In this episode of Sales Talk for CEOs, Alice Heiman sits down with trust‑selling pioneer Ari Galper to reveal why traditional sales techniques are failing in today’s climate and what CEOs, Founders, and Sales Leaders must do instead. Ari argues that trust isn’t a byproduct of selling; it’s the core of it.
Actionable takeaways for leaders:
- Train your team to lead with questions, listen until they share the full context of their problem.
- Replace “follow up” emails with “feedback” outreach.
- Always end meetings by scheduling the next appointment, don’t leave it to chance.
Watch below or on our YouTube channel
Ari’s insights build on a theme we’ve heard from several standout guests, trust isn’t just part of the sales process; it is the process. If you found this episode valuable, you’ll also want to hear how other CEOs and experts are scaling by leading with trust:
Barb Betts’ system to scale sales through trust
How to scale with trusted partnerships
Why relationships win over sales pitches
Connect with Ari and Alice below to learn how to transform your sales model into one built on clarity, empathy, and trust.
Rapid‑Fire Picks
Book: 80/20 Sales & Marketing by Perry Marshall
Podcast: The Diary of a CEO
Advice for CEOs to Win Today’s Market: Shift from being the “pharmacist” handing out pills to being the “doctor” diagnosing pain and eliminate any sales behavior that feels salesy or forced.
Connect With
Ari Galpert: LinkedIn | Website
Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Alice Heiman: Welcome to sales talk for CEOs. Today’s topic is so important to me and should be important to everyone out there who is selling, and that topic is trust. We have a huge trust deficit going on out there. I mean, it’s kind of been going on for a while with customers, not trusting salespeople and prospects, you know, don’t really know what to believe when salespeople are pitching to them, but it’s, [00:00:30] it’s just even bigger than that now.
We used to trust brands, but now we don’t because we don’t even know. Sometimes who’s behind it or what’s going on? And now with ai, we don’t even know if that information that that company is putting out, you know, is accurate or if someone stole their brand and put that out, or you know, if that’s the real person even talking in the video.
So trust has become a huge issue, but all of us in sales [00:01:00] know it is the key. To everything to getting started, um, to working through the sales process, to closing a deal, to retaining a customer. So I am so excited today to have Ari Galper on the show with me because he is a trust based selling expert.
Welcome Ari.
[00:01:24] Ari Galper: Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. Appreciate it.
[00:01:26] Alice Heiman: So just before we dive into the topic, um, [00:01:30] tell everyone you know, what you do and who you serve and what the results are.
[00:01:35] Ari Galper: Sure. So my name’s Ari Galper. I specialize in trust based selling, but that’s about, uh, two decades now. I can’t believe it.
I’m actually based in Sydney, Australia, uh, but I’m actually from the us um, and specialize in essentially CLO closing the long sales cycle gap. Focusing only on deep trust. It’s more of a doctor patient construct. We’ll talk about that today. And also the whole issue around the trust recession that you kind of [00:02:00] alluded to there.
Um, but spent two decades working on this with my own languaging and phraseology work with CEOs and sales teams that kind of shorten the sales cycle and stop chasing what I call ghosts. People will say, I wanna think about it and never call you back.
[00:02:13] Alice Heiman: And so who do you serve? What size company, and any specific industry.
[00:02:18] Ari Galper: Uh, typically entrepreneurs who have their own sales teams we’re selling CEOs. People actually are on talking to new opportunities. We aren’t just the, the white tab at the, uh, at the office, uh, look at the numbers, but are [00:02:30] on the phones, on Zoom, talking to real people and are, are just chasing a lot of opportunities and they’re doing what they’re told to do.
But it’s not effective anymore like it used to be. The conversion rates are kind of dropping. So those are the folks who really more low volume, high margin businesses because every single one counts.
[00:02:46] Alice Heiman: And are you providing training or coaching or a combination of both?
[00:02:51] Ari Galper: Yeah. So it’s consulting, it’s training the sales team.
It’s uh, re reculturing their business model in terms of how to think about the way they approach the market. [00:03:00] So it’s for a lot of one-on-one work. It’s customized for every single company we go. We do what I call in deal coaching. They bring their pipeline and the recordings, we actually watch the recordings live together and even I make calls for them to their clients.
So we do lots of fun together.
[00:03:15] Alice Heiman: Oh my gosh, that sounds great. And it’s something I hadn’t really thought about, but listening for trust. So you have a call recording and we listen for lots of things, right? When we’re listening to call recordings, but actually listening for trust. Yes. When [00:03:30] I said that. How did that sound?
Did they show me that? They trusted me in their answer. I think that’s so interesting. So everyone out there, that was a quick tip. Start listening for trust. But okay, so we’re gonna jump in here and really dig into trust because it’s like, what does that even mean anymore, right? With AI and everything else flying out around there.
