out on LinkedIn and try to connect, my first four connections with that person have nothing to do with me. So, I’ll reach out the first time and say, ‘Hey, I see you’re another fractional executive. Just curious if you’d want to connect and catch up.’ Then they write back, and I write—no matter their response—I write back and say, ‘So, what’s your ideal customer profile? Who are you looking for in the way of a customer?’ And then the third reach-out is, ‘So, what verticals are you in? What’s the place that you live in the most?’ And a miracle happens, Nancy. By the end of that third conversation, 80% of the time, somebody either says to me, ‘Can I get on a call with you?’ or, ‘I’ve been talking all about myself. Tell me what you do.’ Either way, Nancy, I’m a winner. And I hadn’t even talked about what I did yet.” – JAKE
Connect with Jake Stahl:
- LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakestahl/
- Jake Stahl Consulting: https://jakestahlconsulting.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 Jake Stahl, CEO and founder of Jake Stahl Consulting, which transforms sales teams’ performance with tailored solutions rooted in psychology, potentially doubling or tripling sales without needing extensive resume vetting or paying for recruiters. Jake is a pioneer in conversational dynamics and is a highly regarded fractional chief learning officer. He’s revolutionizing sales through his adaptive conversational blueprint turning sales professionals into relational architects capable of forging profound connections with prospects. Integral to his approach is the 210 rule, which challenges traditional perspectives on conversation and emphasizes the importance of rhythm and cadence. Welcome to the show, Jake. This is gonna be fun.
Jake Stahl: Thank you, Nancy. I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. [1:29]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, well, this is long overdue. And I guess my first question is, what is a fractional chief learning officer?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, great question. It’s kind of a unicorn in the fractional world, Nancy. What I do is I go in, and I act as the chief learning officer or head of training and development for a company. So, I can do anything from creating a sales department to creating onboarding programs for salespeople coming on, all the way to coursework design, curriculum mapping. Anything a training and development department can do is what I do for a company. I just do it fractionally. [2:11]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay. And when you say fractionally, you do it for multiple companies.
Jake Stahl: Yeah, so the fractional movement is something I guess you would say started about a year and a half ago. It’s when you go into a company, you take a position where you have just about a C -suite level or director or VP level, and you go in and you work with multiple companies. So you give them a fraction of your time per month. Usually you give companies 32, 40 hours a month, and you can do in that time what they often have their full -time people doing. [2:47]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. And then how does your title differ from a chief revenue officer or VP of sales?
Jake Stahl: That’s a great question. I get asked this a lot. The chief revenue officer, VP of sales, they are typically determining the process. So how many calls should I make a week? How many calls should I make a month? What’s the demographic we’re supposed to call? What does my call cadence look like? So, they set all the standards, and they set all the budgets and all the goals. And what winds up happening is I kind of take it from there. So, they control everything up to the point where the representative enters the company and picks up the phone. And then I kind of take it from that point on. So, I work hand in hand with the chief revenue or chief sales officer at every company I do fractional work for. [3:41]
Nancy Calabrese: Sure. I mean, do they consult with you to make sure that the goals are achievable?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, yeah, they do. And a lot of times we will find that it’s not always achievable what they’re looking for, at least not right away. And what we do a lot is we look at new hires coming on board, and we talk about how quickly we expect them to get up to speed. So, we do a lot of work together towards the end goal of increasing revenue. [4:08]
Nancy Calabrese: Got it. So, what exactly is an adaptive conversational blueprint and how is it different from other conversational formats?
Jake Stahl: So, a lot of times you’ll get a company that will hire a training company from outside. It could be Sandler, it could be value -based selling, and they’re all excellent companies and excellent methodologies. And depending on the industry you’re in, they could be exactly what your company needs. However, my approach takes away sales scripts. It takes away pre -thought out openings and closing and objections. My adaptive conversational blueprint is based in neuro -linguistic programming. So, it adapts quickly and easily to what the customer is saying. And the responses are based on our basic psychological makeup. Underneath, we’re all kind of built the same way in our brain, the way we react to things. So, what I teach representatives is how to adapt to that quickly in a conversational, so they don’t need a sales script. So, they don’t need to memorize certain things in order to make the customer happy. They’re having a legitimate, authentic conversation that leads to a sale. [5:28]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, but doesn’t it always start with a script? You know, I’m going to have to politely disagree with you. I mean, I believe in scripts, but you want to own it, right? It becomes internalized. Do you use that approach in training your people?
