How to Get Better Quality Leads with Assignment Selling [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 63]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy.

Chris Duprey
0:00:00
If you want to know how to take control of your sales destiny with one single approach,

Chris Duprey
0:00:12
check out our conversation.

Alex Winter
0:00:23
for Impact Live 2024 in Hartford, Connecticut this October 14th through the 16th. Over three days, business owners, CEOs, and marketing and sales leaders will learn proven strategies to drive business growth. Attend expert-led sessions on marketing,

Alex Winter
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Alex Winter
0:01:00
bucks. So when you're on the checkout page, just enter the code ECPOD100 in all caps for a hundred dollars off. We'll see you there at Impact Live 2024 up in Hartford, October 14th through the 16th. Welcome back to Endless Customers, the show that teaches you how to earn trust and win more business in the age of AI. I'm your host, Alex Winter, and today we're joined by Chris Dupre. He's a principal coach here at Impact.

Chris Duprey
0:01:26
Chris, welcome back to the show.

Alex Winter
0:01:28
Hello, my friend. Hello, my friend. It's great to have you back. Thanks. Today, you've got an important one. Yeah.

Alex Winter
0:01:35
We're talking about assignment selling. Yep. But more specifically, we're talking about assignment selling and how important it is with endless customers and what business leaders need to do in order to implement this effectively get everybody drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid getting excited about it. So what is a good place to start? We define assignment selling for people out there that don't know and then we'll get into how you actually get the line. leverage content to help educate buyers throughout the sales process, right?

Chris Duprey
0:01:55
Foundationally, it starts like Marcus doing the pool thing and finds that, hey, if somebody's read 30 articles on my website, they buy a pool 80% of the time. So he starts sending them a 30-page buyer's guide before he meets with them, right? And so that's the foundation

Chris Duprey
0:02:26
today It's really about Helping folks be prepared for the meeting you're going into it's about educating them on the decision making them aware of what what's going on and All the same stuff is true the more that people are educated the more they're gonna buy and we can influence that in the sales process if we simply do it correctly.

Chris Duprey
0:02:53
And... It's actually pretty amazing how much it changes the sales process and cycle when people are educated, when people already have trust, when you've already given them the info before you talk to them, so you're not on the call

Alex Winter
0:03:06
having the same conversation over and over

Alex Winter
0:03:08
and over and over again.

Chris Duprey
0:03:09
Yeah, it's this whole idea of I can read or I can watch a video and if I can come to a meeting prepared I'm going to do that. Absolutely. So one of the things if you take a look at sales calls when people don't know what to expect they show up cold and defensive or like the alpha dog that's going to take charge of the call.

Alex Winter
0:03:42
Totally.

Chris Duprey
0:03:43
All those scenarios are not good if you're a seller.

Alex Winter
0:03:48
No.

Alex Winter
0:03:49
They're not. No, it's the opposite of what you want as a salesperson.

Chris Duprey
0:03:52
Correct.

Chris Duprey
0:03:53
Yeah. So one would say it would make, it would totally behoove us to get ahead of people's fears, apprehensions, or their desire to guide the conversation before the conversation

Alex Winter
0:04:06
happens. Yeah, no, I mean, to me it seems pretty common sense. Like, yeah, anybody that's a sales professional or has ever done sales would want that, and it makes sense. So with that in mind, how do people, how do leaders implement this with their sales teams? How do they get the buy-in that they need?

Alex Winter
0:04:22
Because I feel like even though it sounds pretty self-explanatory. It may not be as easy to implement as one thinks.

Chris Duprey
0:04:29
Facts.

Alex Winter
0:04:30
Yeah.

Chris Duprey
0:04:31
Okay, these are facts. Yeah. So, first off, if you didn't start with Alignment Day, and everybody doesn't understand why educating buyers makes sense, and how they're buyers just like them,

Chris Duprey
0:04:42
that they'd like to understand what's happening before, like, if you don't do that work, you're gonna struggle.

Alex Winter
0:04:49
Right. And we have a whole episode that we did with Chris earlier all about alignment days. If you're not sure what that is, make sure to go back and check that out to get a reference

Alex Winter
0:04:56
point for that.

Chris Duprey
0:04:57
Right.

