Paul M. Caffrey (00:01.742)
And I'm delighted to be joined by James Muir who is an SVP of a 40 million dollar company, also is author of a number of books, including The Perfect Close and also Unsticking Deals, which we speak a little bit about as that will be coming out soon. James, how are you doing? Great to have you on the show.
James Muir (00:21.295)
Hey, thanks for having me, Paul. It's great to be here.
Paul M. Caffrey (00:23.918)
I am very excited for this show. And we were chatting beforehand and you mentioned that, you know, Phil Jones, obviously co -author of the work before the work and you had the pleasure of speaking with him on stage.
James Muir (00:37.007)
Yes, we were at BizX 2023 there in London last year.
Paul M. Caffrey (00:41.55)
Yeah, I'd say great, great excuse to get over this part of the world. There's a lot that we could unpack that we spoke about in the prep for this show. And one of the things that jumped out at me was The Perfect Close, which is your best selling book. And for people who haven't heard of it, I'd love if we just dig into that a little bit for them to be able to understand how they could use that.
James Muir (00:42.863)
Thank you.
James Muir (01:07.567)
Sure. So, well, the way it came about is I am an accidental salesperson. I did not intentionally get into sales. I was a manager for RevCycle company and then we acquired a company in another state and I moved there, bought a new house, bought a new car. And then the sales guy that owned, that was part of that company that we owned, he left and took more than half of the clients with him. And so...
The CEO comes to me and says, you got to get in sales or we're going to lose this place. No pressure, right? And anyway, the short version is I knew the subject matter very well, but I did not know how to close to save my life. And so I wrote it because I personally struggled with that. And I literally, at the time I realized I could, I had a lot of deals in my pipeline, but nothing was ever getting over the finish line. So I ended up.
reading all these different books. I have tried and failed at so many, there are so much bad advice on closing out there. People, if they just go do an internet search, you'll get probably 95 % of it will be very bad advice. And it's all proven, it's all been tested. There's science out there around, you know, all these different types of closes. And the short version is that like,
most of the ones that you learn about like alternate choice clothes and all these different types of clothes is they work well in small environments where the stakes are low but the rules change on you when you go into high stakes selling so when you're when the value of the thing you're selling is large they actually it reverses back on you instead of becoming more effective it becomes less effective and the patron saint of scientific selling is Neil Rackham he wrote a book called Spin Selling he's from the UK and
He proved all of this stuff in the eighties and somehow these old myths about how to do this just keep perpetuating themselves. But I learned by accident that all I had to do was ask a couple of very simple questions and it would always advance my sales. So happy to share that with your crew, but that's how the book came about is that I was really just sharing my personal experience, how I struggle with it. And then I noticed that certain types of subject matter experts also, they loathe that part.
James Muir (03:25.007)
of selling. They say, well, I like helping people, but I really don't like the part where I have to commit them to something because it doesn't feel, you know, it's not congruent with my personality. And so this solves that problem because it's, it's just two questions. There's no pressure and it's really 95 % effective. It works pretty much all the time.
Paul M. Caffrey (03:43.566)
Yeah. And the mindset that you have to have if you've gotten to the part where you reach closing and this is difficult, the earlier you are in your career, if you've done the work, if you've taken somebody through an evaluation, if you've proved the concept, if you've proven the value is there and you can genuinely hand on heart go, yeah, this solution is going to help this business because it's going to get them to do X, Y, Z and you've taken them through it.
Really, you're doing them a disservice the longer you go without actually asking if they're ready to proceed, if they're ready to close. But for somebody who is maybe got a conversation, maybe it's a meeting this week or a meeting next week where they're like, right, I'm going to have to start closing. What are those questions that people can ask?
James Muir (04:26.511)
Sure, and maybe before I share what the questions are, I should just say, you should have a couple of outcomes in mind whenever you have your meeting. So if you've got a meeting coming up, you think, okay, what's the best possible thing? And this is in your book, right? This is the work before the work, right? You think, what's the best possible outcome for this meeting, okay? And keep that in mind, and then think, okay, well, let's just say I can't get that. What would be another way we could continue the momentum of the sale, let's still move forward. Neil Rackham called that in advance.
that I could still do if they don't like option number one. And then come up with a third one. So my advice is you should have an ideal advance and a couple of alternatives. So if you've got that, then you're prepped to use the perfect clothes questions. And I mentioned to you before we started here that gong .io actually tested all this stuff and they've discovered that the top performers are using the perfect clothes about three times per hour and it's hands down the best approach. Okay, so.