How do you know who to trust and how do you know what to trust? [00:04:00] And, and trust is not like a given. Like, okay, now I trust you. I trust you forever. You can lose that trust at any time, and especially in a sales process. Now, you and I are both experts in a complex sale, which has a long sales cycle, lots of dollar stakes, lots of people on the selling team, lots of people on the buying team, lots of technical complexities of all kinds, and so we have to maintain trust.
Over time in our selling. [00:04:30] Yes. So, alright. What do we do, Ari? What’s the first thing that CEOs need to know about trust in order to help their entire sales team be able to focus on that customer? And even just asking that questions, do our customers trust us?
[00:04:49] Ari Galper: Correct. Well, let me drop a few bombs here. Uh uh the first thing would be that.
The co, that trust can be built without an actual relationship with someone. [00:05:00] It sounds very contrarian, but we’re taught to become almost like a peer. Get to know them, have them like us, become friends, and over time they trust us. But there’s a model we developed. You can actually build trust with someone pre-sale without becoming a peer where you’re the authority.
It’s over a doctor patient construct to see. The thing is, if you’re focused only on a relationship building, what happens is the sales cycle is extended over time until they trust you. If you get to know somebody in real life to become their friend, it takes time for [00:05:30] them to trust you. So our, our model and our concept is there’s not a lot of time in this day and age to keep somebody pre-sale.
They liking you over time because they might like you, but they may not trust you. The difference there, so our concept is how can we build trust with somebody without extending the relationship piece? Now, once you’re a client, of course you build a relationship with them and how you switch it over is using what I call trust based languaging.
Lemme give you an example. So rather well, [00:06:00] hang
[00:06:00] Alice Heiman: on, hang on, let’s pause because I think you said a lot already.
[00:06:03] Ari Galper: Sure. Okay.
[00:06:03] Alice Heiman: All right. So you are saying that there is a way for me as a CEO or a seller, or correct, you know, founder led sales to build the trust before I’ve ever even talked to the person.
[00:06:17] Ari Galper: You, well, you can position yourself for sure in advance the first convers.
Once they get to you for that first day Zoom consultation, you don’t have to work hard on the rapport [00:06:30] building, relationship building. How’s it going? Nice to meet you. What do you do? That sales stuff, everybody knows like a mile away. They can sense it when you’re trying to kind of do the sales process with them.
The way to shift to be more problem centric, we’re really diagnosing with empathy bedside manner. And you’re really going, what I call down the iceberg with them and helping them understand the depths of their situation, like on a doctor, right? First thing it says to you is, what does it hurt and does diagnostic with you?
[00:07:00] Now it’s done with warmth hopefully, but there’s less sort of dispensing the medicine in advance. So it is a more of a. Separating yourself from being the pharmacist and from being the doctor, because sometimes you try and be both and their best friend all at once for them to kind of feel like, I see, let’s get,
[00:07:16] Alice Heiman: yeah.
Well here. You know, people always say, oh, they have to know you, like you and trust you. I have never agreed with that. They do have to know you, or you’re not even in their, you know their world, right? They have to know. They do have to trust you, but they don’t have to like [00:07:30] you. Very good. Right. I think that’s a good example with a doctor because sometimes we go to doctors Yes.
Because they’re expert at the thing that the pain that we have. Yes. Doesn’t really matter whether I like ’em or not. Right. But I think it’s interesting because to, just to get started, the know you part is important and if you. If you are consistent online or wherever they find you, that does build some trust.
’cause they’re like, oh, that person consistently talks about these things [00:08:00] and they consistently show up. And so, Hmm. Okay. It’s like before you go to the doctor, you ask all your friends, oh, who did you go for your knee replacement? Yes. And then you read some reviews or something like that. So you do have some.
You know them and you have some trust in them, they can spoil that in a minute. But you, you get into that conversation and then you’re saying in that first conversation, you have a chance to really build trust by cut the chitchat and the yes [00:08:30] usual rapport building the sales people are yes. Trying to do, and let’s get to the point and get to their pain, what they need, what they see, and then be able to provide some insight.
[00:08:43] Ari Galper: Correct, without all the old school sales behaviors of trying to become their friend first.
[00:08:49] Alice Heiman: Right?
[00:08:49] Ari Galper: So like, here’s how you do it. Okay? I’ll give you an example. When they show up on Zoom first opportunity, they probably saw who you were on LinkedIn. Uh, first thing you say to them is, nice [00:09:00] to meet you. Nice to meet you as well.
