Why Nice Reps Lose MSP Deals

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If you're sensing something is off in a sales call and you do nothing about it, then you are

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killing the deal before it ever got started. One of the reasons that you may be struggling in

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sales may have nothing to do with your process, may have nothing to do with your your product may

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have nothing to do with the actual pitch. It may very well have to do with what's coming out of

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your mouth and what you're saying, and how you're engaging with your prospects doesn't actually

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align with what's going on in your gut. Say you're 15 minutes into a discovery call with someone, and

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everything about this prospect in this meeting is basically telling you there's no need here.

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There's no urgency. The problem doesn't seem big enough. They don't seem very interested in this

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thing. They don't seem to be in much pain. And you say nothing. You know what's going on with your

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gut. Like, your intuition is telling you something and it doesn't align with what your actions and

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what your words say. That creates a misalignment that has two really significant impacts on you.

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And the first is super practical. It's on your sales, right? So if you were seeing these things

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early in the process and you choose to do nothing, you choose to say nothing. You choose just like

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you just go with the flow. Then the likelihood of those deals is low, right? Like the probability of

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actually closing those very low. You end up wasting a bunch of time. You end up wasting a

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bunch of resources, a bunch of energy. Like even as you're creating the proposal, you're like, I don't

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think this is going to work, right, but you do it anyway. Like you're just like you're investing the

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time. Sure, you get to the end and you get ghosted. You get told like fly a kite or your prices are

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way too expensive and you don't even have the ability to kind of overcome that. And the worst

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part about this whole thing is you get to the end and you're like, I kind of knew it, right? Like, I, I

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kind of knew it was going to be too expensive. I mean, in fact, when I mentioned price like two

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weeks ago, like they, they basically, you know, got up out of their chair, but I didn't do anything.

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Right. And that's the frustrating part. You haven't gotten the deal and you've wasted a lot of time.

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And time is. It is your most precious asset. It is your most valuable asset. And how

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you allocate it is going to determine how successful you are as a salesperson or not. So

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when you're spending it or investing it into these deals that you know, have obstacles that you

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know, have objections, and you spotted those things days, weeks in advance and never address them at

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that time. All of that time is just basically lost. And that's again, not good on sales and not good

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from a time allocation standpoint. Now the second issue is actually internal, right? Like what it

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does to you as a person when you're when you're going through the motions and you're doing this.

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And I think this is a the bigger issue actually, because when you as a salesperson

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just play the nice guy, right? When you avoid candid conversations, when you don't address

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things that your intuition and your gut says need to be addressed when you spot an obstacle or

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an objection and you're afraid to talk about it because you don't want to create tension in the

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room or you don't want to, you know, like upset the apple cart like you wanted to keep this, you know,

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nice and steady. And if I address that thing, it might get a little uncomfortable. So those candid

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conversations about price, you avoid them. Those times that you sit and let somebody just waste

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your time. Right. Like completely disengaged, curt, rude answers, you know, sitting on their phone. Like

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I said, like. And and you don't do anything when you do that consistently. When you quiet yourself,

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when you when you make yourself smaller in order to protect the feelings of the other person

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across the room. It's like creates this internal conflict because you are

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suppressing what you think you're suppressing what you what you want to say. You're avoiding

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saying what you really need to say and what you want to say. And what that does is it just erodes

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your confidence. Over time, it chips away at how you feel and it changes the energy that you bring

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to meetings. Over time, it changes the the way that you project yourself. And it changes. Obviously,

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like I was saying before, it changes the results that you're getting, which also adds to this. So if

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you're not getting results on top of going into meetings and feeling like, gosh, let that person

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run all over me, or I was afraid to say this thing or, you know, I didn't address like something that

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was clearly obvious and it bit me in the ass later. Doing that over time isn't a good way to

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make a living. That is not how you as a person build yourself up over time and you spend a lot

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of time working. So that is, at least for me, how I want to spend the better part of my day. Okay, like

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I want to be real. I want to be honest. I want to be, like, aware of what my my intuition is telling

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me. I want to be able to trust it. I want to have human conversations, authentic conversations, even

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if those are candid conversations, even if it creates a little bit of tension, even if it

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requires challenging a prospect. Those are the things that when you do that consistently over

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time, you will build your confidence as a person outside of sales like. But you will build your

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confidence as a person and you will end up getting more deals and feel better about it in

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the process. Okay, now let me tell you about a call that I had recently where this this played out

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and I was on it was a virtual sales call. And he was he was talking about our fractional sales

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management program. He had booked in a call. And so we get into this and it was like maybe, maybe ten

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minutes or so. And his body language is like most of the time his head was down.