Here's the two questions. So this might be worth writing down if you're not driving. Okay. What the question is going to ask is, does it make sense for us to X? Okay. Where the X is going to be your ideal advance. So I might say, hey, does it make sense for us to schedule an assessment to see what our best options are? Okay. In that example, the assessment is the X. Okay. Now think about it. There's only two things they can say here. They're either going to say yes.
or they're gonna say no. If they say, yes, awesome, great, time to schedule the assessment, right? You just got your advance. If they say no, then the kindergarten version is to just throw the ball back to them and you're gonna ask a second question. That second question is some variation as a, okay, well, what do you think is a good next step then? And what will happen? I've been on hundreds of ride -alongs and what I can tell you is what will happen in 90 % of cases is the client will suggest a very logical next step for where they're at in the process. And that's that.
The thing that's important here is that we're just pacing the sale to match the pace that they're ready to go, right? But they're buying cycle. It's when you try to push a customer faster than they're ready for, that's when it's a problem and they start to feel pressure. Okay, but doing it this way, it's again, completely non -comfrontational. Now you can upgrade this just a little bit, right? I have people make fun of me sometimes. They say, James, you called it the perfect close, but that's only 90 % effective. So you give them 90 % and they want 100%, right? So.
James Muir (06:49.391)
You can upgrade this just a little bit. There's five variations of the perfect close. That's the kindergarten version. The second one is called the fallback. And so if they say, you know, you say, hey, does it make sense for a schedule assessment? They say, I don't know. Or they hesitate. You can say, OK, well, you know, a lot of clients at this stage will sometimes do this other thing. Does it make sense for us to do that? And again,
there's only two things they can say. They're gonna say yes, they're gonna say no. If they say yes, awesome, you got your advance. If they say no, you can just throw the ball back to them again, like you learned on kindergarten version and get an answer from them. And you can go a long way by just asking the customer and they will walk you through next steps. You can speed your sell cycle up a little bit by prepping before you go into it a little bit by thinking, what's the, you know, you sell your solution way more often than they buy.
Okay, so you're really much more of an expert than the client is. So you're just facilitating good decision -making when you suggest logical next step to them, right? And doing it that way. Now there's another alternative, just to, I'm not gonna go through all five, but it's called the add -on. So if we say, hey, does it make sense for us to schedule an assessment? And they say, sure. You can say, well, you know, sometimes clients at this stage sometimes do this other thing too. Does it make sense for us to do that? And you can add on the advances that you plan. So.
Either way, that prep that you did beforehand will either let you slow it down or speed it up depending on what the client's ready for. And I had a client one time, we were working with a group in Arizona that I was working with IT people and our ideal advance was to actually present to the executive team because we didn't think they were the, they're going to make the decision, right? We thought they were ultimately the executive team is going to make the decision. And so when it comes time, I asked this guy, he said, well, does it make sense for us to schedule time?
to meet with your executive team so we can get their input and feedback. He goes, yes, that's a great idea. I'm like, woohoo, right? I got my ideal event. So I just look at my list, I go, well, you know, sometimes clients at this stage will want to have scheduled time for our technical people to talk, to work through the details of the conversion. Does it make sense for us to schedule time for our technical people to meet? And he goes, my guys are super worried about that. That's a great idea. Yes, right? So I'm like, woohoo, cha -ching, right? I got two for two.
Paul M. Caffrey (09:05.742)
Okay.
James Muir (09:05.935)
So I just look at my list, you know, and I say, well, you know, I think we've got everything we need here to create like at least a preliminary proposal. Does it make sense for me to put together sort of like a preliminary proposal so you can get a feel for the scope of this thing? He goes, that's a great idea. And I'm like, holy smokes. That, right, I'm three for three. So when you're doing the add on, which is what that's called, there's one last thing that you do at the end. Instead of saying, what do you think is a good next step? You say this.
Are there any other logical steps we should be considering right now? And you'll never believe what this guy says to me. He goes, well, and he kind of looks around, you know, like he wants to make sure nobody's listening to him. He goes, well, James, is there any chance we could get a copy of your standard agreement? Cause our, our legal people can be kind of slow. Right. And so of course on the outside, I'm cool as a cucumber, but on the inside I'm like, yeah, man, are you kidding me? Of course I can get you a copy of our contract. Right. So that's the cool thing about it is you.
