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[Music]
Good morning everybody and welcome to this episode of 30 Minutes to President’s Club. My name is Armand Furok.
I’m here with my co-host Nick Szygelski and whole man.
Top AE at Gong.
J.C. Pollard.
Nick, why should people listen?
Well, J.C. actually knows how to book a meeting using the magic device called the phone. He is a cold calling expert.
This was a great one because Armand and I talk about cold calling a lot and best practices for cold calling.
And like, J.C. just, he explains it in a different way.
And so if you want to get better at booking meetings on the phone, listen to this one.
And then if you want to figure out how to soft close at multiple times throughout your
deal process, J.C. also knows how to do that.
And the three, the two, the one.
Do you want to listen to this episode?
Until you say yes, I’m not playing it.
Yes.
Thank you.
Three, two, one.
Let’s do it.

Hello, this is a robot Nick.
30 NPC will be hosting a robot versus humanity showdown on August 16th at 9 a.m.
Pacific time.
Watch Charlotte Johnson, Vin Lattano and Anthony Natoli compete against GPP in a selling competition.
There is a link to join us in these show notes.
So you there.
Today’s deal acceleration tip is brought to you by Demand Base.
When you get notified that a prospect you’re chatting with, engaged with content on your website, use that as a reason to start another conversation with them and share your hypothesis around the pain they’re dealing with related to that content.
What you shouldn’t say is, hey, I saw you download it in an ebook.
Do you want a chat?
Now we built a bunch of templates to help you accelerate your deals with our friends at
Demand Base and there’s a link to get them for free at the link in the show notes.
Today’s selling to the CFO tip is brought to you by Clary.
When your buyer tries to negotiate and asks you for a discount, do not act like that is
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If you went into Lulu Lemon and tried to negotiate the price of leggings, they’d look
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You should do the same thing to control the frame of your negotiation.
Act confused and concerned when you’re asked for a discount.

Now we built an entire playbook on selling to the CFO with our friends at Clary that you can get for free.
No discount needed at the link in the show notes.
Your actionable tactic by Zoom Info is the funding round trigger.

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And you can steal a trigger based template email for this exact scenario and for others, inspired by Zoom Info’s good market place, link in the show notes.
Today’s exact multithreading tip is brought to you by Quiller.
When you’re building a business case for an exact, put direct quotes that you’ve heard from your champion and their team into the case.

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We put together multithreading power plays with our friends at Quiller that I encourage you to go steal at the link in the show notes.

Alright, J.C., welcome to the show.
We start every single interview with your top three actionable takeaways. So let’s get your three.
Awesome.

The first one I want to talk about is asking permission throughout the entire sales process

to do different things.

That might mean asking permission to stay on a cold call a little bit longer or asking permission

to ask a really challenging question.

Quick example of this is the amount of time somebody’s been trying to push me off the

cold call.

Things are starting to go the wrong direction.

And I’ll just hit them with a question like, “Hey, I know it’s a little annoying, but

you might as well ask me three more quick questions and then I’ll let you get back to your

day.”

You get there by and you get their permission to keep talking and that completely opens

the door for you to continue the conversation and discover things that might allow you to

end up booking that meeting and then.

I know it’s a little annoying, but could I get your permission to get tip number two?

I suppose I could give you a second tip.

The second thing I want to talk about is recognizing the fact that our buyers are probably not

bought us before, but we’ve sold our stuff a lot of times.

So it’s about proactively outlining the buying process throughout the entire sales cycle.

And that shows up in a bunch of different ways, like selling strong agendas, making recommendations

for next steps as opposed to leaving it up to your buyer on where they want to take it from there.
Quick example of this is at the end of a call saying, “Hey, there’s typically two ways