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Um, you know, his answers were were few sentences here and there, uh, just the tone of the

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call and the energy and, like, it just it just screamed, dude, you don't want to be here or you're

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angry or you're distracted, or I said something like, I don't know, I don't I don't know what that

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is. So I stopped and I said, hey, Gary, can I ask you a candid question? He He's like, yeah, sure. Why are

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we here today? I mean, you booked the call. I'm sure that you don't have have time to waste. Um, like, as

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we're going through this, I just kind of sense maybe you're you're distracted or or disengaged

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or or maybe somewhere else, and I. Is it is it something that I asked or something that I said

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or is it's not a good time? Do you want to you want to reschedule this any pause? Any chuckled a

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little bit and he says, I don't have any of the answers that you're you're asking questions to.

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And I, I know that you're just trying to get a lay of the land of like, what you what you'd be

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working with and everything you said, but I, I feel like an idiot. Okay, first of all, thank you. Like,

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that's like, thank you for being candid. Second of all, completely understood. That's that's not how I

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intended it. So sorry if it, you know, if it made you feel that way. So tell you what. Why don't we

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just scrap all that? Let's just pretend that we're building on an empty lot, and you tell me what you

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want this to look like when, you know, 18 months from now, right? Like we've gotten this process

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going and it's rolling, and you've got a rep hired and they're, you know, they're they've got pipeline.

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Go. Just walk me through that. Let's start there and work backwards. And he said, okay, Eddie. And he

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starts mapping that out. Right. And he starts and he sits up. His body language changes. His energy

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changes. My energy changes. 50 minutes later, he is signed up. We are going to help him build the

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sales process. We're going to help him with the playbooks. We're going to help him recruit a rep,

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and then we're gonna help him manage them. 50 minutes later, that's what happened. And it was

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because stopped and said, ah, it's I sense something is off here. Let's address

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that. Instead of me continuing to go through my process, which, by the way, would have been a

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complete waste of time and maybe, maybe made him feel more like shit. I had more questions to like,

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understand now. Hopefully I would have picked up on it, but you know what I mean. Like, I would have

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wasted my time in that call on something that was already making him uncomfortable. And you know, if

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the purpose of, you know, discovery is identifying pain and probably cool. Done. Got it. Now let's move

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on. Let's talk about the prescription of what this is. Right. So that's what I mean by calling it out

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by trusting your intuition in your gut. So this happens a lot actually. I mean when this pricing

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is a really common one, you know, when, when we mentioned pricing or when you mentioned pricing,

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you may see somebody shift, you may see a body language change or a facial expression something.

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And a lot of people just let that go. Well, if it's me, I'm going to say, hey, I

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noticed, you know, if it was Gary. Hey, hey, notice Gary when I mentioned the, you know, the price

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there, you kind of made a shift a little bit. If I, if I may ask, is that because it's way more than

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you were expecting, or is that because it's it's way less than you're expecting? Um. And they'll

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tell you. Right. But instead of ignoring it and never addressing it or trying to address it way

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later in the process, just hit on it, right? Like just actually stop, pause. Human to human. Have

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the conversation. I'm not saying you don't have to be a douche about it, you know, to be, you know,

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disrespectful. Like you don't want to be an asshole. Tonality is everything. Delivery is

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everything. Also, don't make assumptions about what you think it is. Like with Gary, I could have

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thought, wow, maybe he's just an asshole, right? Like, maybe. Well, that's not it, right? So don't make

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assumptions. Don't, you know, don't deliver it the wrong way. But when you do this the right way, you

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will earn credibility from your prospects because they will respect you more for being willing to

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deal with a little bit of tension and a little bit of discomfort in order to have some

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boundaries, right? Like and have some self-respect and, and demonstrate, you know, project some

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confidence so your earned credibility you will close more deals, which, by the way, also feels a

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lot better, like sales is a lot more fun when you're when you're closing deals and you as a

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human will feel better about yourself in this process, and you won't let sales be

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something that chips away and makes you feel Feels smaller and instead allows it to be a

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platform for you to get stronger, for you to get more confident, for you to step into those

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conversations. And they get easier over time. Way easier. So you'll be shocked at how many times the

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prospect will actually appreciate the candor, because it's a it's a show of respect, in my view,

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and I have yet to actually have it backfire on me when it's when it's delivered the right way. So I

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