 In this video, you're going to learn how to make sure that you're selling service design to the right person. If you have no clue who I am, who Mike is, make sure you click this playlist and check the first video where we explain everything. We're here to help you overcome some of the most common service design sales challenges. We've done two other already and we're going to continue with the third one. Mike, are you still excited and ready to do this? I'm pumped. This is a good one. I like this topic. This challenge is a question that I actually got from the community and it happens a lot where you might think that you're talking to the actual decision-maker just to realize at the end of the process that this person needs to run this proposal by his manager and then you end up in dead water. So that's what we're going to try to overcome here. The context is still the same. I'm an HR manager in a big insurance company and I want to improve the onboarding process, improve employee experience. Mike has just sent me a pretty awesome proposal but there's just a little issue on the line. We're going to jump in the call in three, two, one. So Mike, good talking to you. Proposal looks great. Really excited to move forward. I just need to run this by my manager and he'll be available at the end of this week. So I'll probably get back to you with a final decision coming Monday. Is that okay with you? Yeah, okay. That's fine. That's great. Thanks very much for letting me know. Mark, I'll get in touch later in the week. Perfect. I'll try to call you on Monday. Cool. Thank you. This is again for the people who just joined in. This is not the way to do it. So we're going to flip this around and do the conversation once again. But now we're not going to start at the moment where I, as a client, I'm calling you Mike and actually get the proposal and say I need to run it by my manager. We're going back to the very first moment you and I are having a conversation about a possible collaboration, possible project, right? Great. All right. Three, two, one. Mike, I was Googling the internet and I was looking for companies that deal customer journey mapping. Your name popped up. So I'm really curious to learn a little bit more about what you're doing and if you can help us with a challenge that we've got. Fantastic. Yeah. Great, Mark. Great to meet you. So I think we should get on a call at some point. So I'll run through that. We've actually got a tool that helps increase staff onboarding by as much as 40% and we can show you some case studies for that. Just to make sure that I can help your business as best as possible. Do you mind answering a few questions for me? Yeah, sure. So first of all, do you deliver onboarding in-house or do you use contractors or a system? Take me through that briefly. Yeah, we do all our onboarding in-house. So we've got a template. We've got a two-day session where senior staff members help junior staff members to actually get up to speed to get them to know the company. And yeah, we've got a pretty big package already designed and in place. Okay, fantastic. What are the biggest recurring problems, or would you say the single biggest recurring problem is when it comes to staff onboarding? Yeah, the biggest, that's what we hope to uncover also with you. We just know that at the end, we do a survey after a month when people have joined and we see that the score that we get for employee experience, the onboarding process isn't on par of what we would want. And the major issues that we're getting is that it feels a bit theory. People would like to see more things in practice and they would like to have better lunch. That's what we are basically getting through the survey. But then again, we would love to work on this and uncover what the real issues are because we sort of feel that this might not be it. Why does this affect you then? Well, I'm responsible for making sure that our employees are happy and are productive as an HR department. So we own this challenge. So the bug stops with you basically, right? Yeah. Okay, good. All right, well that's fantastic. So if we could get your staff up and running faster, and like you say, the scores would be improved perhaps in some cases as much as 40% like with our other clients, would that be interesting to go over with you on the call? I don't know actual percentages, but yeah, that's definitely what we're aiming for. Okay, fantastic. So who on your team would need to see these benefits the most? Who do I need to have a conversation with? Yeah, I think I'm the guy you need to have. And are there any other decision makers on the call or for the project? I might invite Jeff. He's the HR specifically for recruitment. He's there recruitment. I don't know what his official title is, but I'll invite Jeff to the meeting as well. Fantastic. And are you in 100% control of the budget as well? Well, we decide the budget with our team. So yeah, eventually I'm the person who gives a yes or a no, but we decide with our team if we want to continue in any engagement. Fantastic. That's great. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to send you a link to a calendar. In fact, actually I'm going to do better than that because we're on the call right now. I've got some availability next Tuesday at three o'clock. Would that be a good time for me to come in and just take up 18 minutes at a time? Tuesday. Yeah, works for me. Is Jeff going to be able to make that as well? I'll need to check his schedule. Let's assume he'll be and if not, then I'll let you know. Okay, fantastic. So that's Tuesday with yourself and Jeff at three p.m. at your office. I will see you there. Awesome. No worries. Thanks very much, Mark. Thanks for calling. Cut. Mike, let's rewind. This was a completely different conversation. Yeah. So any new inquiry at all ever always gets stopped when it turns out they're not the decision maker. When I used to sell satellite TV door to door and I would sell to the guy typically at home. If it was a guy or a woman, they'd always want to check it over with their spouse. Right. So who's the decision maker? Right. The sales director, sorry, the sales manager or the training manager, they always want to run it past the sales director. The problem is that we have to understand who the decision maker is really early on. 99.9% of your