that buyers are excited about going like to take it from here.
Do you mind if I outline those two options and you can let me know what makes the most sense in your world?”
Beautiful.
Vandus out.
What’s number three?
Number three is probably my favorite and the thing I’m most excited to talk about, which
is soft closing throughout the entire sales cycle.
As opposed to waiting until a one big scary go-no go call, constantly trying to close the deal at multiple touch points throughout the deal cycle.
Hopefully this helps save you time.
And ultimately, when you hear no after trying to soft-close someone, it allows you to uncover what’s actually standing between that no and the yes.
So you can expedite the process.
All right, folks, JC’s taken us from cold call to close.
JC, you’re a cold call on machine, so let’s take this one from the top.
How do you open your cold calls?
I like opening my cold calls in whatever way I feel like on that day based on my mood.
The key is I want it to feel authentic and I want to have a ton of conviction when I do
it.
I’m a cold calling Nick on a Friday.
I’m sure the thing you want to do more than anything in the walk right now is sit on a

cold call.
But putting that aside, could I very briefly explain why I’m standing between you and
your weekend?
It’s like delivering energy and it’s standing out and it’s sounding authentic and then it’s
still getting permission to briefly explain why.
Hopefully you say yes and that’s where you can really launch into a well-researched reason before actually calling them.
But I would argue that the majority of cold calls fail in that first 30 seconds.
You have to sound like you want to be on that call because the likelihood is the person
on the other end of the phone probably does not want to be on that call.
So if you don’t deliver the energy, I don’t know how you could expect them to.
Something that I like to do is stand up on my cold calls and kind of pace around and smile and just pretend that I’m actually having a conversation with a human in real life, being yourself and whatever tonality that is authentic to you, put that into a cold call and you’ll
get a lot more people willing to stand in line with you.
So help give me a sense of how that extends to the next piece of the call.
I go, “Yeah, I’ve only got a second.
I’m actually supposed to meet my friend, Armand, for dinner, so I got to leave in a second.” But what’s this about?
Where do you take it from there?
Yeah, that’s the next component and that’s the part that you have to be really ready to deliver on.

I like to incorporate what’s called a three by three, which is three concise reasons that you’re actually calling them.
So in the example of the sales event, I’d be like, “Hey, notice you just launched a new product and some new go-to-market messaging along with that?”

I also saw you’re actively hiring for three AEs and Cretten if I’m wrong, it looks like you were a former Gong user at your last company.
Based on that, I’m curious how familiar are you with what we do.
So it’s three very distinct, well researched and tailored reasons that you’re calling that specific person.

It’s kind of like, “Oh, you’ve actually put an energy to know who I am. I’m going to give you a little bit more time because of that.”
This is super interesting.
You’re giving three pieces of research.

You’re not saying the problem you saw of, you’re not saying what you do, etc. You’re just giving the three pieces of research.
You’re stopping and asking if they’re familiar with you.
I assume they either say, “Yes, I’m familiar with you, right?

I’ve heard of Gong,” or they say, “No, I haven’t.”
My guess is if you’re selling to someone that isn’t already on a call recording platform, they might be totally oblivious to what’s going on in this space.
What happens when someone says, “No, JC, I haven’t heard of you,” or I’m very loosely familiar.

Yeah, in this situation, I would be like, “Well, I know you’re about to meet your friend, so time is limited.”
But could I have like 35 seconds to explain what Gong does?
If it’s relevant, we can set up some time to talk more in depth in the future.

If not, let me know and I’ll let you get to your weekend.
Notice how I’m already planting the seed that the next step here is setting up a demo.
It’s kind of like a soft clothes in the cold call already outlining where ideally we’re
taking it from here, as opposed to waiting to the end of the call to ask for time.
Ideally, they’re giving permission to launch into my actual Gong pitch.
Well, two intentional things that I see that you’re doing here.
One, you did a call back to what I said earlier, which again, makes it feel human, makes it feel fun.
That is important.
I think sometimes folks get so rigid with, here’s how the calls got to go that they forget
to be like, “You’re supposed to meet your buddy.
I hope you’re going to get something good.”
Anyways, can I get 35 seconds?
Also, I like that you called out the fact that the intent of this, when I would call
a CFO of a law firm, that person had worry that I was about to drag them through a 17-minute discovery call on the cold call.
And when you say, “Hey, the reason I’m calling isn’t to take up a ton of your time.
It’s to figure out if we should talk.”

That changes their perspective from, “I got to get this guy off the phone,” to, “Okay, I’m going to give him the 35 seconds to figure out if we’re going to meet.”
You’re showing that you’re going to respect the interruption that you are making right there.

