759: Cold Calling Mastery with The SDR Whisperer - Prospecting SECRETS from a Pastor Turned Sales Pro

Brian Nichols  
How did this pastor crush it in a career in sales? Let's talk about that. Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, hey there, folks, Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. Thank you for joining us. For another fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host. Joining you live from our studios here in lovely Eastern Indiana. And yet, let's kind of dig down this adventure here. Very interesting story. We're going to hear today from our guests how he went from a pastor to successful sales professional. Joining us here on The Brian Nichols Show. Jacob attacher. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show.

Jacob Tacher  
What's up, thanks for having me, Jake there

Brian Nichols  
for joining the program, man really appreciate you will take some time to talk to us today and digging into all things sales, booking appointments. But before we do that, we have to first start off talking about this this interesting road you found yourself down as a pastor and how you you dare say it helped you as you transition to a life as being a sales professional. Talk to us about that.

Jacob Tacher  
Yeah, totally First, thanks for having me, Brian. So I grew up in a really specific particular type of church. And in this specific, particular type of church, one of the main things we would do to evangelize and I am not religious really anymore at all. But one of the main things we would do to evangelize is, we'd go out on college campuses, or into malls, or just wherever people were. And we'd walk up to people trying to initiate a conversation. And our objective essentially, was to get people to come to our events, in order to get to know them better, kind of the whole Christian thing and eventually convert them or you know, we had a whole lens on it. But basically, the hardest form of cold calling ever did was walking up to random strangers in Seattle, Washington, the most unchurched city in the country, and trying to initiate a conversation about religion, God theology hermeneutics in order to get them to an event, which is kind of like a demo or a meeting or whatever, right. And so super challenging had to really, really focus on asking good questions, digging deep into something that we're interested in. And, you know, when I had my first sales job was a cold calling role. It honestly didn't feel that hard compared to that. So

Brian Nichols  
yeah, once you're you're kind of like face to face, trying to quite literally sell your religion. All of a sudden, you know, the hesitation is picking up a phone call to a random stranger and trying to push a particular product or service doesn't really seem as daunting, I'm sure. Well, that's just, I mean, there's so much to unpack there, right? Let's kind of start I guess, as you're going into the world of sales. Now we're in this is where you kind of find yourself today, and helping you book appointments, and prospecting, and so forth. Let's talk about what you will learn specifically, I guess, that you're using today, you're like, Wow, here I am. Fast forward, what 1112 13 years from where I was to where I am. And I still find myself each and every day using this one thing that I would use when I was actually going out and trying to sell my religion, what would that one thing you think be?

Jacob Tacher  
I think the most important thing that I garnered from that experience was, you have to ask good questions. And if people are not responding to the questions you're asking, you know, sometimes the people you're talking to obviously everyone knows is the percentage of people out there that are just going to be a no, but if they're not responding to the questions, you're asking, when they respond to the questions people around, you're asking, it's probably one of two things one, the way you're asking the question or two, you're not listening to them. Good enough. And so you've got some templatized version of a question and I don't care if you're a cold calling SDR or an account executive or closer. I currently manage for sales teams at companies doing seven plus figures and I've got a couple of my own and we do sales coaching and training and I've, I've done a bunch of stuff and one of the primary, like distinguished In factors in a B sales rep, and an A level sales rep, is how good they are at actually executing the ask, and, and like formulating a good question, even kind of asking same thing. But I think it looks like a couple of things. One, you got to know who you're talking to. Okay. So if you're selling to me, I'm a pretty direct to the point guy, especially if I'm on a sales call and getting sold, you need to be a little bit more direct. If you're trying to book or sell something to smaller business owners that maybe have a little bit less have in mind you my business classified as SMB, even though I'm a little bit more like that. But if you're talking to someone that's a little bit more soft, or gentle, or friendly of a person, that's going to be different. If the person is more interested in the subject matter than the results, you need to go that direction, you really have to learn a lot about the person you're talking to from the first couple of seconds, you're with them. And you can only do that one of two ways. One is by paying attention. And two is by knowing people, you actually probably have to do both. And so the way you ask the question is really going to depend on who you're talking to. And what they're giving off in terms of who they are as a person, right, like Pitch Anything Oren Klaff talks about these different types of people, and selling them differently. Even if it's the exact same sale, the exact same offer the exact same sales cycle, because different things are going to resonate with them different things, they're gonna hit their ego differently, and different things are going to trigger them differently. So you really, really have to be listening, not just to what they say. But pay attention ultimately to how they're presenting themselves showing themselves engaging with you and responding to different things you