Paul M. Caffrey (09:54.446)
amazing.
James Muir (10:03.951)
we're just going to go at exactly the client's pace that the client's ready for. If they want to go slower, we can go a little slower. If they want to go faster, we can go faster.
Paul M. Caffrey (10:13.07)
Yeah. And the key thing with that is it's, it's very soft. You can ask that and it's a, it's a very chilled way of asking it. And I guess some other questions I feel maybe naturally go along the lines of it is if you want to find out how a deal is signed off, we can't really go, well, how's this deal going to get signed off? When you're a bit further along, you can, if you're a bit more confident about it, but even just questions like when we share documentation to be completed, what happens?
Where does it get sent to? And how does it get reviewed? And again, these are all very casual ways of saying, who are we sending the contract to to sign? Is it you? Is it someone else or whatever? But having that in a conversational way to ask those questions is super, super important. What are your thoughts, James, on laying out the sales?
cycle ahead of time, particularly in B2B sales. It's a case of, you know, there's a qualification call done and you know that, yeah, maybe it's a discovery into an assessment, into a demo, into a close. Do you recommend people lay that out ahead of time or hold it back?
James Muir (11:25.935)
No, absolutely. So you and I are aligned in that way. In the work before the work, you talk about mutual action plans, right? And also the decision -making process. And so one of the questions you want to ask, and this is especially important in complex B2B sales where there's a lot of stakeholders, right? You're going to ask them and say, well, tell me a little bit about the process that you guys are going to go through as you do your evaluation. And you're just going to listen, okay? And you're going to take them all down and...
Hopefully as a group, you're going to get quite a bit of input. What'll happen is some guy will mention the first part and then they start piling on and you get a big list and they're just going to listen and you can use a call it the forest, call it a Jedi mind trick, whatever you want to do. But if you hear that they're missing something that is a value to them through the process, like maybe they've forgotten that they're going to do, they're going to call references or something, or then maybe it's a complex solution. They need to see an action and we need to go on site somewhere. Right. You can say, well, you know, a lot of clients.
will actually go on site so they can see this whole thing in production. And then you're gonna use your perfect clothes. Does it make sense for us to add that to your process here? And they can see you're writing it down. I promise you guys, they will always agree to it. And so you can insert your criteria, but just remember, don't overweigh it, right? You're not trying to manhandle them. You're trying to facilitate good decision -making is what you're trying to do. But now you've got a list.
Now you can just go one extra step, which is, okay, who's doing this part? Who's responsible for this part? When do we need to get this done? when do we want to go live? we're going to back into that. Now what you'll have is a mutual action plan. It's just a project plan. And if it sounds like we're turning into a project manager, we are. And the project is for them not to just acquire your solution. You got to think past that because that's not how your client thinks. Your client's trying to get a result.
So that means your mutual action plan also needs to include the implementation. It needs to include the date that it goes live. You have to shoot past the world doesn't end when they sign your contract. So just think like your client and think, okay, when can we expect them to get the result and put all the little steps in there? And then after that, it's so easy. You're going to send it to them. Hey, here's what we talked about, right? They're going to agree to it. And now all you're doing is helping them go through the next thing on the list every time. Right? That is, I mentioned.
Paul M. Caffrey (13:47.598)
Yeah.
James Muir (13:49.903)
in unsticking deals, there's five very under, you know, undersung things you can do to prevent deals from ever sticking. And mutual action plans is absolutely one of those things. If you don't want your deals to suddenly go silent on you, work with them, collaborate with them, create a mutual action plan because then what you're doing is you're just helping them get the result. That's how they see it. But a classic mistake is to forget.
the whole post contracts phase of that. That needs to be included in the mutual action plan.
Paul M. Caffrey (14:20.27)
Yeah, absolutely. There should always be a go live. There should always be a when that expected result or outcome is going to be achieved. And then even having the renewal date, whether it's a year or three years away as part of that. So we see where we were. We're looking to make this an ongoing relationship. Two things which jump out at that that you can you can look at in is, number one, as to your point, James, you're an expert at what you sell. The people are following your lead somewhat.