So they say, “Yeah, you got 35 seconds.
The clock’s ticking.”
What’s the pitch sound like going back to those three pieces of research you did?
How do you tie that to your pitch?
Yeah, and something I’m going to call out here is, if you have one pitch that you’re delivering to every persona you call, you’re probably missing the mark somewhere.
So I have a very specific pitch that is dedicated to the different kinds of people I’m calling.
If I’m calling a customer success leader, it’s going to sound nothing like my pitch to
a sales-obs leader, etc.
So in this case, where the examples are like an EP of sales, they’re stealing the team, they’re launching a new product.
My pitch is usually problem first, quick snippet of how gone solves for this, and then asking how that resonates in their world.
So make a lot of the sales leaders I talked to today are having a really hard time identifying how their new product is landing in the market because they’re so far removed from the front lines.
And there’s also a massive challenge with getting new reps up to speed quickly in the remote world.

Gone solves for this by analyzing and capturing all of your customer interactions.
So you know exactly how this product lands and know what top performers are doing differently. Curious, what part of that specifically stands out in your world or resonates with you?
Short, concise, problem-based, talking very little about our actual solution, just trying
to understand, like, is this even relevant in their world?
Unpack that closing question.
At the end, you’re not asking, “Hey, do you want a meeting?” not asking, “Is that interesting?” You’re asking which part of that resonates with you the most?
The biggest key is that it’s open-ended and it’s not opening the door from the say yes
or no.
And it’s pushing them into one part of the funnel.
So by asking, like, what part of that specifically resonates, it’s really hard to say none of it
when you ask it that way.
And so they’re likely going to lean into what part of that pitch was the most relevant
in their world, which allows you to do a little bit of deeper discovery and then ultimately
just book a meeting out of it.
That’s one thing that I try to do in my cold calls, especially now that I’m a full cycle
AE and I’m the one that will be taking the next meeting.
I don’t want to spend 20 minutes on the cold call.
Like, if I’m calling somebody who I know is a good fit and something stands out, I’m
trying to get them booked on the demo as fast as I can and get onto the next call.
I’m curious if we zoom in on the part of the call we’re talking about specifically.

You just gave your tailored pitch in US, which piece resonated the most with them?
Can you talk to me about like maybe one or two of the most common areas of friction or hiccup around there and then how you actually overcome it?
Yeah, I think the first thing is people that will say, I’m not going to resonate, it’s
not probably something like that in an effort to just get out of the call.
I try to be authentic in myself on all these calls.
I’ll be like, Nick, really? Like none of that stood out at all, not even slightly a little
bit and just kind of lean into my personal and my humor and hopefully get them to open
up a little bit.
The second thing I’d say is people that are like, oh yeah, we already have something in place for that.
So this is where that thing I mentioned, like asking permission throughout the entire process. This is where I’ll leverage that because I think the natural thing to do is ask them like,
what are you using or how are you using your current solution?
It’s like really annoying for a buyer.
If they think they already have what you’re selling, they don’t want to stay on the call
and tell you what they’re using.
So I’ll immediately ask permission.
I’m like, hey, that’s amazing.
I’m glad to hear you have something in place because these are really big challenges.
You might if I ask you two or three quick questions and then I will let you go back to
you today.

So I’m getting that permission first and then my questions will be probably like where
your head goes, which is like, and curious, how are you leveraging the solution you have in place to understand every single time your reps are pitching your new product.
And the likely response is that they’re not actually using the solution in that sense
or they may not even be aware that they can.
It’s interesting because if you just try to ask the questions like, what vendor are you
using, you’re essentially asking questions to get to the point where you can ask a better question.
And someone on a cold call isn’t willing to put up with that time.
And so you need to have some offer of value or you just need to call out the fact that I’m going to take more time.
The approach that I’ve taken on these is somewhat similar where when I know someone’s on a competitor, I don’t want to waste a question being like this one.
All you should say like, hey, my guess is you’re probably not going to switch every once
in a while, it makes sense to switch off one or two providers.
Can I ask you like two questions and give you a sense of if it might even make sense to look at us or you should never look at someone like us ever again?
So that’s if they do have a solution in place.
So let’s say that you have someone who’s open to taking a call with you, but they’re giving you the traditional swats of not now or no budget or call me in six months or send me some information.
All of those are basically just delaying the yes.