Chris Duprey
0:04:58
So let's say you've done that.

Alex Winter
0:05:01
Now what?

Alex Winter
0:05:02
Right.

Chris Duprey
0:05:03
Now what?

Chris Duprey
0:05:04
So, a couple of things that get in the way. is sales folks, and this is gonna sound so funny, don't like to be assertive or don't like to tell people what to do. Really?

Chris Duprey
0:05:20
I mean, a big majority of them.

Chris Duprey
0:05:22
Okay. And so their language is usually like very soft. I mean, that makes sense

Alex Winter
0:05:28
because otherwise you get like categorized into that pushy salesperson. Right, right.

Chris Duprey
0:05:33
So they're so trying to swing the other way, that they don't want to tell people what they actually need to hear, sometimes. So that's one piece. Another thing that totally gets in the way is, the most effective way to do this

Chris Duprey
0:05:44
is to leverage one-to-one video in email. And a lot of people do not want to use video. Like, they just don't.

Chris Duprey
0:05:53
So you gotta get over that.

Chris Duprey
0:05:54
Right, and what is a one-to-one video? Yeah, so, I mean, it's a video. So if I was sending you a one-to-one video would be a video from me to you not a video like the the other type of video be a one-to-many so this is a classic one-to-many video share we are talking to a huge audience we can send this to multiple people it is not

Chris Duprey
0:06:21
specific but if I'm about to meet with you and I'm gonna send you like, hey Alex, Chris here from Impact, so fired up to talk to you about, ba ba ba ba ba, here's ba ba ba ba ba. That is for you.

Alex Winter
0:06:32
It's personalized.

Chris Duprey
0:06:33
It's personalized. It shows folks that we're actually invested in them.

Alex Winter
0:06:38
Yeah, that makes sense.

Chris Duprey
0:06:39
So that's a hurdle. And then the next hurdle, so there's two more. One is like, well should we even start doing this if we don't have content yet, we're going to talk about that. By the way, the answer is yes. And then the last one is,

Chris Duprey
0:06:56
we just don't know what to send or say or when to do those things.

Alex Winter
0:07:02
Sure.

Chris Duprey
0:07:03
Right?

Chris Duprey
0:07:04
Actually, one last one that just popped into my mind is like, we want everybody to execute it at the same level all at the exact same time. These are all different things that get in the way.

Alex Winter
0:07:17
Got it.

Chris Duprey
0:07:18
Right?

Alex Winter
0:07:19
Yeah.

Chris Duprey
0:07:19
So if we want to unpack those.

Alex Winter
0:07:21
Yes, let's do that.

Chris Duprey
0:07:22
Right, so I think the biggest one to unpack, well, let's go in order.

Chris Duprey
0:07:28
So.

Alex Winter
0:07:28
You had said that people don't want to make these videos. They don't want to tell people, yeah. And there's a mix of reasons why. Sometimes it's a technical piece, sometimes people just don't like seeing themselves on camera

Chris Duprey
0:07:36
or hearing themselves or like there's all these video let's video let's take one step back and go first they don't want to be assertive because they don't want to be the pushy salesperson okay cool I think the biggest thing to get across everybody's mind is you're not telling them to go do something that's gonna be harmful to them okay right hopefully you're helping them be So look at it from that standpoint, but don't say things like,

Chris Duprey
0:08:04
it would be great if you could. Say things like, for us to have the best meeting and make the most use of our time together, I need you to X, Y, and Z.

Alex Winter
0:08:16
Right, so if you're sending a one-to-one video, don't say like, hey, if you have a minute, maybe we can watch this video.

Chris Duprey
0:08:22
I know you're busy. Like those things auto-delete, right? Like they just don't get, they don't happen.

Alex Winter
0:08:28
Weak language, yeah.

Chris Duprey
0:08:29
Yeah, so we gotta make sure our language is good, right? That's an easy hurdle that with a little coaching, you're gonna get past. Sure. This video thing that was for real. People are like, I don't like the way that I look.

Chris Duprey
0:08:40
I don't like the way that I sound. And I feel that. I'm like, listen, I was not always comfortable being on video.

Alex Winter
0:08:47
Hi, me too.

Alex Winter
0:08:49
You told me I was going to be hosting a podcast a couple years ago.