So if you know there's a part of the sales process where things get a bit tricky, maybe it's difficult to get everybody to a demo. Maybe there's, you know, part of the review can be difficult because you've got a big document that you send over and that review team are maybe used to looking at a slide. Whatever you know, that can be a little bit messy. You've got the permission to call that out ahead of time and go.
Right. Well, if there is a problem getting everybody to the demo and you think we both agree that they're needed, they need to be there. What can we do? And whatever that sticking point could be that you want to foresee. And then when we get to that point a week or months later, whenever it is very easy to go, we're having that issue. We're not getting people to the demo. They haven't accepted it. Can we do that thing that you said? And maybe that other person will probably say, I'll chase them. I'll get them to the demo.
James Muir (15:35.879)
Thank you.
Paul M. Caffrey (15:38.542)
Can you go and do that now or whatever that might be? So that is something which you can use to bring, I suppose, bring your expertise to the fore and make sure that people get through. And then the other thing, which I think is super important is we're speaking about getting to the point of going live. We're speaking about the outcome and the value that they're going to receive. But ultimately,
James Muir (15:45.043)
Thanks for watching!
Paul M. Caffrey (16:00.174)
we want to get them through an evaluation where they can make a confident yes, no decision. So you can sometimes separate the signed contract piece to get in the evaluation done. And maybe somebody can't sign a deal until, I don't know, two months time because of it's in a different financial year, a different quarter. And other ways that you can pull things forward and cut contracts differently, but...
James Muir (16:21.007)
Sure.
Paul M. Caffrey (16:24.686)
That doesn't mean that your evaluation needs to run for two months. You could look to get your evaluation done over a week or over a two week period. So they're in the position to go, yeah, it's a go or it's not a go, your vendor of choice, you're not as opposed to just letting that because if there's a date you're working towards and then all of a sudden the momentum is lost and you're in a place where, to your point earlier, legal is going to take an extra four weeks with the red lines going back and forth.
You could have lots of time to have a deal done, have a plan, but then you could miss it because you have not taken advantage of the slack time that is available to you. When it comes to unsticking deals, obviously you've written the book on it. What are the, I suppose, what are the common challenges, the common reasons that deals stick in the first place?
James Muir (17:15.503)
So there's just three things. I know that's surprising to hear that, but there's really just three things that cause deals to stick. They're either sales issues, okay? There's client indecision, and then there's business case issues, okay? And they all have their own dynamics, but those are the three things. So if your deal is stuck, it's either something went wrong in your sales process, the client is suffering from indecision in some way, and so they can't move forward, or...
there's something fundamental in your business case that doesn't actually solve the customer's problem. So it's one of those three things. And when you survey people, by the way, they all think it's the business case, but that's, in my experience, it's not that. It's about 80 % of the time it's actually a sales issue is what it is. And there's maybe five key things in terms of sales issues. If you take the sales issue and break it down, there's really 80 %...
of the challenges can be summarized in just five things. And the first of those five things is just bad targeting. It is you're selling to the wrong type of client. The second thing is what we were just talking about, which is stakeholder management. How do I get access to them? How do I have conversations with them? How do I know what their criteria is? Okay.
That's an issue. Incidentally, one of the things that you can do to make sure that you get people at the meetings that you want is you can a prevention strategy is to just get an executive sponsor letter. So you're going to go as high as you can on the food chain. You're going to meet with the CEO or whoever it is. And then you're going to say, hey, you know, this is a complex decision that you guys are making. Can I get your support? And then I've got a letter, a whole template that you can use. But it basically just says.
Hey, if we have any issues, can I come back to you to help facilitate this process? If you get that right at the beginning of your process, then anytime stuff starts to slow down or you get stuck, you'll be able to go right back to an executive and say, hey, remember when we talked and you said you'd help lubricate this if we get stuck? I'm kind of there. And you'll be able to unstick deals at will if you use that letter. Sorry, that's a little sidebar.