That’s it for Chit Chat. Okay. Then you say this. If it’s okay with you, John, if you wouldn’t mind, take a step back for a moment. Walk me through your background, your situation, and your current challenge you have around whatever your sales team, and we’ll go from there. Would that be okay with you? Take your fingers like this over your mouth.
Sit back like a doctor. Go like that. Go like a therapist. Listen over your mouth so you don’t talk.
[00:09:25] Alice Heiman: And these days too, because we can get so much [00:09:30] information from the internet and maybe even talking to others that may know this person if it was a referral or something like that. We really can start with, yeah, tell me about like the trigger event, the thing that we know and heard about and how that’s impacting.
Like we can start with a really great question that just gets them talking about it.
[00:09:54] Ari Galper: Because they are testing you, they wanna see if you’re gonna try and sell them something. They’re [00:10:00] hiring you on your approach first before your solution. They’re very alert to how you are with them. If you try the chit thing and you started to shift to your solution model and your case studies, they know right away.
Uh, okay, he’s got an agenda, he’s got over my agenda. Like,
[00:10:18] Alice Heiman: show you how I’m gonna fix your knee. Wait, wait, do don’t If my knee needs fixing yet.
[00:10:24] Ari Galper: It’s hard ’cause most CEOs are solution centric. They love what they do. They believe in their [00:10:30] product. They cannot, once they qualify somebody, they can’t wait to tell ’em all about what they’ve got ’cause they wanna solve the problem.
They’re being the pharmacist too early in the process. They gotta be patient, stay calm, and stop trying to solve the problem too early. Yeah. Instead, go down the iceberg, unpack and peel back the onion there. I
[00:10:48] Alice Heiman: mean, I must say it several times a day. Let’s stop selling and start helping. Right. I can’t sell you anything until I even know what you need, but I’m trying to sell it to you because you kind of look like some other [00:11:00] people I’ve sold this to.
Right. Well. Exactly. So if I can take a minute, right, and start to learn and then formulate some ideas in my head that I can share with you versus trying to sell you a product or service, right? I’m going to gain your trust. ’cause it’s like, oh, but she’s actually cares about me and she’s giving me an idea.
That’s fantastic.
[00:11:23] Ari Galper: Beautifully said, you cannot make assumptions. Just because they’re qualified doesn’t mean they’re committed to wanna solve their [00:11:30] problem. So you have to go really deep with them in that first conversation using trust-based languaging to be able to do that.
[00:11:37] Alice Heiman: Yes, trust-based languaging.
All right, so let’s talk about that. So we get on and we do minor, very minor chitchat. Hi, I am. You are great. Let’s dive in. I’d like to. You know, ask you about this. Okay, so we get that first question underway.
[00:11:55] Ari Galper: Then what? Yeah. Then they tell you what their problem is. Okay. They’re talking and talking. You have to listen very [00:12:00] quietly.
Don’t try and solve the problem. Be present. I guess that’s it from me. If you’re not, once you’re done talking, here’s what you do. You crystallize and summarize the court issues. You say, so what I’m hearing from you is your court problems were X, Y, and Z. Is that right? And they go, exactly. Tick box number one.
He’s listening. Next question you say is, how long has it been a problem for?
[00:12:24] Alice Heiman: Hmm
[00:12:25] Ari Galper: hmm. Next question. What have you done so far on your [00:12:30] own to try and resolve it? Mm-hmm. Okay. And you go through a series of questions below that, even things like this. What is the, what I call COI, cost of inaction. What’s it costing them not to solve it?
Reverse engineer the problem itself, help them see the impact of it. So you might say, have you thought about what’s costing you right now not to deal with this? Have you thought about what’s costing you psychological at home with your, whatever your, your solution, whatever the [00:13:00] problem is, you help them monetize the actual problem itself.
Otherwise they can’t justify routing your check to want to solve it. So it’s very counterintuitive here because we’re trying to help them. Understand the full gravity of their own situation once you get there. The last question, go ahead.
[00:13:16] Alice Heiman: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard there’s a little danger in that lately.
There’s a lot of people who are disagreeing with that method. Used to be the, you know, the COI or the Challenger kind of way. Like, oh, so what do you think it’s costing you [00:13:30] and understanding that buyers are really overwhelmed? I would sort of. Tiptoe around there, or maybe phrase it in a little bit of a different way.
Uh, but I get what you’re saying. At some point you’ve gotta get them to realize they actually have a problem. But, you know, they probably wouldn’t be talking to you unless they did. It’s, it’s kind of interesting, but
[00:13:50] Ari Galper: Oh no, they definitely, they definitely have it. But the challenge is they often don’t understand the full impact or, or this 360 view of it.