Chris Duprey
0:08:52
No. Right, but here's the thing. It's not like you can change what you look or sound like when you walk into a meeting. That's a fact. It is what it is. So if you're like, why do you want my stuff in person? I don't like how I look on camera. You look the same. You sound the same. Yeah, it's you right and so so sometimes you know as a coach I might get people with a two by four of truth of like you're just you man yeah lady like this is it right right so it's practice and practice and

Alex Winter
0:09:28
practice yeah but it that plays into the ultimately we're trying to be authentic and in order to be authentic you just have to embrace embrace who you are yeah

Chris Duprey
0:09:36
and again go back to what are we trying to do? We're trying to make the buyer Ready and more comfortable for a sales conversation, right? So if they see you and hear you and you've helped them know what to expect They're gonna be pretty freaking happy. They're gonna be way more open and inclined to talk to you. Yes without a doubt But so here's the thing that the best companies do the leaders

Chris Duprey
0:09:57
Only they start responding to people only video who so they basically show their sales teams like we're embracing it to its uncomfortable yes I could send you an email about this but I'm gonna send you a quick video addressing your concern and that is that's one of the tricks like as you start

Alex Winter
0:10:19
you start having that's great leadership though because when you leave you lead by example

Chris Duprey
0:10:23
people are way more likely to follow so if you're going to make people make videos you shouldn't be exempt from that from that. Exactly, so you start doing that and then you also start seeing a few people on the sales team do it and they get a meeting booked, they have a great demo call. Now it starts to, now people get over it.

Alex Winter
0:10:53
Right, exactly.

Chris Duprey
0:10:54
Oh, it's starting to work?

Chris Duprey
0:10:54
Yeah. No way.

Chris Duprey
0:10:56
So that's how you get over the video piece.

Alex Winter
0:10:57
Sure.

Alex Winter
0:10:58
Right?

Chris Duprey
0:10:59
Then, when we go into, well I don't have any content.

Chris Duprey
0:11:04
I mean, you do.

Chris Duprey
0:11:06
It's the video that you're creating, right? So if somebody asked you a question that yes your content manager your videographers working on that piece of content but it likely started from a common question that you've already been asked and that you answer 10,000 times right create the content yeah just do it in one video right right but again go back to like what's the overarching thing at the beginning, setting the conditions to have the sales conversation

Chris Duprey
0:11:39
you want to have. If all you do when you start doing assignment selling is going, hey, Chris here from, insert company name, we're meeting on Friday, here's what we're basically going to talk about. Here's some things that might be helpful for you to have with you before that conversation. We're going to record the conversation so that we don't make any mistakes, so that you and I know what's going on.

Chris Duprey
0:12:07
I'm looking forward to talking to y'all about why you reached out to us. That is just gonna, nobody in your industry's probably doing it. Yeah. They're starting from a different point.

Chris Duprey
0:12:18
Now, you're humming on Endless Customers, you got content, you're going, Alex, can't wait to see you. Before we get started, we've got this video. In this video, it answers eight of the 10 questions that we most commonly get asked.

Chris Duprey
0:12:38
And I'm gonna tell you, of the eight questions in this thing, I guarantee that five of them, at a minimum, are rolling through your head. So, before that meeting, I need you to watch that video so that you come in ready to talk about the specifics around why you reached out to us knowing the answers that I know are top of mind

Chris Duprey
0:13:00
but might not be the most important. Right. So I'll see you Friday. Yeah. Right. That's powerful.

Alex Winter
0:13:06
Right? Yeah, it's powerful. And so we just we can do it without the content it's and then we can do it with the content yeah but it's twofold too because on the front end just from the perception of whoever you're sending this message to its potential client whoever that whatever the case is right you seem really buttoned up there's a video that there's another video for me to watch answer my questions it's gonna get me prep for this meeting it just seems very buttoned up so there it starts to build confidence

Alex Winter
0:13:34
and trust and then also when you get in the meeting you don't have to have that 15, 20 minute dialogue of those those questions that everyone asks you are already past that. And you can have a way more meaningful exchange,

Chris Duprey
0:13:44
you can add value and get the information you need. Exactly. Right. So then we go into not knowing what to send when and all those things. This gang is about you and your teams fully understanding your sales process. So what are the outcomes you hope to achieve at the end of the different steps? And what is the buyer feeling, thinking,

Chris Duprey
0:14:08
at those same stages? So you gotta do that work eventually, like as you adopt it. But you don't have to know all of that stuff to get started. You wanna work on it, but the first thing I get started

Chris Duprey
0:14:22
is getting people comfortable with one-to-one video.

