The Ultimate Guide: How to Sell B2B Without Being Scummy

Before I dive into How to Sell B2B, I want to give you a quick background on my journey in sales. When I had just graduated from College I was 20 years old, had already ran a business for two years, but knew that I was lacking a lot of valuable skillsets that would be beneficial to my business. So I decided to get jobs that would help me learn those skills.

 

The biggest weak point that I saw in myself was sales. I didn’t know how to sell B2B, B2C, or even what those words meant. So strait out of college I got myself a sales job. My first sales job was selling outdoor power equipment at Sears. As it turned out, I wasn’t very good at sales and so that job lasted a total of about a month. Next I got a job selling used cars with a company that did traveling tent shows (this is the job I mentioned in the intro to this book). This job lasted roughly two months. Next I went all in on a MLM company (not because I was sold on MLMs, but because I was trying to learn sales). Interestingly, in one month I sat down with 14 people to talk to them about this MLM, and all 14 joined. I had a 100% close rate on this offer (interesting). After some time I went to another care dealership and ended up getting fired after two weeks… apparently I still wasn’t any good at sales?

 

Then I went to the jewelry store and as I said in the intro, I excelled. So what was the difference? Why was I SO bad in some sales environments and SO exceptionally good in others? I have since learned that the primary difference was how I thought about the sale. When I am trying to sell, I suck at it. But when I am trying to help the person sitting in front of me, I am really good at it. So the environments that heavily pushed me to hit my quotas, also made me bad at the job… but the environments that let me do what I thought best, were the ones where I excelled.

 

In my business today, I no longer have a 100% close rate… but depending on the traffic source I still see up to 70% close rates. So allow me to build the framework that I use to close clients in a one or two call structure. The best part, how to sell B2B is nothing like car sales… you don’t have to use scummy, sleazy, tactics!

 

The Consultation Mindset

 

Imagine you feel a sharp pain in your lower back, so you go to your general practitioner. If your general practitioner is good at their job, what they will start doing is asking you poignant, relevant questions about the pain. They will ask you about your diet, recent physical activity, your sleeping pattern, your job, and anything else that might be relevant. The whole time they are asking questions they are going to take notes, asking intentional follow up questions based on your answers, and trying to diagnose the actual problem (and the cause of the problem) as best they can.

 

Once they have enough to make a diagnosis, they are going to tell you what they believe the problem is. And most importantly, they will tell you their advice for the next steps towards solving that problem. Whether it’s a prescription they can write on the spot, a dietairy regiment, an exercise regiment, or them referring you to a specialist who is better equipped to help with the particular problem.

 

When you go to your doctor and they make a prescription, you do not have to take their advice. If you choose not to take the doctors advice, the consequences are not their fault! The doctors job is to diagnose the problem and prescribe a solution. If you choose not to take it, that’s not on them.

 

This is the exact mindset that I recommend you take when on a sales call with a prospective client. Your job is to ask as many questions about the area they came to you for help in as you need to in order to get a good diagnosis of the problem. Once you’ve diagnosed the problem, then you recommend a solution. Sometimes that solution is your flagship product… and sometimes the best thing you can do for them is actually refer them to an expert who is specialized in the particulars of their problem. This is why it is valuable to have a referral network; so that when you find someone who your core offer is not the best solution for, you can simply refer them to your friend who’s core offer is the best solution for them. This is a win-win-win; the prospect gets the best possible help for their problem, your friend gets a new client, and you get a referral fee.

 

And just like a doctor, if your prospect doesn’t take your advice, then you are not responsible for the consequences. This is what I mean by a consultative mindset. This is how to sell B2B. It’s the way you should think about your sales calls. Next we will discuss how to overcome objections before they happen. 

 

Sharing A View

 

Have you ever heard the name Apollo Robins? He is one of the worlds greatest pickpocket magicians (yes that’s a real thing, and once upon a time I was obsessed with it). I used to study Apollo. I would consume all of his material, anything about him, all of his performances. When he would do street magic, one of the most common things I saw him do was start a conversation out by telling the person, “You know, as a pickpocket magician, my biggest barrier is getting close enough to someone to do what I do.

 

Peoples guards are up, they are defensive, they know that I am going to try to get in their pockets and take their stuff so they tend to try and just keep as great of a distance between them and I as possible. So my biggest challenge is finding a way to get close, where their guards are down and I can do my job. One of the most effective ways that I have learned to do that is what I call ‘sharing a view.’ What I mean by that is if I try and stand side by side with them, they get very defensive. But if I pull out something in my hand, and stand next to them whil I point at it and explain something to them, I ‘share a view,’ then suddenly I am standing shoulder to shoulder with them without them feeling uncomfortable.” Apollo does this while he explains it. So by the end of his monolog, he is standing shoulder to shoulder with his participant.

 

After studying Apollo, I can tell you with confidence, that what he calls ‘sharing a view’ is not actually sharing a view. He tells them that it is the view of what is in his hand, but the real view that he shares with them to make them comfortable is the “insider information” that he is sharing with them. Giving him the insight into how he thinks and what he does, making them feel as though they are getting information that most people don’t get, that’s how he lowered their guard. That is what we can take away and how we can share a view in our sales calls.