Paul M. Caffrey (19:27.022)
I really like those little sidebar tips because that's what people can take action on. And even taking that a bit further, like, let's say if you're going out to an office and you're meeting the client and you know you're going into an executive team, for example, it can be a big meeting. I've done this a number of times where I've reached out to a CEO of the business. They're mid -market sized businesses, so maybe only three, four hundred people. So not huge. So CEO is accessible in an organization that size. And...
offered to meet that person for a coffee outside of the office. And all of a sudden you're walking back to the office, you're having a coffee, you've had a good conversation with the CEO, that executive team that you're going to meet, then see you walking in with their CEO. That really frames the meeting, that sharpens the mind. There are these small things that you can do. And if you get that airtime,
James Muir (20:10.255)
Yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (20:18.574)
Well, then you can even position what you're speaking about there, James, in another way. So you can always be looking at what can you do a little bit better to get yourself positioned in at the very least to be considered a peer or an equal with who you're selling to. I think that's super important that you're not just a salesperson coming in who's got a lower status than them. No, I like that piece of getting the leadership or the CEO on board for sure.
James Muir (20:33.583)
Bye.
James Muir (20:39.375)
Yep. Yep.
James Muir (20:46.159)
Yeah, and that kind of falls into that category of champion management.
And I see Medic on the shelf right behind you, but that is one of those components, right? We say, we know champion, no sale, right? And that would be the third main sales issue that sometimes, if I had to boil down, what are the sales issues that causes deals to get stuck? Champion management is the third one. There's just relationships in general, and the fifth one is competition. And there's ways to address all of those different things. We could drill down on any one of those, but it just depends on how much time you want to spend talking about unsticking deals.
Paul M. Caffrey (21:20.558)
Yeah, well, look, unsticking deals is an important topic. And I guess one thing when it comes to champions that people often is the champion isn't the person who's giving you the most airtime or the person who's chatting with is the person who's going to advocate that you and your solution is brought in ahead of all others. And typically it's because they're going to get some sort of personal gain if your solution is brought in first to competition. So a lot of people think they have a champion and what they have is a point of contact. So there's a whole piece there. But I guess if we if we think about what is
probably the biggest challenge for people. It's. I mean, it's probably around the relationships piece. They've met these they've met someone for the first time or they've had a few meetings with them and maybe relationships are not as strong as they could be. And maybe there's a stronger relationship with an incumbent or with something else, because typically if you're coming to sell your.
looking to displace something, not all the time, but a lot of the time. What can you do to improve relationships or what can you do to test the relationship to see if it needs work to be improved?
James Muir (22:29.487)
Well, I actually spend a whole chapter on that exact topic, but you've done the same. You're like, show me that you know me, right? Is what's in the work before the work. And so, you know, it's a multifaceted question. The number one thing you can do in my opinion is that every time you're with them, just be a hundred percent present and let them understand that you're just trying to help them achieve their goal. That's it. And by the way, guys, that might include you, but it might not include you.
So if you just go into every encounter, just saying, how can I be fully present and serve this person in the best possible way, you'll be sending all the right messages. It's when I literally, I had a, I manage a sales team and I had a client call me one time and said, don't ever send that guy back here again. And he goes, that guy has commission breath. And that in a nutshell, the first time I'd ever heard that I got that he's capturing it. My guy was somehow.
communicating that he didn't really care about the client. He only cared about himself and getting some money from this guy. That is exactly the message we're trying to avoid, right? And so if you just go in blank slate, tabula rasa, think, all right, how can I help these guys without thinking about what's in it for you? You'll be sending all the right messages, right? Now there's more to trust than just that, but that's a really big piece of it because if people mistrust your intentions, in most cases, it shows off. Like in the first couple of seconds when people meet each other, the first thing they do is they try to size up.
you know, is this person intention good? Are they trying to help me or are they trying to hurt me? And then if you pass that test, then they look at capability or like they say, how competent is this person? Are they capable of hurting me? Right? Are they capable of helping me? And there's a whole, you could create a little matrix on this, but if your intention is good, but your capability is low, they actually feel pity for you. That's not the feeling you're looking for.
But if your intentions are good and you have the ability to execute, you can help them achieve a result, then they'll feel admiration for you. And that's the thing that we're looking for, right? So a lot can be said about how to develop these relationships. But if I just had to go fundamental, it'd be like, just genuinely try to help them and be present and generally try to serve them. If you do that, you'll be sending all the right signals. On the other hand,
James Muir (24:53.967)
If you're brand new to your industry and you're not adding a lot of value right now because you don't understand your industry, then just roll up your sleeves and just know that you're going to have to become a master at the industry that you're in. And so you spend a lot of time on that so that you can add value in addition to just knowing how to offer your solution or even know how your solution, but you need to explain to them all the challenges that are happening in the industry right now and how to navigate that stuff. I know that might be a tall order,
But if you really, really wanna be a great salesperson, you're gonna have to master both pieces of that, right? So where great sales skills and competency in your industry skills match, where they intersect with each other, massive value is created. And so if you'll do those two things, you'll probably get past the relationship, but there's more to it.