What do you do in those types of objections?
When I am specifically calling sales leaders, I like to play into the humor a little bit
and if I be clear sales like this is interesting, calling back in six months, I’ll be like, I’m
like, what would you tell your reps to say if a sales leader pushed them off six months? And just kind of lean into that.
But I think the easy answer is like, just always ask questions like, hey, six months
sound like a pretty specific timeframe.
I’m curious is there like some big initiative going on over the next half of the year or are you really not that interested in this meeting?
You just want to push me off.
So it’s just asking questions to try to understand like, is that even a real objection?
Are they not interested at all?
Like what’s the reality of what they’re saying?
I want to talk about some of like those other common swats or objections that you probably get where it’s like, people are like, yeah, I’ve heard of Gong.
But I’ve heard you guys are really expensive.
You know, our budgets are frozen right now.
I think the theme you’ll hear here is like, I try to do myself and I love using humor in personality.
My calls will be like, hey, can I level with you real quick?
I get permission.
I’m big.

If I only close deals where people have allocated budget for Gong, I would have been fired after like three months.
There is never a world where which people are like, we have all this money we want to spend. Typically the way we get there is by showing when there’s a need, making a very tight business case and then ultimately to spend becomes a no brainer.

And then I’ll kind of go from there.
But I pretty much out on the fact like, nobody ever has budget.
Nobody sets out to spend.
I don’t think I’ve ever closed a deal or something.
Like we have $80,000 that we had set aside for Gong from the get-go.
Let’s buy.
So I kind of just lean into that.
One more really tough scenario.
You give your opener.
They hang up on you.
What’s your response?
I’m a pretty aggressive cold caller and so I’ll call them right back.
And if they pick up, I’ll be like, hey I think the connection might have cut out or the line must have dropped and go from there.
And then if not, if I call them back and they don’t answer, I’ll usually send an email. Like, hey not sure if the line got dropped or what I was saying was an interesting and then go from there.

I hang up is not the end of the world because sometimes people feel guilty and feel like they owe you something after.
So you can kind of leverage that for additional outreach.
But the first thing I do is call them right back.

GCM, I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of the audience.
So the first thing that comes to mind that I might have as an objection because nothing ever works apparently is that, oh, this only works for selling to sales leaders and this
is incorrect.
And your style is very similar to the style that I had with CFOs and I would ask CFOs, how can I get budget from the cheapest guy in the room, which is you?
And so this totally works.
The other objection that I’m hearing really commonly today is that with whole post-COVID everyone working from home, it’s really, really hard to get phone numbers for people. And so I’m curious, it seems like you’re pretty heavy on the phones.
Knowing that a lot of the traditional phone number sources might not be as reliable or connect rates are down.
If you have any creative tactics for getting direct dials, for making sure that you spend
as much time talking to people as humanly possible.
Has it tend to share this because I don’t want every other 8 unests there on the world
to know about it?
But there is a version of white pages, the phone book online.
And it is by far the most accurate source I’ve found for mobile numbers.

So looking up somebody by their name and the city in which they live, you can find mobile numbers, you can find physical addresses for physical gifting.
It’s been an absolute godsend in terms of like, this is a top prospect.
There’s not information that isn’t on lead IQ or rocket reach or whatever.

I need to find them.
It’s been a pretty awesome resource.
But don’t use it.
It’s mine.
I want to talk about that.
The first objection that you outlined because I’ve heard that a lot.
When I post a lot of LinkedIn about like creative emails, I’ve sent in a lot of comments
like, this only works for sales leaders.
Like my personas would never respond to that.
Like, I respond to that is like, I bet you it works.
Like my first SDR Rolada College I was selling to chief medical officers and chief technical officers at hospitals during a pandemic.
And the one thing I found successful with was authentic personality driven cold calls.
I honestly think the things that I’ve been talking about standout even more in those industries because that’s not the way most people do outreach and interact.
It’s like everyone buys into the fact that I’m selling to CIOs.
I have to be serious and not your personality.
So I think it actually differentiates you even more if you continue to lean in about it.