 

Step 1 to sharing a view is knowing your ideal prospect so well that you know every objection they are going to have before you get on the call with them. (If you don’t know them well enough yet, don’t worry. We will get to that with the N30 Principle).

 

Step 2 is bringing up the objection before they do. If you remember back to Chapter 3, this is why we include the “saftey net” bullets in our value stack. Simply by presenting our value stack, we will overcome their objections before they have an opportunity to raise them. Even if you don’t use a value stack in your sales process (which I recommend you do when starting out) a golden rule in sales is this: If you bring it up first then it’s not an objection and you remain the subject matter expert in their mind… if they bring it up first then your response will most likely feel like an excuse or back peddling in their mind.

 

Step 3 is the art of it; it’s how you discuss the objections. If you bring it up in a way that seems like you are talking about them then they are likely to get defensive. That’s where we model Apollo’s script. We say something like, “Usually when I tell people about this they tend to say something like xyz.” This way we create a hypothetical third party person, who is not our prospect. For example, “Last week I was on a call with a guy who said xyz.

 

So What I told him was abc.” Since this is talking about someone else, and not your prospect, you get to be as blunt and direct as you want to be about your hypothetical person without risking offending your prospect (because you’re not talking about them, and since you brought it up first, they’ve never said the objection either). Up next I’m going to talk about the last (and most difficult) mindset element of my sales framework, but if you don’t get this down you won’t be successful in any sales environment!

 

Honey Badger

 

The honey badger mindset is one that I believe is incredibly valuable in every aspect of your business… but the most obvious implementation of it is sales calls. So here’s the story…

 

Back in 2011 a video titled “Honey Badger Don’t Care” went viral. It showcased how a honey badger is absolutely fearless in the face of literally any danger. Honey badgers ignore poisons snakes, run right past them as if they aren’t there, and just keep doing what they are doing. Honey badgers will attack bears if bears are in the honey badgers way. It doesn’t matter what it is, the honey badger fights, pushes forward, and keeps going.

 

That is the exact mindset I am going to encourage you to push yourself to develop. Imagine you are on a sales call and the prospect says “I don’t know” or “yeah, I’m not really sure the timing is right.” Honey badger don’t care, keep pushing forward. What do I mean by that? I simply mean that until they close— and by the way, this is a really important thing to understand in sales: “close” doesn’t mean they say yes, it means they gave a clear “yes” or “no”— until they close you keep pushing forward. If they say “I’m not sure about the timing” you respond “Why not? When is going to be better timing? When is the best time to make the right choice? When is the best time to start a family or go to college or start a job or buy a house?” You keep pushing until you come to a conclusion. Maybe the conclusion is that you are going to follow up with them in a week. If that is the case, you will keep following up until they tell you “no.” Honey badger don’t care, keep pushing forward.

 

I mentioned how you can use the honey badger mindset in every aspect of your business. Honey badger don’t care should be your response to yourself whenever you find yourself thinking “I don’t want to [insert important business task].” In fact, you’ll probably need the honey badger mindset to get you through the next point: The N30 Principle.

 

The N30 Principle

 

So far we have talked about the mindsets you should carry into a sales call (with the consultative mindset and sharing a view), and a mindset that you should take into every aspect of your business including the sales call (with the honey badger mindset). Similar to the honey badger, the N30 Principle is a mindset that should be carried into every aspect of your business… but it’s also something that you should incorporate as an actual SOP (standard operating procedure) in your business. Before I explain what the N30 Principle is, let me explain the problem.

 

One of the problems with doing something we have never done before is that we don’t know what to expect. We don’t know how to do it yet, we aren’t very good at it yet, and we know that practice and repetition is what it is going to take to get good at it… but we don’t know how much practice we should dedicate to it before worrying about results.

 

I’m sure you’ve heard of the 10,000 hour rule, right? The rules states that tt takes 10,000 hours of intentional focus on a task to get to true mastery in said task. That’s 5 years of full time work. If that’s intimidating, then I have really good news for you: it actually only takes 30 hours to become proficient at a task. So that’s less than a week. This is one implication of the N30 Principle. So, here’s the N30 principle in a nutshell:

 

In statistics there is a law called the central limit theorem. Once a statistician has a sufficient sample size, they use the central limit theorem to normalize the data (make it fit a bell curve without loosing information) so that they can properly do statistical analysis on said data. In many ways the central limit theorem is what allows the field of statistics to exist… but it all hinges on whether or not you have a sufficient data size for the math to work.

 

So what’s a sufficient sample size? You guessed it! In order for the central limit theorem to work, you need a sample size of at least 30!

 

In statistics the letter n is used to stand for sample size. So when I say “The N30 Principle” I am literally saying that you need a sample size of 30. So here’s the rule in business:

 

Whenever trying anything new in business you do not get to decide if it is worth pursuing or not, whether or not it works for your business, or whether or not to stop doing it, until you’ve done it 30 times. Similarly, you do not get to decide whether or not you (or any specific team member) are good at the task until you have done it at least 30 times.

