Ask Rezzz

As we embark on the second year of Ask Rezzz, the format will change up slightly.

The reason for this is so that you can take action. I'm all about that action taking as you know. Having a show each and every single day without a doubt can be overwhelming. You may already have a backlog of shows that you want to listen to. Maybe there's a bunch that you don't have any interest in hearing as well.

With that, the new format will be this.

Every Friday, you'll be a fly on the wall for a one-on-one coaching session with someone. I will have a conversation with someone who's applied to be on the show. They have a specific problem or situation that they want to get some help on.

The objective is for you to hear what they are going through and maybe it'll help you too if you are in a similar situation. As the saying goes "a rising tide raises all boats."

The big benefit of this is you, the audience. You as a Feaster can help and support them through offering encouragement, advice, and accountability. You may even want to work with them if you have such a need.

If you want to be on the show, it's easy, just apply here.

Every Tuesday there will be an actionable show. It will either be what you are familiar with already from the previous 261 episodes where I answer a question. Or I'm going to be introducing a resource or strategy that you can walk away from the show and put right in your business.

For example, how to use Advanced Search on Twitter to find local clients to work with.

Another example could be that I bring on a lawyer to the show to talk about contracts.

Doesn't mean that you may not see the podcast show up in your podcatcher on other days, but this is what I'm committing to you today and what you can expect from the show.

I want to make Ask Rezzz as actionable and valuable to you as possible. If you have any ideas for the show, let me know through Twitter or email.

The Ask Rezzz show is dedicated to being the most accessible and most valuable podcast for freelancers out there.

You can come on and get one-on-one coaching from me along with the support of the audience. Also get resources, strategies, and expert answers to your questions.

In episode A207 - How to overcome objections in sales, you briefly learned about leaning into what they want and then directing them down the right path.

Leaning in, or being empathetic during a sales process is really about giving the lead what they want.

Whether they want the lowest cost, the best value, to comparison shop, etc, it’s in your best interest to give them what they want.

When you think about sales, instead of thinking about closing every deal, think about how to have them leave your conversation in a better place.

You aren’t going to convince anyone they need you. They have to realize that themselves.

If they feel they need something that you don’t have or do, the best thing to do is to put them on the path to getting that.

One of my favorite quotes is from Pippin Williamson founder of Sandhills Development.

If it’s hard to have a conversation with someone and suggest a course of action, how do you think a project will be working together?

Ever have a lead say “I don’t need the strategy, can you just write the code” or “Can you just design the logo without the full brand?”

The answer is simple.

“I will design you a logo, but how will you know it’ll be effective for the brand.”

“I can certainly write the code, but how will that code fit with the rest of the application and do what you need it to do.”

“Is that what you want?”

Lean in to what they want.

Explain that the strategy and process is all a part of the code or design. Without it, it’s just a visual element.

Without your process, you have no way of knowing with confidence that the solution you are providing will be successful.

This lead is often a price buyer, maybe a touch of the “know-it-all” buyer as well.

Explain that the price is the same with or without the strategy. Encourage them that there are other low cost options out there for them to use.

It’s like building a house without a blueprint. It may stand, be a 3 bedroom house. But you were expecting it to withstand a hurricane and be 5 bedroom house.

What they are looking for is your value, but for cheap and that just isn’t possible.

Let them go and come back.

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RFPs, or Request for Proposals, is something as a freelancer or consultant you should stay away from. An RFP is a document that talks about a project and asks you to write a proposal on how to solve it.

In the previous two episodes you learned to protect your sales process, and ultimately your business, by only pushing value buyers and those that give you a firm “yes” at the end of the sales call to the proposal stage.

RFPs are the complete opposite of this.

In short, responding to an RFP, have you reading through a document explaining the project from the perspective of the company and then drafting up a proposal with your time estimates, milestones, due dates, company history, and questions you have to bid on the project.

Then that company shows all the responses and selects what they feel is the best option.

If you are responding to RFPs, this is the epitome of the proposal writing business.

If a buyer presents to you an RFP, full stop. Protect your time! Protect your profits!

Simply say “Before we get into this - It’s not your policy to do speculative work.”