The number one sign that I’ve seen with reps who come off as junior is they’re overly stiff.
They’re afraid to show their personality.
And you can spot it.

And executives, if you look at how they talk to each other, they’re slapping each other on the shoulder.
They’re being casual about their language as well.
And the problem is everyone is talking to them like they’re afraid of them.

And if you’re the one person who shows up and breaks the pattern, you’ll get a look from some of them.
They’re like, I can’t believe this guy just said that.
And they’ll respect you for it.

Jay, I want to take this concept that we’ve had in cold calling, which is just being extremely direct, disarmingly blunt, whatever you want to call it, being authentic.
So I want to take this concept that you mentioned earlier called soft closes, right?
As you’re soft closing throughout the sales cycle, my guess is you’re also being pretty direct in asking the person whether or not what you’re doing is meeting the mark.

So let’s go into like a discovery call environment.

Can you give us a sense of where some of the common soft closes occurring well before the next

steps portion of the call?
Yeah, so it all starts with the agenda and upfront contract and outlining early on.

Like, one of the potential outcomes to this call is that you are ready to buy.
So my upfront contract typically sounds like, hey, there’s three ways this call could potentially go.
The first is I show you gone and you’re like, we needed this yesterday.
In which case we can talk about what a contract would look like and how we get this in your hands asap.
Second outcome is you’re excited but need to see more in which case we’ll set up like a deep dive demo, bring another stakeholders.
Third option is I miss the mark and you hate gone and we never talk again.
I hope that’s not the case, but just be honest with me if that is.
So I’m already setting expectations up front that one of the potential outcomes is they
can just buy my software.
And then at the end of the call, I like to ask permission, I’ll be like, hey, Nick, can
I, can I level with you?
Oh, please, yes.
I’m like, hey, based on our conversation, it sounds like you have three really pressing
needs and the impact of those needs is like $400,000 in additional revenue.
Feels like we’ve mapped exactly how gone can solve for those.
I know at the beginning of the call, I outlined three potential outcomes.
To me, it feels like we’re at a one and I weigh off from our player and that’s literally
a soft close.
You’re asking like, are you at a one are you ready to buy?

They’re probably going to say no.
And then you’re able to ask, awesome, no worries.
Sounds like we’ll set up a deep dive demo and curious though.
What else do you need to see that would get you to that level confidence where you are
ready to buy?
Talk to me about the types of responses that you’ll get when you ask that number one question. Yes, I had a call yesterday where the CRO shows up to the call.
It’s supposed to be a 45 minute deep dive demo.
He gets on and he’s like, hey, Jaycee, can we try to keep this call for 20 or 30 minutes?
Yeah, no problem, Dave.
I’m curious to like, are you ready to just buy now?
We can skip the whole call.
And he literally said yes.
And we have a contract out for signature right now.
So like, the best case scenario is that they’re actually more ready than you initially thought
and you can get things wrapped up early.
The more likely outcome is like, oh no, we’re not there yet.
And then you can do discovery.
No problem, that was probably a bit aggressive or a bit pushy, but that’s the sales are
from me.
I’m curious, what other boxes do we have to check?
They would get you to the point where you are ready to buy.

So it just kind of opens the door if you ask the questions, what is the gap?
What do we actually have to do to get you to a place where you’re ready?
Well, it’s really interesting the way that you’re approaching this because I think a lot
of sales people here, oh, I’ve got to guide the customer.
I’ve got to teach them how to buy.
And they over rotate into their typical steps that somebody goes through.
They don’t ask the question, what do you need to see, hear, feel and believe about GONG
to say yes, I am ready for this thing.
Where else do you extend that soft clothes to?
One of my favorite places to incorporate it is as you start to talk through a potential
pilot and a lot of companies do like a pilot or a proof of concept as part of their sales
cycle.
What I typically do is I’ll be like, hey, Nick, before we start talking about a pilot, can
I outline the two routes that people typically go when they buy GONG?
They say yes, and my first is people are really excited about GONG, but they want to validate that the tech works, prove that ROI, that kind of thing, in which case we’ll do a proof
of concept.
The challenge there in full transparency is I really handicaps my ability to discount because we’re literally validating the fact that this is a worthwhile spend for you.
The second route people go is they’re already confident that GONG is the right solution and they’re ready to buy, which gives me a little bit more leverage on the price they end up paying because time is money and we can get this done fast.