Paul M. Caffrey (25:43.854)
Yeah, and I guess some practical steps you can take it like look at your case studies, know your case studies very, very well. And if you've inherited a book of business, speak to your customers and ask them, OK, I know why marketing says people buy this because we, you know, it's everyone drives efficiencies and saves money, whatever that is. Right. But what are you actually specifically using the product or service to do and what specific outcome has that given your business and.
Even if you're new to the industry, if you can get four or five of those and bring that into your meetings early, you know, that is that is helpful information that you can volunteer and bring up and start using as well.
James Muir (26:26.415)
Let me give you another shortcut. Okay. So I, as well as onboarding salespeople, remember I got drafted into the sales. So I already had the competency side, right? But when you bring on new people, sometimes you teach them the sales side, but they don't know the industry side. So I did a residency, I did, where I would put one of my salespeople out at a client site for between a week and a month, depending on the role.
Paul M. Caffrey (26:29.87)
Peace.
James Muir (26:57.263)
And then when they were talking to the client, say, when I did this, we did it like this. And so you have a whole different level of credibility when you can say that you did an internship and you did exactly what the client is doing. So if that's an area where you're soft, then take a break, right? And go spend some days actually doing the work for the client. The value you'll get out of that from a credibility perspective will just blow your mind.
And so it's absolutely worth taking some days off so that you can master the topic that you're selling into.
Paul M. Caffrey (27:30.734)
Yeah, and I think to your point, you're talking about a few days, which will give you so much to talk about, which could set you up for the next couple of years. So it might sound like no way am I doing that. But when you weigh it up, there's a lot of pros to that. Another one which works quite well, I found is go and work in a customer's or a prospect's office, maybe a half a day to a day, bring your laptop.
be there and the amount of conversations you'll have, the amount of insight that you'll get on what's going on, that also can fast forward the learning of what really happens with your ideal customer profiles that you're looking to sell to. You've obviously a vast amount of experience, James. What is your number one prospecting tip?
James Muir (28:17.263)
It's probably not what people think it is. So my number one prospecting tip would be to leverage the number one channel in prospecting and everybody knows what it is and nobody does it. And the answer is referrals. It's absolutely, you go look at the conversion rate of referrals to sales. It literally destroys every other channel by a country mile. The second, what's the second place in that list is so far it's hard to even figure out who's second place is. That's how, so if you're not leveraging referrals,
as part of your prospecting, then you are leaving a massive amount of potential on the table. And I'm just going to give you a really quick, like, there's a lot of books out there on B to C type referrals and I've read them all. And what I can tell you is most of the advice in those books boils down to asking one question, which is who else, you know, who can buy my stuff? And I'm just telling you, I have tried with my own teams and myself, and every time I've tried it, it bombs. Let me, let me, but let me tell you what does work.
Okay, when you meet with someone, just go research out in advance, right, who you want the introduction to. Asking a person who else they know who can buy your stuff is a lot of work, believe me, mentally it's hard for them to figure that out. So if I ask Paul, if he knows Phil, right, hey, you know, I think I could do some good work for Phil, would you be willing to introduce us? He doesn't have to think at all. And now he's just thinking, sure, I'll introduce you. And my advice is by the way, to use the word.
introduce, don't use the word referral. Referral comes with baggage and you don't need that. You're going to get all the benefit by just getting introduction. You'll get the same effect as getting a referral, but you won't have to use that word. So the secret that worked for me and has worked for my teams is research out in advance, either using LinkedIn or society rosters to figure out who they already know that you want the introduction to. If you'll do that, then it's simple. You go in, you ask them for one name.
And they will never reject you, I promise. What they'll do is they'll say, yeah, we worked together for years or he co -authored a book with me, right? I'd be happy to introduce you, right? Or they'll say, I don't know him that well, but if I did, I'd be happy to, I just don't know him that well. So you'll never get rejected. They will always act like they would have helped you. So that thing more than any other thing has helped us get the referrals that we need without all the baggage of referrals. And then once you've got that meeting, you're setting the time.