Because that’s what an RFP is, speculative.

You are speculating on the project based on what is in that document. You have no customer input, surveys, data or your own research to help you build a proper solution to the problem.

How to speak with a lead that insists on responding to an RFP?

Ask them if they are a gambler?

“How important is this project to you?”

“What is it worth to you to solve the problem?”

These are appropriate questions to ask the lead that insists on the RFP process.

The lead has to be a gambler, otherwise, they wouldn’t be hanging themselves out there asking companies to build and present solutions without any conversations and research into the problem, for free.

These 2 questions, refocuses the conversation you are having for the lead to get clarity around the project and what they are asking you to do.

You can further pursue it by elegantly and tactfully asking if the other companies pitching:

• Have these companies interviewed customers
• Have these companies interviewed sales to see what the challenges are

“Chances are that you are going to say no. And since you are asking people for free work, they are just going to come up with answers on their own. They might hit it, but they might not. That’s why I asked if you are a gambler or not.”

Explain why you do what you do

Take some time and explain why your process is important to them and solving their specific problem.

This is where that clarity can hit them like a ton of bricks. Because here you can emphasize that you can give them a cookie cutter solution, but what happens when that doesn’t work.

They will have to then go back to whoever approved the bid and backtrack.

Explain to them that without your process, what they are asking is for companies to answer from a 1000 miles away, not an inch close and from all angles.

The best thing that they are going to come up with is superficial because that’s how deep they are able to go. There are no reference points to what is going to be the most effective solution to help them get sales, build a brand, code an application, etc.

The lead and committee are making a decision purely on a gut feeling without a true understanding of what’s going to work.

This is where you share the things you need to understand what the key metrics and goals for success are.

What are the trigger points for the customers to buy-in?

That the only way to know is to talk with you, your team, and potential customers.

Then it’s a matter of summing up and echoing back everything the lead said to you and leave them thinking about their process.

“So as much as you would like to work with them on this $X project, I can’t from this point of view. I can’t tell you with confidence it would work.”

Then sit in that silence.

In this short statement, you echo back what they say it’s worth it to them to solve this problem.

You are also planting the seed that if the other companies are not asking these things, then maybe they aren’t as good as they say they are.

Keep in mind, you are not in the business to write proposals. You are in the business to solve problems successfully for your clients and in turn make money and profits from that.

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In business, there is this scenario that gets created during sales that put 2 parties on opposite sides of the table. But the reality of it is that both parties want the same thing. They both want to be successful with the project.

When the objections start popping up, I like to bring this up to them. I simply share something that I’ve said for years and it’s this. “I want to get you where you want to be as efficient as we can together. We are both working towards that same goal and both are successful when that goal is crushed.”

I had a one-hour coaching session with someone (who I got permission to share this on the show) where she wanted to learn more about how to answer objections of clients and get them to commit but in face-to-face conversations and email.

## Need to come into the conversation without bias

The simple reason is that they’re more than likely been here before. Maybe not to the extent or the exact service you are pitching, but the internet is now 20+ years old and no doubt they’ve had their business website up and running before.

When you come into a sales conversation, you should meet the lead where they are, not where you are.

Don’t assume anything.

Don’t assume that they had a great relationship with a past vendor. Don’t assume that they know what it’s like to get a proposal and what to do with it.

Don’t assume they know what the words mean that are coming out of your mouth. Don’t assume that they even have the most basic of information like who they host with on hand.

Which is why it’s so important to get out in front of these questions by way of your project brief or project application. If there is information that you need to better present your solution and you can get that in an online form someplace and allow the lead some time to gather this information, do it.

Be empathic. Don’t make them feel bad by putting them on the spot with a question that they can answer easily given a few minutes of time.

Embrace Objections

Objections are your opportunity in any conversation to connect with the other person, to ultimately solve their problem.

This is where, in the limited time you have here, to build that trust up even further.

So when you start to hear objections or them becoming a bit apprehensive, come from a place of empathy and understand what their concerns are.

Why are they apprehensive and not ready to say “yes” and start the project right now.
What is the ask?

Chris Do, from The Futur worded this best when he said: “Ask them back for clarity.”