Alex Winter
0:14:24
And then we're just setting the conditions for that first meeting, okay? Do you ever have people sales folks because I you coach and train a ton of people on this right? Do you ever have sales folks that are like I don't want to give people homework I don't want to give people too much beforehand that they have to like watch these videos and do all this stuff is there Yeah, I never come up. Yeah, I Educate them in the call Chris. Oh, oh, that's a good one

Alex Winter
0:14:45
Yeah, I mean listen and maybe they do these are facts.

Chris Duprey
0:14:48
Sure. This happens. I mean, shoot, I sell stuff and totally do that. But the idea is, how much time does it take and how much is that me now talking about me versus me understanding you?

Chris Duprey
0:15:03
Yeah, and that's a big shift. That's a big mentality shift.

Chris Duprey
0:15:05
Yeah.

Chris Duprey
0:15:06
So, listen, do sales teams just adopt this and go, woo-hoo, we're ready? No.

Alex Winter
0:15:16
This takes time.

Alex Winter
0:15:17
Well, unlike anything, you have to practice it and you hone your skills and you get better with it. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Duprey
0:15:22
But the idea is, you have to be good at one-to-one video and build that culture of doing that. You have to get good at knowing what are the outcomes you wanna have in sales meetings and what are the inputs that would help with that? Right, and that's understanding your buyers more.

Chris Duprey
0:15:41
Then it's as you launch this, do you launch it with everybody or do you launch it with a small group? This is where it's gonna depend on your company and the way that you all operate. But I've seen the best things I've seen

Chris Duprey
0:15:52
is when you have one or two people that really crush it and start to do well with and share how their videos are going over and then everybody wants to get on board very quickly.

Alex Winter
0:16:03
Right. It creates that sort of domino.

Chris Duprey
0:16:04
Big momentum.

Chris Duprey
0:16:05
Yeah.

Alex Winter
0:16:05
When I feel like I used to do sales, uh, you know, in a previous engagement where if I saw somebody else that was leveraging a new tool or doing something that was helping increase their sales, I would want to know everything that they're doing and how they're doing it. So I could do the same thing. You know, it's a very competitive space in a good way. Healthy competition.

Chris Duprey
0:16:21
Yeah.

Chris Duprey
0:16:21
And so as we go, how do we get people to adopt this? Again, you understand why we're doing it, right? So, why, huge piece. Hey, we're trying to educate buyers to help them move through our sales process and buy our stuff.

Chris Duprey
0:16:40
Yep, cool. Okay, then we gotta go to video. How do we get good and comfortable? Comfortable's better than good. How do we get comfortable doing one-to-one video? How do we make sure the message is right?

Chris Duprey
0:16:53
How do we know when and where to use it? If we do those things, we can start doing assignment selling week one of your endless customers journey. I would argue that if you're listening to this and you're the owner that still sells and you've got a discovery call tomorrow. Do what I just said. Yeah, try it out. Tell your buyer what to expect on the call and then tell us what

Chris Duprey
0:17:28
happened when they showed up to the call. Yeah. Because I'm gonna tell you, when buyers know what to expect, they're in a better position for you as a sales professional.

Chris Duprey
0:17:39
Yeah.

Alex Winter
0:17:41
I feel like when you set the expectation and you give people a chance to see who you really are, you get to see your personality, you get to hear your voice, it just builds trust. And that's ultimately what we're trying to do here is build trust.

Chris Duprey
0:17:51
Because it takes away the unknowns.

Chris Duprey
0:17:52
Right.

Chris Duprey
0:17:53
Right?

Alex Winter
0:17:54
Totally.

Chris Duprey
0:17:55
When you don't know who you're about to talk to.

Alex Winter
0:17:58
It's an extra layer of uncertainty.

Alex Winter
0:18:00
Yeah.