Yeah. They see it in a prism. [00:14:00] Not the full impact of it. Yeah. So we’re not trying to challenge them here. We’re trying to get them to open up about the full context, give the story, tell you
[00:14:07] Alice Heiman: what’s happening and what the misery is in it, or
[00:14:10] Ari Galper: the truth. That’s the goal. The truth
[00:14:13] Alice Heiman: they could be doing if only, right?
If only this worked, my gosh, we could really grow a company. And here’s the other thing, Ari, that I just, you know, you and I see it every day. That’s one person. There are five people in this deal that I have to talk to, and each one of them has different [00:14:30] pain from it. Some people see it as trouble, some people see it as growth.
They all look at their problem with their own perspective. They, it, it is impacting them in a different way. And they, one of them might be like, yeah, no big deal. I mean, we could keep going the way we’re going. The other one, like, no way we have to change. Right. And now you’ve gotta take. First of all, you’ve gotta build trust with each one of them and listen to their story, right?
Then you have to get them [00:15:00] all on the same page together, still trusting you. Like we don’t want two of them trusting you and two of ’em going, eh, I’m not sure about that, Alice. Uh, because that’s not gonna work either. So we’re having to build trust with multiple buying influences and maintain that trust.
[00:15:20] Ari Galper: That’s why it’s key to build a business case with that first contact from the beginning. That becomes the anchor all the way through the process. ’cause without that anchor and the business case behind it, no one, it [00:15:30] doesn’t really stick very well. If someone else comes down and says, well, it’s not that big of a deal.
Well, John said, you’re losing a hundred thousand a month. Are you sure, guys? So it’s just a way to kind of keep the co the conversation and process centered around the problem itself.
[00:15:43] Alice Heiman: Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. So you’ve, you know, now you’ve, you’ve talked to several of them and heard from them each, and by being a good listener, summarizing it really well and, and getting them to.
Give [00:16:00] you more, you know, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going on. So what happens after that?
[00:16:06] Ari Galper: Well, then you would ask them, is this a priority for you to address and resolve as soon as possible? Or is this a next year type of project? Where are you guys on the timeline for wanting to address this?
[00:16:18] Alice Heiman: And
[00:16:18] Ari Galper: pause there because
[00:16:19] Alice Heiman: that is so big, Ari, because like you said, salespeople chase and Chase and they think people are ghosting them. It’s like, no, it’s not a priority for them. That is why they’re not getting back [00:16:30] to you. They’re not ghosting you. Uh, they have other things to do, and answering your email is not important to them because they’re not doing that right now.
[00:16:39] Ari Galper: Correct. So it’s not a priority then? It’s not, don’t chase them. But that’s an important question. Everybody misses to ask that one question, is this a priority and was your timeline? Now, let’s assume you said or he or she says to you, yes, this is a serious issue. You wanna address it. Great. Then you say this, may I walk you through?
[00:17:00] Our roadmap process for how we go about addressing your issue. It’s not a demo, it’s not your solution, it’s not your case studies, but a visual roadmap left to right. Have a flow chart that shows them it’s a meta step, what your process is to go about addressing it. So phase one might be discovery assessment, phase two about the analysis.
[00:17:19] Alice Heiman: I’m gonna pause you for one second. ’cause there’s one thing I throw in even before I do that road mapping. Yeah. I say, so it’s a priority. Are there any competing [00:17:30] priorities that are going to get in the way? Mm-hmm. Because it may be a priority to them, but also the company, if it’s big enough, is working on some of these other things, which could get in the way of their project.
[00:17:45] Ari Galper: That’s kinda like, are there any roadblocks that we should talk about in advance before we pursue this process or the things that might get in the way? Absolutely right. Very good. That clears the beachhead, so to speak, uh, in the beginning. And then you hopefully, uh, most people have a process, but they don’t visualize it.[00:18:00]
Your process has to be in a visual tool, like a roadmap. I’ll a quick example, and I used to go on site to visit with a lot of teams. In the beginning, presale, I spent as long with me. It’s a tube I had under my arm. We’d be in the conference room and we’d get to the point where we’d ask that question, is it a priority?
And I’d say, yeah, I’d say, may I walk you through our process? They go, sure. I’d pop this little top off the top of this thing and I would come. My physical roadmap, it was laminated extra Lars, and I laid it on the conference [00:18:30] table and I and my kid email. Every head went like this. What is that? This is our roadmap, phase one, phase two, phase three, and they’re enthralled by this thing, as simple as it is, and I’d say, what are your thoughts on the roadmap, everyone?
And they start talking about, yeah, it makes sense. Sounds good. And then you kind of slowly onboard them into a next step inside your process, which they’re buying in advance because they can see around the corner, they can understand what’s gonna happen next.