What I’ve found to work is to start asking honest, genuine, questions around exactly what it is that the client wants to be done.

You want them to actually use the words they have in their head to explain what it is that they want you to do.

They’ll often say something that is a bit over the top (or as Chris puts it, “ridiculous”).

The idea is to get them to verbalize it because when they do, it’ll hit them, especially as a business owner, that it is just that, ridiculous.

Plain and simple, just get them to state it by asking questions and re-stating back what you hear. And the key part to this, is to ask and shut up. Let them answer and allow them to see that the request may be unreasonable.

## Lower the risk factor

The ridiculousness usually come by way of asking for a lot of service work for a little bit (or no) money.

At that moment, you know they are risk-averse.

It’s now your job to lower that risk. I’ve talked before about how you can lower the risk factor by scaling back and lowering risk is one of the best reasons to niche down your business.

At this moment you want to express your empathy to their situation. If you know they’ve had a difficult time with a previous vendor or it’s a big chunk of money, restate that by saying “I understand and can appreciate your experience with the past developer, but here’s how we are going to mitigate that and why it won’t happen when working with me.”

I would even ask them what happened with the past vendor. Ask them “What happened? What went wrong or what was it that made the project not as successful as it should have been?”

A lot of times, this is easily responded to because you are a professional and don’t flake on your clients, or that you can share with them exactly why that doesn’t happen when working with you.

The big mindset shift you need to make is to look at objections as opportunities. You should get as excited about an objection as you do when someone sends you a referral. Sales is not a “you vs them” scen...

I was speaking at a conference of developers and freelancers and presented with this question of meeting face-to-face or everything is virtual.

Being in New York, obviously there are many opportunities to be able to meet people, leads, and potential partners.

When starting out, I did meet lots of leads at coffee shops, their offices, and other places. I’d either get in my car, or hop the train and head on to the location early for the meeting.

NY has traffic and lots of it and the subways have been known to be late from time to time as well, so I always went extra early because I’d rather show up early than be late.

Once there, I’d grab a cup of coffee or drink or whatever for myself and my guest. I especially did this with leads at the first meeting, but would carry that through when they became clients as well.

They would arrive, we’d talk and get to know each other and I would then go ahead and ask whatever questions I needed. Or we would talk about the project tasks and statuses of things. Whatever the purpose of the meeting was.

I’d then hop back into the mode of transportation back home and be on my way with the rest of the day.

Travel time loses profitability

For a one hour meeting, this often times would result in 4 hours of time spent. Between the prep time, travel time, and waiting time, profits literally would fly right out the window.

As I started to notice that an hour spent talking resulted in a half day of actual time, I analyzed that against those meetings that were virtual.

I took into account if they were leads vs clients. And ultimately tracked the time spent and the likelihood of closing the deal.

What I found was that leads that wanted to meet in a coffee shop often would be tire kickers that didn’t result in becoming a client. They were looking to bounce their idea off of me.

Leads that invited me to their office, well they resulted in becoming a client about 65% of the time.

Virtual meetings

Those that I would hold as virtual calls, whether that’s through video or phone, were somewhere in between.

But the virtual conversations I would have took 25% of the time than meeting face-to-face.

I started to key in on the points where I could ask the right questions up front to filter out tire kickers better.

I started to only meet those that had a place in mind to meet me rather than me deciding on a place.

And finally, I would hold kick-off calls when we decided to work together face-to-face.

See the value of the face-to-face can’t be measured to be honest, but it adds to a much higher trust factor that you’ll never get virtually.

Over the course of my career, I honestly haven’t had many local clients, so I when possible, I try and meet face-to-face somehow.

Over time I’ve guarded my time with purpose. I’m only a single person without a sales team. So getting out there and pressing palms as they say, in a sales capacity needs to produce intended results.

For me, it’s unacceptable and hinders the growth of the business to spend a half day to only talk with someone who is looking to get free advice for one hour when they have no intention on paying what I charge.

Lawyers, doctors, and other professionals guard their time, and so I took a page out of their books to do just that.

Most of my meetings now are virtual because I have leads and clients all over the world. That’s not to say though that I don’t meet up with people, I just try and do so as the relationship progresses.

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