 

So if you’ve never been on zoom for a sales call before, commit to doing it 30 times. At the end of the 30 reps two things will be true: 1. You are way better at it then you were on the first call, 2. You’re going to have data on whether or not it works for your business. This is the same commitment that you should make whenever trying anything that you haven’t done in your business before and whenever altering a system you already have in place. (For example, if you want to test a 2 call close vs the 1 call close you usually do, you need to commit to 30 2 call closes). The N30 principle is also how you are going to learn your sales cycle (which we are talking about next).

 

Knowing Your Sales Cycle

 

There isn’t much to say here, but it is a conversation that we need to have so that you don’t end up discouraged early on in your entrepreneurial journey. When we are talking about a sales cycle, we are asking the question, “How long does it take for your average prospect close (either give a solid yes, or a solid no)?”

 

Imagine you were to have a sales call with a prospect and 14 days go by without them being an affirmative “yes” or “no.” What does that mean? The reality that unless we have had enough sales calls to know what our sales cycle is, we have no idea what that means. We don’t know if they should have closed on the first call, within 3 days, or if it’s going to take our average prospect 2 months to close. (Note: we can get some insight by googling industry standards for our industry, but since every business is different, this won’t be 100% reliable).

 

Knowing your industry and your sales cycle is going to inform you on how often you should be following up with the prospect before they close. (if your prospect is a fortune 500 company, you shouldn’t reach out nearly as often as if your prospect is a solo-prenuer, for example).

 

So what do you do when you don’t know your sales cycle? You N30 it. After you have a sales call, reach out to them regularly until they close, and track the timeframe for your first 30 sales calls. Then you find the average. Now you know your sales cycle! And now that you know your sales cycle, you know what to expect with your prospects moving forward (and you know more about how you should push them and how you should follow up with them). Now, let’s tie everything together with the full sales framework.

 

The Framework

 

I earnestly believe that following a sales script is a bad idea. In my experience following a strict, rigid, script is a really good way to loose out on a large number of sales. Instead, I like to think of it as following a framework. The framework I am going to share with you combines everything that we’ve talked about so far this chapter with everything we talked about in Chapter 3 and makes closing sales significantly easier than anything else I have seen on the subject. (It is also going to be written for a 1 call close, but can be easily modified for a 2 call close). The following is the step by step framework on how to sell B2B:

 

Step 1 when they first get on the call have a short greeting, ask them how they are doing, and simply be friendly. This should last less than a minute on average.

 

Step 2 Tell them, “The way I like to do these calls is to split them into two parts. During part 1 I like to do a deep dive into you, your business (or whatever area you help with), what you got going on in life, what your struggles are, everything that’s going on. And then on part 2, if it make sense I like to transition into talking about how I might be able to help you. How does that sound?” Then you wait for them to give an affirmative response (I have literally never had someone say anything negative in response to this). A cool bonus of this question is that since you got consent at the beginning, when you transition to part 2 later, it won’t feel like a bait-and-switch, and they won’t be mad at you for trying to sell them something.

 

Step 3 You do exactly what we talked about with the consultative mindset (and what you promised them a moment ago): you start asking them questions about their situation, earnestly listening to their answers, asking follow up questions, and taking notes. The actual goal here is to earnestly understand them and the situation they are in. When it’s applicable, I also give a lot of free advice during this part of the call. I do this for two reasons: 1. To earnestly help them, 2. It positions me as an expert and gets them used to taking my advice.

 

Step 4 Once you have enough information to earnestly evaluate whether or not you can help them (or have a friend who can help them) simply say, “Ok, I think I have enough to go off of here and I think that I know a way that we can help you. Do you mind if we transition to part 2 of the call?” Because they said yes earlier, they are basically guaranteed to say yes again (again, nobody has ever said no to me when I ask this question).

 

Step 5 Share your screen with them and show them every element of your offer. For me, I literally show the pieces of software, the courses, the communities, or whatever else is in this particular offer (but you can do a slide dec presentation as well). Simply explain everything about how you can help.

 

Step 6 Switch to the value stack (which I do have on a google slide, so that I can bring up each piece one at a time). I usually use a line to the effect of, “So let’s recap everything I just went over.” Then simply go through the value stack (the way I talked about in Chapter 3). Note: When you get to the safety net bullets, present them by sharing a view.

 

Step 7 Show them the final price.

 

Step 8 The most important part… once you’ve shown them the price… stop talking. Don’t ask any questions, don’t ad any additional thoughts, simply remain completely silent until they respond. What will end up happening is that they will ask a question of some form. They will either ask “how do we get started,” “can I think about it,” or they will ask a question that is an objection/concern that they have. Whichever question they have, simply reply to it honestly.

 

If they ask about moving forward, send them the payment link while you are on the call. If they ask if they can think about it, get permission to follow up on a specific day. If they have an objection/concern, talk about it (and take note, you might need to ad a safety net bullet to your value stack).

 

For More Valuable tips on Building your business, check out our Ultimate Guide To Marketing For Small Business
For More WORLDCLASS trainings on how to sell B2B, check out one of the best videos on sales I have ever seen (by Alex Hormozi)

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