Here’s number two buckets.

You feel yourself leaning into one.

So once again, you’re outlining the potential steps and then you’re essentially just asking

to forego the pilot.

And the amount of times I’ve actually been trending towards pilot or pilot thinking about

the spend two weeks diving into a deep dive pilot and they’re actually ready to buy it

and it’s been pretty game changing.

Talk to me about the dance that you play there, which is you’re essentially preempting the

fact that you’ll have some flex on commercials if you don’t do a pilot, right?

Do you worry that that preempts the discount conversation earlier than expected or is it

one of those things where you know a real mid-market company is going to ask anyway so you’d

rather use that to drive momentum earlier?
So there will probably be other things that I’ll have to identify before going into that
talk track.
I’m like, is price going to be a factor in this deal?
There’s other boxes that have to check.
But in the case where I know commercials are going to be really important, for example, the last time I did this, dropped the wholesale cycle.
They’re like, yeah, we really like Gong and just feels expensive.
We really like Gong and just feels expensive.
So I knew when I outlined that talk track and this is going to be really juicy to them because they’ve been concerned about the commercials the entire time.

So I wouldn’t necessarily proactively lead with that with a company that I’ve never talked about that with.
Another version that can be the same thing except instead of the carrot being a discount, the carrot is like, hey, I could run a two-week pilot with you where I do my best to get you all set up in the Gong, but I’m an AE and that is not where my area might split these

is.
The other option is you’re ready to go, you know you won’t go, we can get you handed over
the post-ail team is going to do a better job of getting this fully implemented in
up and running.
So that doesn’t necessarily have to be a discount carrot, but the point is I’m outlining
two routes with some kind of advantage for moving fast.
How do you navigate that discount conversation where they say, hey, you know what, we might be able to skip that pilot?
What do you mean?
You have more leverage.
What does that look like for us?
How do you respond to that?
I’ll do discovery around the rest of the buying process.
I’m like, hey, before we do start talking about commercials, the last thing I want to do
is we align on some discount and we find out three other people have to be involved.
We have to check off with security.
So I’ll do discovery around the paper process and make sure that the actual last thing standing

between us and a partnership is commercials.
And then I’ll do discovery around what is important to them instead of just proactively offering a discount a big, you know, here are, here’s our proof pricing.
Here are the levers that I do have to pull.
One of them is timing, so glad that we’ve checked that box.
And then I’ll ask questions like, what’s important to the you?
What would entice you to move that so that I can decide?
So JC to wrap this one up is part of the reason that you’re even able to ask those questions or offer the carrot of prices because you’re soft closing at every moment in your sales
cycle.
And if they say, no, I’m not ready to buy right now, you’re asking them what’s important
to them to continue their buying process, right?
But I’m curious for you, how do you suss out an objection that is one that you can solve through a demo, through a pilot, through future calls versus someone who says no, and you shouldn’t meet with them again because they’re a waste of your time.
I think there’s a few ways to pressure test deals first of all is if you don’t feel any
friction throughout the sales cycle, that’s a really alarming thing.
If you talk through list price and they don’t have any objections, if they don’t ask any questions about, you know, what a pilot to look at all this, like, that’s alarming to
me until I’m like, oh, you don’t feel that invested, isn’t it?
The second thing I’d look for is that you’re talking to one person and they’re not willing
to take you to other people internally.