[00:18:58] Alice Heiman: Yeah. And that’s a beautiful way [00:19:00] to bring up the roadmap.
And it’s so important because even though that roadmap may change a little or be customized, whatever, these basic steps have got to be done, right? Correct. And what. W what happens today is salespeople don’t get it. That people don’t know how to buy from you. You think you are gonna show up and sell them something and they know how to buy it, but they do not.
They have no idea. First of all, they may have never. Purchased anything like that before in their [00:19:30] entire life. Right? Or maybe it’s been years since they bought something like that. And they, even if they’ve bought something similar to it in the not too distant past, they didn’t buy it from you. And they do not know how to buy from you, and it is your job to make that easy, right?
Take the friction out and show them clearly the steps to getting the solution that is best for them. It looks like this,
[00:19:59] Ari Galper: well [00:20:00] said, because they’re often in shopping mode. Their mindset is chopping around for solutions, not knowing how to. Hook onboard how to buy. You’re right. If you don’t provide the construct on top of their process, you’ll be inside their process and they’re gonna make it chase them.
And that’ll be a
[00:20:15] Alice Heiman: mess. Their process is a mess. But not only that, and I, hopefully your roadmap does this as well. They just. They, a lot of times salespeople will say, well, this is what it will take, you know, for you to buy. No, I need the [00:20:30] whole process. Once I’ve purchased what will happen, right? What are the, what’s the onboarding, what’s the ongoing, it’s the whole life cycle that needs to be shared.
And, and then if you have, you know, a hundred, two steps, you can’t put them all on your roadmap. You need to put, put the big pieces on, right?
[00:20:46] Ari Galper: Yes. If they have to agree to the process, map in advance to the next step. If they don’t, we exit. We leave them because if they don’t follow the process, they’re gonna drop off.
They’re gonna fight it. They’re gonna make us chase [00:21:00] them. So the key is saying this languaging, which is, I want you show ’em the roadmap. You, you don’t say if you have any questions. You say, what are your thoughts on the roadmap process? And they usually go, makes sense. And you say this, where would you like to go from here?
And on their own, they say, well, why don’t we start with the next step? Sounds good. So you’re not trying to move them forward. They on their own are buying because you’re creating enough space for them using the language where they feel comfortable [00:21:30] with you, ’cause you’re not attempting to move them forward overtly.
[00:21:34] Alice Heiman: Yeah. Well, I think that they, right. What you want is for people to buy, not for, you have to continuously sell them. Sell them, sell them. Right. Right. And that’s what we talk about the buyer journey or the buying process, because that’s really what salespeople are there to guide. They are there to guide that buying process.
And again. The people buying from, you don’t know what that is. They know some of the things they have to do inside [00:22:00] their company to get something purchased, but they don’t know the exact steps. And usually, you know, the things we we sell today are pretty complicated. And yeah, they need to know that at this point, yes, it will have to get involved and it’s gonna take a little bit and then maybe the contract’s gonna have to go to legal.
Do you have a legal department? How do you usually handle that? Like what are the places where things. Might get stuck and you may not get what you need on time if they do get stuck there. [00:22:30]
[00:22:30] Ari Galper: Yeah, look, complexity equals mistrust. Simplicity equals trust. If you can lay out the roadmap in advance to ’em, it looks, makes sense to ’em, and it feels like it’s doable, then they’ll trust you.
If it’s too complicated and you’re talking about your your stuff all the time, they’ll say to you this phrase, which is so common, which is I like to think about it. Oh, okay. You chase them afterwards and they ghost you.
[00:22:55] Alice Heiman: Yeah. Well, they’re thinking about it. It takes time. [00:23:00] But yeah, we gotta stay out of that place for sure.
So CEOs who are out there doing some of the selling, maybe they’re managing their team that’s selling, or maybe they’re managing the managers that are managing the team that’s selling, what do they need to know to get this started at their own company?
[00:23:17] Ari Galper: So the, the first tip I’m gonna throw out here is I’m gonna ask every CEO listening to remove one key word from a vocabulary and never use it again after today.
And here it comes. It might hurt just a bit. I’m gonna ask you all never again to use the word [00:23:30] follow up as of today on your phone calls or emails ever again. Okay? This follow up is a sales word, and follow up means you’re moving things forward. Here’s what you say instead. I’m just giving you a call to see if you have any feedback on our previous conversation.
Feedback. So small languaging in itself for your sales team can make a huge difference when you try to reengage people. But the goal to, if you’re training a sales team, uh, you have a team underneath you, is that, like you said earlier, is to, essentially the big picture is stop selling, build [00:24:00] trust instead, which is a whole separate skill set that you’re, you talk eloquently about through as well.