Jake Stahl: Well, first of all, thank you for disagreeing. I appreciate that. I love a hearty conversation. I think that scripts are good in the beginning while somebody gets their land legs. But if you have somebody who has this constant canned approach treating every person on the other end of the phone like they’re exactly the same, they listen the same, they process the same, they make decisions the same, we’re heading down a dangerous road. And this is where sales become a numbers game. So, a salesperson will say, well, I close one out of every 50 people. Well, that’s because the script you’re using applies to probably one out of every 50 people. [6:24]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Well, not so much the script, but the communication style. Wouldn’t you agree that, I don’t know if you’ve studied DISC, but there are four different communication styles. And I think as a salesperson, we need to adapt the way we speak to their style in the DISC profile. What do you think?
Jake Stahl: I don’t disagree. I think profiles like disc and a neogram and all of those things definitely have their place. But there’s a section Nancy that I would consider more reptilian. It’s kind of our base makeup that is appealed to by neuro -linguistic programming and it gets even simpler. We process through modalities. And I think that disk and anagram are phenomenal if you’re researching somebody and you have the time to do that before you call them, or you have a way to determine that. But neuro -linguistic programming allows you to adapt to that and figure it out within a minute of speaking to somebody and then adapt to that conversation quickly. So it’s almost like the step before disk is what I teach. [7:34]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, okay, so let’s talk about NLP or neuro -linguistic programming. Tell the audience what that is and how do you use it pre -disc?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, it’s a foundation. It’s a foundational study that’s been around for a long time. And it’s based on the fact that we all process in one of five different ways in in our five different senses. But we primarily process in one of three ways visual, auditory or kinesthetic. And we not only speak that way, but we make decisions based on that. And if everybody looks at the decisions they make, typically the good decisions involve all of the primary modalities and we make a bad decision or a tough decision, sometimes some of those modalities are missing. So, it says that if we can appeal to all of someone’s modalities but deal with their primary ones when we’re communicating with them, we can help them come to a decision that’s beneficial for them, because they’re using all of their senses to make the decision. And then it goes deeper than that. It talks about how are you conditioned? What is the perception that person has of you? And then it goes deeper into how is this framed. Does this person have it framed in their head as a necessary call? Like is it something they need to buy or something they may not need to buy? And how associated are they with this? So, it digs deep into the decision -making process, it doesn’t just rely on how they process information. [9:15]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. And you say you can do this in a minute.
Jake Stahl: Yeah. I teach a course on how to establish trust in less than five minutes and how to establish someone’s modality in less than a minute. Yep. [9:29]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. So what are the secrets to having a better conversation that converts to a sale?
Jake Stahl: Well, this is all a personal belief, of course. I’ve been doing this for 30 years across six countries. I’ve trained over 10 ,000 people. And the thing to me that’s the baseline of a good conversation is going to be trust. And I think the flaw we kind of have is that we don’t take time to build that trust in the beginning by listening, understanding the situation a person’s in, and then being able to adapt our conversation accordingly. So, this factors things in like emotional intelligence. It factors in what that company’s perception of your company, and you are, it takes a lot into play, but conditioning and perception to me are huge. And if we can understand the other person’s position when it comes to conditioning and perception, and we can build trust, the sale just typically follows. [10:34]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Well, my experience is a way to build trust is to match their communication style and make it all about them. What are your thoughts on that?