Brian Nichols  
do. I'm big fan. So like, I'm a big fan of the checklist mentality, right? Like go through, make sure you check all the boxes, like are you forgetting anything, but there, there comes a point where I think you have to almost have a fine balance of like, as much as I agree, yes, you need to go through and check the boxes, you also need to be in that present state when you're listening to what your prospect saying if you're, you're only focused on checking off the next box, and you miss something, right? That could be the most important thing that helps you get the signature on the dotted line that you could have used later on. But you you weren't paying attention, you were more focused on trying to get your your boxes checked for your process for your system, but they may have given you the secret password you're going to need at level 20. And when you're at level 16, right, right, you didn't catch it. And now you're like your cotton, you're going through your notes, and you're like, Where was the secret password? I must have missed it. Because you did. You weren't paying attention, you were more focused on what you wanted to say where you want to drive the conversation than where the prospect was, was telling you they want to go right they were leading you that way. But you've ignored them because you were more focused on your your goals, your your ambition, versus really at this point, what was the needs of the customer from their own their own mouth? Yeah, 100%. And

Jacob Tacher  
I think one of the most important things that you can do, whether it's on a cold call, whether it's on an inbound appointment setting call and you're more of like an MDR, or whether you're an account executive and discovery is getting the initial core driver for them. Whether you're using the vernacular of problem, pain, focus, or goal, desire, outcomes focus, and the lack thereof is their pain. That's the real thing I look for in a sales call when I'm doing discovery, whether that's a cold call, or an actual closing call, and whether it's a $5,000 program, or whether I'm selling a multiple six figure package to a $10 million client or whatever,

Brian Nichols  
right? How do you how do you look for pain? Like it's one thing and it gives them context that question because I hear that a lot like Oh, find the pain, solve the pain, right? Like, like, twist the knife, really put salt in the wound, make them feel the pain, but like, how do you actually uncover that pain in a natural way without being forced being like, what's your pain points were problems like, that's just that's not natural. It's not how people talk. So how do you bring that up, and actually uncover that true? That bedbug issue.