And the key is to be problem centric. Not solution centric. It’s so easy for reps to, in their mind, qualify and assess so quickly. They size them up and they go right into the next step in their process without going down below that iceberg down to the point of saying, is it a priority or not? So the real key is having your people get comfortable with the idea of not solving it too quickly, but just [00:24:30] staying inside the problem as long as they can until they hear the magic phrase, which is, how can you help me?
[00:24:37] Alice Heiman: Yeah, takes
[00:24:38] Ari Galper: a lot of patience,
[00:24:39] Alice Heiman: right? It does take patience and it doesn’t happen on one phone call usually correct, and it doesn’t happen with the first person you talk to necessarily. And it may happen when there are three or four or five or eight people on the call with you, and you’ve got some of your team on the call and you know there’s lots going on.
And I think today. [00:25:00] It’s always been true, but today for sure, we need to have patience in sales. It’s a long game unless you’ve got a transactional sale, you know, copy your paper when it runs out. Gotta buy more, right? Unless you’re doing that, if you’re in a, you know, a complex sale where there’s high dollar stakes and we’re, you know, multi-year licenses just doesn’t happen overnight, and people say, oh, it’s a 12 month sales cycle, you’re probably lengthening your own sales cycle because you’re not.
[00:25:30] Approaching it properly, but it does take time and people are in contracts with other people and they do have other priorities and that’s why you need to find out, oh, this is going to be a 12 month sales cycle. I know that in advance and I’m not like, oh my gosh, it’s been taking 12 months. It’s the exact opposite.
I knew it was gonna take 12 months. They had to finish up their contract, we had to do these things, and that is where I forecasted it. So I’m not moving it every month because I’m hoping, hoping, hoping they’re [00:26:00] gonna buy from me. I’m saying from the beginning, this is what they’re doing. This is when their contract ends.
This is what we can be in our work, and this is when the customer will be ready to buy. And therefore, I am forecasting that date.
[00:26:15] Ari Galper: Your roadmap has to match their roadmap as well, because they have their own things. They have to get through milestones. You have your milestones. You have to line those two up together so everyone feels comfortable with the process.
Otherwise there’ll be friction somewhere [00:26:30] along the way, which extends the process out. And now they have to deal with that, that model as well. So oftentimes, long sales cycles are indicative of lack of trust because there’s a lot of delays not responding quickly to someone. You don’t respect your trust so that that really holds them together when you start at the beginning and get it right.
Versus try and catch up with later on down the road. Okay.
[00:26:49] Alice Heiman: So in your process, for the CEOs out there who are trying to get their sales teams to adjust, stop following up. Follow up is, I’m following up ’cause I need something. Right? [00:27:00] So you want some other type of trigger, which is, what did you think of? Or do you have any feedback on our last conversation?
Something of that nature. To help them respond, but of course, before we got off the last meeting, the last call, the last meeting, whatever we should have scheduled, our next meeting doesn’t always happen. If they’re actually truly interested, it will happen. And this is what exactly, I think it’s more of [00:27:30] the sales person forgetting than anything else, because people who do wanna move forward with you will schedule, and sometimes that schedule has to change, but get it on the calendar, right?
Yes. And then in between, especially if it’s gonna be a number of weeks, we still have to communicate with them something of value.
[00:27:47] Ari Galper: Yes. Oftentimes the reps forget to schedule. They assume their job is a chase, and the reason why is they’re missing the languaging for how to actually say it. Here’s how we teach our reps to say it.
You say, if [00:28:00] you would, you be open. That’s the key phrase. Don’t say interested. Would you be open? Let’s schedule any time on our calendars together to keep this thing process going together to avoid you and I chasing other back and forth. Would you be okay with that?
[00:28:13] Alice Heiman: Yeah. Just when you send it to somebody and
[00:28:15] Ari Galper: they go, sure, Sam, I, I respect you for that.
[00:28:17] Alice Heiman: Build trust.
[00:28:18] Ari Galper: Respect. Yeah.
[00:28:20] Alice Heiman: Right. Okay, so stop saying, I’m just following up. That’s the first thing you want CEOs to do next. We gotta make sure that we use the right [00:28:30] language to make the prospects feel comfortable to schedule this call with us.
[00:28:34] Ari Galper: Yeah.
[00:28:34] Alice Heiman: Okay. What else?
[00:28:37] Ari Galper: Some of the key phrases there are, I’d rather say, would you be interested?
You say, would you be open? Open doesn’t force ’em to a yes or no, but it creates a comfort level for them to say, Hmm. That sounds good. So some key, key languaging on there. So once you’re onboarding somebody as in your process and they’re already engaged on the calendar, that’s typically when the relationship begins because you’re already agreeing to your [00:29:00] process, things are going well.