Jake Stahl: Nancy, you’re dead on. So if you can match their communication style and match it all about them, that goes to understanding their modality and being able to match it, understanding their physical appearance and being able to match their body position, as well as going a little bit deeper, Nancy, being able to match their cadence, being able to match their speed and being able to chunk information in ways that they’ll understand it the most. So, you’re dead on with what you’re saying. [11:20]
Nancy Calabrese: Well, you know, and I understand that you value cadence over content in a conversation. Can you go into that a little more?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, when most people have a conversation or start with somebody the first time, they’re anxious to tell them about themselves because that’s always our favorite topic right we talk about ourselves. So, when you get into that conversation. My theory, and it’s really showed itself to be true over the past 30 years is that the more time I can give you in the beginning of a conversation to talk about you, the more receptive you’re gonna be to me. And the more I check in with you during a conversation, the more receptive you’re gonna be to me. So, I established something called the 2-10 rule, which basically says every two minutes, check in with the person that you’re talking to in some way, shape or form. Make a statement, ask a question. So, every two minutes you do this. And I have some of my clients set a stopwatch because this is really tough for some people to get a hold of. At the end of 10 minutes, regroup. So Nancy, I’ve been talking for the past 10 minutes. I’ve really been let loose. Do you have any questions on what we’ve talked about so far? Is there anything you don’t understand? So, every 10 minutes you do that. And when you do that, it takes care of one basic thing. And that’s the Q and A people typically have at the end. This whole premise, Nancy is based on the fact that for every 10 minutes you talk, you generate two minutes’ worth of questions in the other person’s head. So, the two 10 rule flips it on its head and says every two minutes check in every 10 minutes, summarize and ask for questions and your call and your trust level will go through the roof. [13:16]
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, what are the questions that you find to be most powerful when you’re qualifying a prospect?
Jake Stahl: I’m gonna be a little controversial here too. And so, I definitely welcome if there’s pushback on this. I’m not as big into questions as I am into statements. And I’ll give you an example. So, if I’m talking with, let’s say I’m selling health benefits. So, I’m talking with a customer on the end of the phone. I know they hate this process because they go through it every year. They have to renew their health benefits. So, I may be talking to them and they’d say, Jake, I hate this process. This sucks, I’m only talking to you because I have to. I may just repeat back to them, it sounds like it’s tough and you’re not really into this call. Yeah, Jake, that’s right. And it’s because of, and then they start to list out reasons. Nancy, I make it a habit then to repeat back at least one or two of the reasons. And I find it’s better than questions. Cause they just keep opening up more and more and verifying what you said. I only start to ask questions when I really need to. [14:26]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. You know, it’s funny. You said you mentioned Sandler earlier in the conversation. We happen to be Sandler trained and they’re really big on asking questions and asking the right questions. So this is a very interesting point of view. You know, and one of the questions I really wanted to ask you, because I get asked this question all the time. When calling a customer for a cold call, which is what we do for a living here how do you get away from Hi, how are you? Because I think nobody cares.
Jake Stahl: Yeah, and Nancy, I couldn’t agree more. If I could eliminate any phrase from the English language, it would probably be that. Because unless it’s family or somebody we love, we don’t care. I’ll give you a great example. My wife and I were out shopping a couple of weeks ago, and I walked by a gentleman, and our eyes met, and I nodded my head, and I said, hey. And he looked at me and he goes, fine, thanks, how are you? The conversation never took place verbally, but it did in his head. We’re so preconditioned to it. So, Nancy, if that were that condition to it, we’re also conditioned to do other responses after that. So how are you telling me you’re a sales rep. So now I’m going to line up my objections. Price is too high. I don’t need it right now. I got to talk to my boss. So, the idea is get around that condition question. The way I start every conversation is, God, I was really looking forward to this phone call. Thank you for taking the time. Completely throws people out of their conditioning and it opens them up to listen to what my next words are. And if I was a good rep and I did my research on that person, I can then lead in with something valuable. So, with Nancy, you and I, it might be Nancy, I am so glad you took the time for this call. Thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day. I listened to your podcast, and I was just curious, man, how long have you been doing this? Immediately, it’s all about you. Tensions ease, everybody’s happy, you’re now gonna be more receptive, but there’s no hi, how are you involved? [16:48]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. You know, in order to stand out, you must be different. And that’s a quote from Coco Chanel. And I really believe that. We call it a pattern interrupt. Don’t go into a call sounding like everybody else. You want to sound a little different, which is what you did. That’s really great, Jake. I might steal it from you. Yeah.