James Muir (30:43.119)
That means the customer hasn't already chosen a bunch of competitors and is doing a shootout, you're getting to choose the time that you're going to engage them. And you come with a built -in endorsement, which is the introduction that you had. So that's hands down my top advice on prospecting is just to use the highest leverage channel. And most people don't because they don't know how to get intentional about it.
Paul M. Caffrey (31:04.878)
Yeah, it's.
It works. There's a way to doing it. And even if you can make it even more relaxing, I'm going to be reaching out to this person anyway. Do you mind if I mentioned the fact that we're we're doing some work together? Really? Most people. yeah. Yeah. And then to your point, if they go, I don't really know that person. I worked with them when I was very junior in my career. Then you go have a conversation. And the odds are you probably have a few more people on that list. You probably you might have one name, but probably a few more. And if the conversation goes that way, you can bring them in. So a super, super tip, one that's
absolutely overlooked. And if you work in a large tech company and you think, well, that lead is going to go to somebody else, probably will if it's in a different territory potentially. However, who is going to get the leads that come into the business that maybe don't have a natural place to go? The person who brings leads to the table or the people who never bother. So again, you'll probably see it will serve you regardless, if not directly, indirectly. What is your number one sales tip, James?
James Muir (32:07.055)
Well, I could just go all the way back to intent matter more than technique does. So, I mean, honestly, when I see people mess up, it's usually that. So just remember what we were just talking about on the relationship side. I mean, I got lots of sales tips, but seriously, if you just walk into a customer and they can tell that you just want to help them and serve them in the best possible way, they'll give you all the information that you need in order to sell.
It's when you somehow go in and it's hard sometimes Paul, because the more value a deal is, the more we start thinking about what's in it for us, right? And so it gets kind of hard to not think about what's in it for you, but you have to get away from that. Leave the solution on the table, leave everything on the table. Just don't, none of that stuff matters. Just try to figure out what the customer needs. It might involve you. You might even have to involve a third party in order to completely solve the customer's problem.
But if you do that, they will give you all the information that you need in order to sell them. If you don't do that, or they mistrust you, then what happens is the whole sales process becomes dysfunctional because they stop revealing information to you. They think, I'm not going to give this guy all the details because you're going to use it against me somehow. And so that trust literally is the most foundational thing. So if you can't get that lick, none of the other tricks that I could share with you.
will really amount to much. So you got to get your intention in the right place. And there's just a whole ton of nonverbal signals that you're giving off. And if you just give up on what's in it for you and try to serve the customer in the best possible way, you'll be sending all the right signals.
Paul M. Caffrey (33:50.222)
Yeah, there's so much, so much great advice there. And Larry Levine, who was on as well, saw from the heart, he's very much into that message. It was done very well for him and people who are following him. What is your number one tip to get promoted?
James Muir (34:05.039)
deliver. If I had to boil it in a single word, just deliver. That's what in sales, that's what they're paying for. And I could give a little more nuance because if you want to know what it is, like when you survey companies, the number one thing that they're all trying to do is they're trying to generate more business. Okay. So if you had to find a specific sales skill that helps you deliver, it's going to be prospecting because nobody knows how to do it well. So if you can master that one,
Paul M. Caffrey (34:09.294)
I like it.
James Muir (34:34.735)
you will be able to make money at will in any company. And so, if the number one, if you want to get promoted, if you just produce results, that's all it will take. They'll say, wow, if he's good at a few things, let's make him a manager over many things, right? But that's the really short version is if you just deliver, then you're gonna get promoted. And the opposite is true, by the way. If you don't deliver, you're not long for this world.
Paul M. Caffrey (34:51.374)
Yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (34:56.526)
Yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (35:02.35)
Yeah, it's very, very simple, right? What books do you recommend salespeople read to improve?
James Muir (35:10.895)
So I read about 100 books a year, believe it or not. And in fact, I just mentioned before we got on, I just had finished reading the work before the work, which I wholeheartedly endorse. It's a phenomenal, I highly recommend the read and I'll do a full review for you on it. This is a very biased, I'm in the B2B complex sales space, okay? So my advice is if you are in that same space, a book that not many people know about,
and Perfect Clothes is dedicated to its author is Mahan Kals's book called Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play. Okay, that's the book. Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play. In my opinion, for complex B2B sales, it is the best book on discovery that has ever been written. It will tell you how to get through the entire process, how to create a return. You can actually learn how to create a basic return in the very first conversation you have with clients.