So I’ve often said the sales loss in the beginning and not the end of the process because trust wasn’t built from the beginning. So I think if we just have. Folks focus on that front end, get that roadmap right, have an greater the process for there, then they have an advantage over anybody else, and they’ll be less shocked that way.
[00:29:19] Alice Heiman: Yeah, and that’s, you know, something everyone needs to think about today. There’s so much competition for almost every product out there, and when what you sell is so [00:29:30] similar to what others sell or hard to differentiate on my own right. For me to differentiate the differences when what you sell is so similar, how you sell makes a difference.
[00:29:42] Ari Galper: Correct. Absolutely right. Well said.
[00:29:44] Alice Heiman: Yeah. All right. So what else do CEOs need to know to help their salespeople and themselves build trust with prospects and customers? Sure. So they can keep those relationships strong, close more deals and retain
[00:29:59] Ari Galper: [00:30:00] Well, one tip we’ve been testing with our clients is something called a, when I mentioned earlier, cost of an action, uh, just to call a c, cost of an action and visualizer.
People can’t often visualize the actual context of their problem. They understand, but can’t see it in their mind. So what we’re doing now is we’re taking their problem that they’ve told the rep that they have. We’re having them now create a visual image of the problem itself, which shows the customer in context, their full situation.
So we’re using a lot of the AI [00:30:30] tools to visualize their problem. So they can see it with their own eyes versus just talk about it. Once they have a picture of the problem, they can pass it around, show their team in one visual caption. So we’re now testing that to see if that works. So far we have some good feedback on that.
[00:30:47] Alice Heiman: Very good. And the customers are giving you good feedback on that.
[00:30:51] Ari Galper: Yeah. Yeah. So, so the idea is you, you would do a deep dive with a customer. Unpack their situation, help them ex explain to you what their challenge [00:31:00] is. You take the challenges, maybe their numbers, whatever their tech stack, whatever the problem is, and you create a visual image around the story of the problem.
You send it to ’em and say, I think I understand. Is this the problem? You’ve got a picture. They go, yeah. You understand us? Mm-hmm. You get us. Trust is when someone says to themselves, she gets me.
[00:31:22] Alice Heiman: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:23] Ari Galper: She gets us. So the whole idea is to go deeper and deeper for them. Feeling that emotion from you. ’cause they’re [00:31:30] typically purchase.
The purchase is emotional, not often intellectual.
[00:31:34] Alice Heiman: Well, we’re helping them make a good decision, right? Yeah. And my good friend Brent Adamson, you know it wrote a book called The Frame Making Sale, and he says, you know, the buyers lack confidence, not in you, the seller. They lack confidence in themselves to make a decision.
Exactly. So now your job becomes. Helping them become confident in their decision making and anything you can do to help [00:32:00] them go, yes, that would be a good decision. Yes. That makes sense. So they have confidence to keep it moving forward. I think so many things stall because the whole committee will go, is this really gonna, it’s a lot of work.
Is it really gonna make it any better than it is right now? I don’t know. It’s a lot of money. Yeah. Why don’t we just stick with what we’ve got.
[00:32:20] Ari Galper: Yeah. Indecisiveness. Is the enemy we’re trying to battle here. Their inability to make that one decision, which takes about three seconds to say to you, I’m in.
Let’s do [00:32:30] this. It takes years to get at that point for someone to tell you that. Now why? Because of what you’re saying, all indecisiveness, not trusting somebody, but you close those gaps. You then condense the cycle a bit more.
[00:32:41] Alice Heiman: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so now we’ve got this kind of cool visual that’s like, Hey, we get you.
Right? Yeah. And they’re like, yeah, you do. And hopefully 3, 4, 5 or eight or how many people are involved are all saying the same thing. And again, [00:33:00] throughout this we are removing friction, removing friction, removing friction. It’s amazing to me, Ari, how how much friction companies put in their sales process, how hard they need it for people to buy from them.
[00:33:13] Ari Galper: I’ll give you a great example of this. I had a rep the other day who’s been chasing this deal for a long time, and he sent the gentleman a proposal, um, and I said, and then, so what’s the problem? He said, well, he is not calling me back. I sent it to him. It’s what he wanted. I said, why did you send it to him?
I said, stop [00:33:30] sending proposal. Schedule a zoom call, right? Show screen, open up page by page, get feedback, talk about it, and have it happen live, not in their inbox. He’s like. Oh, everyone just sends stuff out and waits for answers. It’s crazy.
[00:33:46] Alice Heiman: 100%. Like that’s one of the main things I teach my clients is do not send a proposal by email.