customers are comfortable telling you who the decision maker is and what we did is at the top, we actually went over some of the problems, some of the benefits if we could do that. And I just threw 40% out there. You want to change that around? Right. And that made it clear to you that yeah, this is going to be worth and beneficial. And I then need to know if you want me to help your business as much as I can, who do I need to have a conversation with? Who do I need to talk to? And when we understand who the decision makers are as early as possible, it makes the rest of the process much easier. So I think the thing people run into is that they find it awkward or they don't want to, what's the right word? Yeah. They don't want to come across as rude or invasive. Maybe they see it's private information. Yeah. How do you deal with that? So first of all is whenever I get a bill come through or my bank says I owe the money, I can't ever call them up and say I'm really sorry I don't have any money. It's because I felt really awkward asking these questions. My bank doesn't care about that. So if your bank doesn't care about it, you can't care about it. On the second hand, you genuinely can't help your customers as much unless you know who is making the decision. It's easier for you when you buy products and the sales person is talking to you, whatever you're buying, car, stereo system, house, and they know that they're talking with you. You as the buyer want to know as much about the seller as possible. So it's ethical to ask who else do I need to have a conversation with? And the reality is most of the time most people are actually very happy to have that conversation. It's another case of if they're busy, fine. Keep closing them. Keep saying, well, when can we get a call? There's another piece that when we do go in for meetings or if we jump on a period or whatever we do and they go, oh, Jeff can't turn up. The first thing I'll say is great. Let's reschedule. They go, whoa, whoa, whoa. We can have a conversation like I need to have a conversation with all the decision makers on the call. That's how we run our business. So let's reschedule. All of a sudden, wouldn't you know it? They're usually able to find Jeff. And how do you, have you ever been in the situation where the person on the line is saying that they are the decision maker where you're just in the end, the scope that they always need to run it by their manager? Yeah, we actually tend to find that out pretty early on. So we have a pretty stringent qualification process. We have five questions, budget, authority. So decision maker, what their needs are time scale and supply. So banks be eight NTS budget authority need time scale and supplies. Typically someone who isn't the exact decision maker actually won't know the answers to one of those five questions. So at that point that usually is a signal to me that while someone else is probably involved with this and we'll keep pushing. Having said that, yeah, every once in a while we've been stung. Only recently did I go through an entire process with someone who said that they held the purse strings. So they were the budget holder and decision maker. They were the person who would implement it. And they said, oh, well, I'll run it past this person. And I've then said, I don't know who the hell that is. Why have they suddenly come in? I will then say they need to have a conversation with me. And if they don't, if they go, well, they're too busy, I just won't have a conversation with them. They're obviously not someone who's, it's a dialogue. It's a two-way street. You have to trust me as much as I have to trust you. So it does happen, but the more comfortable you get asking for the decision maker, most people will tell you. Interesting. I think this is so common that people, it feels uncomfortable to ask, can I talk to your boss? Because like you're... Yeah, why? This is the thing. Why? If you're selling something that's genuinely worthwhile, the boss should want to know, you should have such a feverent belief that your products can help people that the CEO should want to be on this call. This is going to be so useful to your business. This is going to be so helpful and valuable that your CEO is going to want to bring their family in. That's how useful this product and service is going to be. And if you have that enthusiasm, it's much easier for other people to say, hey, man, you've got to come on this call. You've got to meet Mike. You've got to meet Mark. He really knows what he's talking about. Yeah. And you shouldn't be asking it from like... You should be asking for the person to be on the call because they will benefit from it. Not because you're... Now, I do need them to be on the call because I need to develop a relationship with them. But it's a bit like... A chef doesn't serve you a great meal, a delicious meal for his benefit. He serves it for your benefit. He wants to give you the best possible experience and the best meal possible. So when I'm having a conversation with the actual decision maker, I want them to see the benefits. I want to sell to them. I want to help them. I want to solve their problems. And occasionally, they've gone, yep, fantastic, but we can get on the call and it has to go through. And we end up closing them on the call when we do the live pitch or the presentation. But most of the time, when you ask most businesses, and I would say 99% of the time, will answer honestly and they will say, this is the other decision maker and they understand that's the process. Yes, you might have to wait another couple of weeks for a meeting, but most of the time, they're happy to do it if you ask. All right, important tips. Make sure that you're talking to Batman, not Robin. And don't be afraid to ask. Be proud to ask because it benefits everyone. Let us know down below in the comments. If you've ever been in this situation and I know you're lying if you say no. So let us know how that went through. And if this strategy for Mike, do you think it will be helpful or what are your questions about this strategy? Let us know. We would love to know in the comments. In the final video in this series, we're going to talk about the ultimate sales tip for Mike. So if you're interested in that, make sure to click this video over here. Mike and I will see you over there.