It'll tell you how to get to all the stakeholders. So for managing the discovery through to the middle part of the sale, right? It's not a prospecting book. It's not a closing book. It's the middle part. In my opinion, it's the best book ever written on it. And it's well worth your time. If you're in, again, B2B complex sales.
Paul M. Caffrey (36:26.286)
Fantastic. I have not even heard of that one, so I'm looking forward to checking it out.
James Muir (36:29.903)
Yes, it was written around, I want to say 2001, so it's an older book for some folks. Blue and white cover.
Paul M. Caffrey (36:38.894)
Cool. Well, there you go. It's yeah, I suppose around around the time of Aaron Ross and all those books coming out. So what? When we think about preparation and sales particularly, what does doing the work before the work mean for you, James?
James Muir (36:45.167)
Yes, yeah.
James Muir (36:57.359)
So maybe your audience doesn't know this. I actually have a day job. I manage a sales force of my own. I am the SVP for a $40 million a year company and it's healthcare. And so in my business, it means me understanding what is happening in the industry for healthcare and all of the little problems and challenges that they have day to day and how that affects them. And when I know that,
Then I can tie those things to the solution I offer that does that. And so my discoveries sound a little bit like this. I say, well, tell me what you have going on. And then they start telling me all their stuff and I go, okay, well, what else, what else, what else until they run out of gas? And then I say, and then if they miss one, I'll say, well, you know, a lot of people in our industry are hitting this right now. Are you guys hitting that? yeah. I forgot to mention that. Right. And then we add it. And then after that, I have all this information that I can tie.
to how I'm going to actually solve their problem. But mostly, mostly we have a saying, right, which is that prescription without diagnosis is malpractice. And that's just another way of saying, when you go see a doctor, you don't just say, give me the medicine. You want to say, hey, do an exam, help me understand what's wrong so that I can get it fixed, right? That's all we're doing. And so you understanding, like a doctor does, all the...
systems or the problems that you have as a person, that helps us prescribe the right solution. It's when they can tell that it wouldn't matter what they said, you were going to give them the same prescription, you've made a big mistake when that happens, right? So you need to listen, you need to actually do the exam. If they miss something, we need to ask a couple extra questions and then we're going to say, okay, here's how we've done that for some other folks. Tell me about it. And you're going to, that whole solutioning part of the conversation is just in
a collaborative process that you're doing with the customer. It is not a great carnack, I know the answer to the question before you even ask it type of thing. Right? So there's a massive amount of value in that and you'll, you'll gain a lot of trust by doing it that way. But anyway, for us, the preparation is just knowing all other issues before I get there. I'm going to let them tell me so they can prioritize what's most important to them. I need to know that. But at the same time, I want to be able to add, say, you know, Hey,
James Muir (39:23.759)
I want to help them avoid a potential pitfall. And so when you deliver insight, like, some folks are experiencing this, you guys experiencing like that, and then they go, my gosh, this guy gets us. Because you just mentioned the thing that they forgot to add, that adds a lot of credibility, but a lot of value happens at that moment.
Paul M. Caffrey (39:45.07)
Excellent. So, so much nuance. We could go on for so much longer. I think we'll have to speak again as you've got more books coming out in the not too distant future. James, people want to find out a bit more. They want to find your books. How can they contact you? Where do they go?
James Muir (40:01.487)
Sure, so my main website is called puremuir .com, P -U -R -E -U -I -R .com, and you can get perfect clothes. In fact, right now, you can actually get perfect clothes for free. All you have to do is pay for the shipping. So there's an offer right there right now that just happened. I think it'll be up when this airs. And then the Unsticking Deals book will be out. It's actually live right now, but by the time this airs, it will be live and they'll be able to get it. But you can just go to unstickingdeals .com.
just like it sounds, you spell it just like it sounds. And then they can get a similar type of offer there to get unsticking deals. So that's the best way. I'm absolutely active on LinkedIn, I'm active on Twitter. So if you guys want to follow me on those places, that's totally great. You can see I publish all of my best and newest stuff there before it actually ends up in a book somewhere. So you can kind of get the inside track if you're following me there.
Paul M. Caffrey (40:57.038)
Excellent. Well, James, thanks so much for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure.
James Muir (41:01.103)
Yeah, my pleasure, Paul. Thanks for having me on.