Chris Duprey
0:18:01
And it just adds a little bit of anxiety maybe sure so the more we can remove that stuff at sales professionals The more we're going to move deals forward the more we're gonna close the more we're gonna win Winning is good. I like that. I love winning

Alex Winter
0:18:14
So again you train a lot of companies on this you've been doing this for years now Do you have a story you could share where? Company or leadership team somebody adopted assignment selling in just where it took them from like a to b uh... as far as increasing sales or something so

Chris Duprey
0:18:32
so but one of my favorite favorite examples of the whole world's opus partners i don't listen and i've been working with them for ever i've got a really terrible they make people do work before the first meeting they got a fill out some forms they got a reader buyers guide

Chris Duprey
0:18:50
but here's why. If they don't fill out the form beforehand that has their financial data and some of that stuff in it, we're going to spend 20 minutes doing data fill.

Alex Winter
0:19:01
Yeah, doing that, which is so much fun.

Chris Duprey
0:19:03
Which is a waste.

Alex Winter
0:19:04
I know.

Chris Duprey
0:19:04
Doesn't everyone love doing that? And then if you don't read the buyer's guide, now the property partner's got to educate you for another 20 minutes. Well, their calls before they started really doing this well, they were doing 90-minute discovery calls.

Alex Winter
0:19:19
Wow.

Chris Duprey
0:19:20
Right. They called them portfolio planning sessions, like 90 minutes. That's a long time. And some of them, some were long, some were shorter, but their call time to get to the outcome they're trying to get to was really, really long. They start doing assignment selling.

Alex Winter
0:19:33
Right, everything we've been talking about.

Chris Duprey
0:19:35
immediately made the time on call less. And then as I worked with them on some other things, it all got really tight. But the idea here is, everybody knew what they were going into in that first call. You could tell if somebody really wanted to do the thing,

Chris Duprey
0:19:52
or they just wanted to talk to somebody because if they didn't do the work, they're really not that serious.

Chris Duprey
0:20:03
They may not be as qualified.

Chris Duprey
0:20:04
And so Opus would like reschedule the meetings.

Chris Duprey
0:20:07
Gotcha. Right.

Chris Duprey
0:20:08
And so as all this happens, they just start having better educated, better qualified. And they could know, so let's say that somebody wasn't ready to do their program. They knew it before they got in there. So now the conversation is different. Because hey, you're actually like three years away from being ready to do this based on your financial standing.

Chris Duprey
0:20:33
Here's a program that can help you to make you ready.

Alex Winter
0:20:36
Right.

Chris Duprey
0:20:37
Right. And so it allowed them to be even more helpful, which then made them build more trust, which is why they are one of the best companies that does endless customers in the world.

Alex Winter
0:20:48
Yeah. Well, when you talk about building trust, when you don't hard sell somebody like that, you give them some information to say, hey, this will help you and it nurtures you. And in two or three years from now, hopefully you'll come back and do business with that person most likely will because you didn't hard sell them.

Alex Winter
0:21:01
You didn't force them to do things that they weren't ready for, you know, and that's, that's really the beauty of, of this whole system.

Chris Duprey
0:21:07
And it shows them who you are and it breaks through some of those things. Yeah. And so Opus is my is my favorite Example you know I've seen it from but I've seen it with work with IT companies. I've seen it work with Roofing companies with home improvement companies like insurance companies first when people know

Chris Duprey
0:21:29
What to expect? They just and they're told and they know who they're talking to, they generally show up in a better way, and you get better outcomes. Absolutely. So.

Alex Winter
0:21:44
So what's the one thing that we should leave folks here with assignment selling, obviously besides the elephant in the room, which is you should be doing assignment selling.

Chris Duprey
0:21:52
I think it's a deeper one that is, don't accept that sales could work or not work. Like don't be a victim of the experience. Take charge, be a master of your own destiny. Step one is setting the conditions to have the conversations that you want to have.

Chris Duprey
0:22:18
And if you do that,

Alex Winter
0:22:19
you will be the master of your own destiny. Well said, Chris, thanks for your insights. Thanks for being on the show. Love having you, man. Thank you. All right. And for everybody out there watching and listening, this is you, man. Thank you. All right. And for everybody out there watching and listening, this is Endless Customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter. See you on the next episode.