Schedule an appointment and walk through it. First of all, design it together on the previous call, then write it [00:34:00] up, then put it in front of and say, is this is what we agreed to? Yes it is. Great. Or change this or, great. Alright. We’re agreed. Now I’m gonna send it to you for electronic signature. Correct.
Completely different than I sent you the proposal and now I’m chasing you. Correct. To see if I can get an answer.
[00:34:18] Ari Galper: So the goal should be to create a buy appointment only business model where every stage of the process is like a doctor’s office. It’s on the calendar, it’s not off the [00:34:30] calendar. So if a CEO is running a team, your goal is to ask yourself, is my team off the calendar with their prospects, or were they on the calendar?
That is a huge shift for people to begin to move them on the calendar and everything becomes more of a cadence, more easy to forecast, easier in the CRM stages. You know it’s gonna happen next because you can see them moving down the calendar stages.
[00:34:52] Alice Heiman: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the calendar, I live and die by the calendar, and I think that all salespeople should, because what I should see on their calendar is [00:35:00] appointments to talk to people who can buy.
[00:35:03] Ari Galper: Yes. Right, exactly.
[00:35:04] Alice Heiman: Like
[00:35:05] Ari Galper: who are engaged, who are trusting you, who are agreeing to the process.
[00:35:09] Alice Heiman: Right? And you’re all moving forward together. It’s not, the salesperson got way ahead of the, of the buying team, right? So absolutely. You
[00:35:18] Ari Galper: remove the chase from the process. You’ve won half the battle right there.
[00:35:22] Alice Heiman: Alright, anything else really important that these CEOs need to know in order to get this trust based selling going at their company? [00:35:30]
[00:35:30] Ari Galper: I think this, the big ideas are, one, use trust-based languaging. Two, go down that iceberg, peel it back to the bottom until you get the point of is it a priority? And three, visualize your process with them so they can see it.
And schedule them. Just do that alone, those four or five milestones. And so much would shift for you right of way.
[00:35:51] Alice Heiman: Yeah. And where does the roadmap fit into there? Towards the beginning. Right?
[00:35:55] Ari Galper: It’s the beginning. On the first conversation, the first contact, you show them the [00:36:00] visual roadmap of what your process is from here.
They have to see it to believe you. They don’t see it. They believe you. ’cause you said audibly, it goes in one ear out the other ear when they see it. They go, that makes sense. There’s a sense of calm, uh, there’s a construct there, and there’s some kind of sense of security knowing they can see around the corner in advance versus just kind of trusting your process, so to speak.
[00:36:25] Alice Heiman: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Well, oh my goodness, it’s been great. But [00:36:30] before we end today, I have three questions for you.
[00:36:33] Ari Galper: Sure.
[00:36:33] Alice Heiman: Uh, the first one is, what is a book that you think every CEO should read?
[00:36:39] Ari Galper: Um, I’ve always had on my desk, uh, the book called SIT 80 20, sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall. Yeah, he has a whole book on the counts of, of 80 20, your prism of how you view your whole process.
And I use that all the time for myself and my teams do as well.
[00:36:54] Alice Heiman: Love that. Okay. And what’s a podcast that you listen to because it helps you think differently. [00:37:00]
[00:37:00] Ari Galper: Uh, uh, who is diary? The CEO, you know? Yeah. Um, uh, this just a great podcast on health and business and wealth. It’s not so long,
long walk. So
[00:37:13] Alice Heiman: two hours. I’m like, okay, I gotta break this one up.
[00:37:17] Ari Galper: I know exactly,
[00:37:18] Alice Heiman: but that is a good one. And he just talks to the most amazing people you wouldn’t even think of. Right.
[00:37:25] Ari Galper: He has a real way with people. I, I love just listening to him. He’s really great. He
[00:37:28] Alice Heiman: really, really does. Okay, last question.[00:37:30]
What do CEOs need to know to win in this market?
[00:37:34] Ari Galper: I, I think, as we talked about earlier, I think the biggest picture to think about and the real mindset shift is to be the doctor and not the pharmacist who early. But the real idea is to stop using any sales behaviors that connect you or your team. The stereotype everybody hates.
Chris resistance, hence what we talked about today. The no follow up feedback, the roadmap, the doctor. So just kind of getting that [00:38:00] construct down should eliminate a lot of resistance in the sales cycle being along.
[00:38:04] Alice Heiman: Very good. Ari, thank you so much. I think it’s nighttime for you there, right? Good morning, Ashley.
Morning. Morning. It’s morning. I’m like, he’s in Australia. What dog is it? There even. But thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.
[00:38:21] Ari Galper: Thank you, Alice. Appreciate it.
0 Comments