Jake Stahl: Feel free. [17:14]
Nancy Calabrese: Tell me something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on?
Jake Stahl: The fact that not selling is the best possible way to sell. I get more pushback on that than I can even shake a stick at and yet I’ve been proving it true for 30 years. [17:40]
Nancy Calabrese: So how does that work?
Jake Stahl: How it works is by being interested versus interesting. So, when I get on the phone with a potential client, well, let me give you a great example. When I do reach outs on LinkedIn, when I’m trying to make a connection, my first four connections with that person have nothing to do with me at all. So, I’ll reach out the first time and I’ll say, hey, I see you’re another fractional executive. Just curious if you’d want to connect and just kind of catch up. Then they write back and I write no matter what their response is, I write back and say, so what’s your ideal customer profile? Who are you looking for in the way of a customer? And then the third reach out is, so what verticals are you in? What’s the place that you live in the most? And a miracle happens, Nancy. By the end of that third conversation, 80% of the time somebody either says to me, can I get on a call with you or, I’ve been talking all about myself. Tell me what you do. Either way, Nancy, I’m a winner. And I hadn’t even talked about what I did yet. [18:50]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. Well, I mean, they’re checking you out on LinkedIn, I’m sure, but that’s pretty amazing. 80% of the time.
Jake Stahl: They are, but it doesn’t take me telling them anything. [19:01]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, pretty darn amazing. So, can anyone learn your methodology?
Jake Stahl: Yeah, it just takes a little bit of patience. And the reason I say that is it’s really a diversion from the way we normally do things. Think back to watching two five -year -olds. They’re the best conversationalists on the planet. I like trucks. What do you like? That’s my mom. Which one is yours? I like black. Do you like black? You know, it’s a back and forth. It’s a relentless conversation. But somewhere along the line, we kind of lose that and we lose the ability to do it because we think about it too much. So, the way I teach it, my adaptive conversational blueprint, the neuro -linguistic programming, I take people back to the basics again. Just start by listening. And I’m going to give you exercises on how to do that and techniques on how to make it work better. And we build it from there. So, anybody can learn it, but it takes dedication. It takes time and the understanding that it’s a long game. It’s not a short one. [20:10]
Nancy Calabrese: It is a long day because I was going to ask you when does the light bulb go off?
Jake Stahl: I’ve had clients that have picked it up after a month. And then I’ve had some where eight months later, they’re still pushing back on me. And a lot of times it’s, it’s how old you are and how long you’ve been in the industry. So, I enjoy working with people. I just got a new client today and the light bulb went off for him first meeting. And now I have him practicing and getting ready for our next meeting. So, depends on the person largely. [20:44]
Nancy Calabrese: Love it. Love it. You know, I can’t believe Jake, we’re up in time. This is a fascinating conversation. What is the one takeaway you want to leave the audience with?
Jake Stahl: The takeaway, I guess I would say is remember everybody wants to be heard. You look all the way back in our history and cavemen were drawing on walls so they could be heard, and they could remember their adventures and show other people their adventures. That has not gone away. Show somebody else you’re listening, really listen to what they’re saying and sell to their needs. Your selling will take off dramatically. [21:23]
Nancy Calabrese: I love it. How can my people find you?
Jake Stahl: You can go to jakesdahlconsulting .com. My last name is S T A H L jakesdahlconsulting .com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. There’s a couple of hundred Jake stalls on LinkedIn, but I’m the only one identifying as a fractional chief learning officer. [21:44]
Nancy Calabrese: I love it. Folks, this is a great guy. I encourage that you reach out to Jake and Jake, thank you so much for spending your time with us today. You’re a fascinating guy and I think we have a lot in common in the way we think about selling and having conversations. So I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed showcasing you and for everyone out there make it an awesome sales day and really take advantage of Jason. He’s a go -to guy. So, we’ll see you next time. [22:20]