That to me is a huge indication that they’ll deal might not be that real.
Like I need to see that people are willing to go out on the limb and bring in additional stakeholders to our conversation.
That gives me confidence they’re actually invested in it.
And then the third thing is just, you know after selling for at least a non-time like what’s
a real use case and what isn’t.
And you can just kind of start to feel people that like our tire tickers tell you what you
want to hear and you just kind of end up developing a BS sensor for it.
Like, if there’s nothing they’re looking to solve for and they’re just like happy to take another demo, that’s pretty alarming to me.
And I think one thing that will also tell you if you are where you need to be in a deal
is when you’re uncovering business pain and priority, if they can’t, they’re not
really speak to what their company’s key initiatives are, what they’re looking to solve, what metrics they’re looking to influence, then you’re probably not at the right person or
you don’t have a real deal.
That’s a phenomenal point.
We got to move to the final question.
The final question is this, Jayce, we’ve talked about a lot of really great things sales people should be doing.
Now I got to ask you about a shouldn’t.
And so the last question is, what is one bad habit that you see a lot of sales people exhibiting that you think they need to break because it’s hurting them more than it helps?

Yeah, the biggest thing is like, you have to stop being scared of hearing the things you don’t want to hear.
Instead you have to proactively try to hear those things.
Like for the longest time, I would just not even ask, are you evaluating anyone else in the space?

Those kind of questions.
Because I didn’t want to hear it.
I didn’t want to know.
People have to get out of that habit.
And you should be a heat seeking missile trying to find risk in every single deal as opposed to somebody who’s got their head in the sound, the hand that is trying to avoid hearing
the scary things.
That’s a mic drop moment.
Jayce, thank you for joining us.
Everybody, stick around for a 60 second recap coming up soon.
This closing tactic by Accord is to use their language, not yours.
When recapping the top priorities in a business case, use their words.
For example, if there’s an internal initiative called box out the competition, don’t just
put win more deals against competitors, use the language that they are already using to rally people internally.
And this was stolen from the Accord 30 NPC business case template that you can steal as well in the show notes.

Your actionable tactic by prolific is to never stop threading. You can spend six months selling to the wrong person.

So even if you book a meeting with one champion, do not stop prospecting the rest of the account

until you’re 100% sure you have someone who is going to shop you around.
And guess what?
You can download prolific for free to do all the territory carving and account mapping
you want.
And get access to an exclusive multi threading playbook.
We made just for them.
Link in the show notes.
Today’s prospecting tip is brought to you by Owler.
If you’re going to name drop customers when you’re prospecting, make sure that they’re relatively similar to the company that you’re prospecting.
So if you’re cold calling Captain America, don’t tell them you also work with Coca-Cola and American Express.
Tell them you work with Iron Man and the Hulk.
Now if you’re wondering what you should say when you are prospecting Captain America, you’re in luck.
Owler can help surface key insights about your key accounts.
And we built an outbound sequence with them for when you are prospecting look alike customers.

There’s a link in the show notes to steal it.
Your top four takeaways from this episode with JC Pollard include number one.
The way JC opens his cold calls is after he gets the permission, he does not pitch what
he does.
He uses the three by three, which is, I notice this, this, and this about you.
How familiar are you with what we do?
Number two.
Throughout the cold calling throughout your sales cycle, beat outrageously authentic.
A fun example that JC gave amongst many others was when he said, I would have been fired if I only closed deals where people had a million dollars of allocated budget to buy
gong.
Number three.
Up front, JC sets the expectation that there are three possible outcomes for the call.
And then at the end of the call, he says, look, I think we’re at a one, which means there’s
a strong business case for gong.
And then ask the prospect in a soft close to validate or invalidate that they’re ready
to buy.
And then lastly, number four, you can also use a soft close to skip a pilot.
In other words, you can say, hey, we can move this thing faster and I’ll have more flex on commercial terms.
Or you might be one of the people who needs a little bit more time who needs to see this thing and play around with it before you get comfortable.

Which bucket are you in?
Art Enic.
How could people help us out?
Well, you can actually help JC out because I’ve been watching him and following him for a while on LinkedIn.
And after interviewing him on this episode, I’m like, man, that is someone who is working,
his ass off at honing his craft.
And this is someone who is also sharing that stuff on this show and on LinkedIn.
And so it would mean a lot to me if you went on LinkedIn, sent him a connection request
and let him know that you heard him on 30 minutes to president’s club.
You’ll get two things out of it.
You’ll show thank you to our guest, which if you learned anything from him on this episode would be meaningful.
But then too, you’ll actually get to see a lot of the best practices he shares on LinkedIn.
So send a note to JC and we’ll catch you next week on the show.
[Music]
(upbeat music)