Jacob Tacher  
So I find that especially with a saturation of simplistic sales tactics, we have lost the principles, the core principles that sit underneath a lot of these tactics, we want to really simplify what we're doing, but underneath it, there are people that you're talking to, that actually want something to be different. They actually do have a pain and they're willing to talk to you about it. If you can create a container in a conversation where you don't you don't attack him. You don't twist the knife, because no one's going to show you where the pain is. If you're just going to go and twist the knife. They're immediately going to stop making themselves vulnerable you so What I think works the best for me, no matter what your tactic is, and whether if your challenger or Sandler, whatever doesn't don't really care is to create a space where they can be honest with you, and you can be honest with them. And that means if you challenge them, or if you don't know, comfort them, or whatever it is, doesn't matter where it is on that spectrum, because you have set up a container in a conversation where honesty can happen. So I think the best way to do that in a sales context is to lead the conversation. When I teach people to cold call, I love upfront context, I love contracts. I love consent based openers. And I think it needs to sound like you, I think you need to practice it so much, that it sounds scripted. And then probably three times that amount, once you hit that point, so that it's becomes your language, and it becomes of your essence. So that for me in the beginning of a sales call, I always start the exact same way, you know, I might chitchat a little bit by the way, you don't build rapport in the first 10 seconds of a call or have any conversation, you might get someone to like you. But reports built via trust reports something much deeper than Where are you from? Right. And so don't don't worry about that don't do weird fake stuff, be a real human being. I start my conversations with Hey, can we hop right in? Here's the agenda. I want to learn a little bit about you why we're talking? I'd say that not exactly like that. And then I'm gonna tell you, obviously, about us and everything and you know, not hiding anything, not hiding anything behind the veil or anything like that. Does that sound fair? Is that good for you? Cool. Great. Well, for starters, actually, even before I go into some specific questions here, what like interested you enough to hop on a call. And I know, you might not know a ton about us, and you might be interested just to learn more. But what even grabbed your attention about the ad you saw, or the person you talked to on the cold call for two minutes for whatever? Just? What are you What do you want to talk about what is like important to you? And we'll just go there. So that for me is the natural way to say like what actually is on the top of your mind? And we could just talk about that. And if a god I don't know, nothing really I go? Well, okay, like, that doesn't make sense to me. Like, like, What do you mean? Nothing really, you know, like, I honestly don't get that very often. And the reason why is because no matter if, if my sources, ad or cold call. And the reason why is because the whole strategy is homogenously Hey, just tell us if it is or it isn't, if it's not no worries. So you can't like fake detachment, either. But I think if you just set a container where honesty is rewarded, not punished by you twisting some knife that they just revealed to you, then you're actually gonna be able to conversation with someone that trusts you, enough for you to push back, and enough for them to open up and for it all to be good and safe. And so if that's not there, like good luck, Objection, handling, good luck actually getting their core emotional driver, you're gonna get so much more smoke and objections and an answers. And so that's kind of my philosophy is how can this container just set up a really honest conversation? Because if you're a salesperson, and you're listening to this, you know that if you only sold the people that actually want and need what you have, you'd be fine. You know, if you just got those people, you'd be more than fine. So do what effectively converts those people the highest percentage, which to me, isn't that they liked you. But it's also not that you're just like some jerk that like is so insistent that this is the way to solve their problem, get to understand them a little bit, and make that a sincere, curious thing, and they'll open up they will. And if it's a no, you're gonna say it's a no and if you find reasons that it should be, you know, I go, Hey, why don't you do this, then? Like, it doesn't really make sense to me. Because if, you know if I'm thinking that they're definitely going to think it once I dropped pricing their fight or flight kind of kicks in, right? So I think that's what makes it natural. Just be a human being talking to a human being I got when I went from b2b to b2c. My mentor, my mentor is like, Hey, man, it's p2p, it's person to person just be a human right. And that was super helpful advice for me. Because I know how to do that. If you don't know how to do that, go practice it in a social setting, truly. See what makes people feel weird. See what makes them feel interrogated, see what makes them feel like you're being scripted and not listening, and see what makes them feel really listened to and see if you can do it inside of a structure that allows the breathing room for you to be a normal human being and know the boxes that you need to check. Know the categories they fall under. So that you're checking bigger boxes, and you can pay attention more so there's less boxes to check. I think

Brian Nichols  
I can't agree more. And I gotta say like, as a sales professional myself, probably one of if not the biggest things that has helped me in my becoming a better sales professional, believe it or not, has been being a podcaster and because As a podcaster, I have to ask good questions to facilitate the conversation. And if you're not asking good questions, then I mean, number one, your your podcast will just kind of fall flat. There's nowhere for it to really go. But number two, your audience isn't engaged because they're tuned out to because now it just feels like it's it's, you know, a waffle back and forth. There's no real momentum in the conversation. But the other thing I like to do as well in I'm not sure what your thoughts are here, Jake, I'd love to hear your context, on your perspective. But I'm a big fan of of getting my not just my guest on my show, but also getting my prospect to talk more than me. So for every episode, I transcribe it into an AI app called otter, and it helps break down for show notes. When I do that, it shows me the percent of how much I talked versus how much my guests talk, on average, it's usually like 65 70% of my guests speaking the entirety of the episode, and then the rest is me. And I like it that way. Because, yes, while the show's name is The Brian Nichols Show, the content itself is not me. I mean, sometimes it's me, but more often than not, is the content my guests bring to the table that we can then kind of dig through and dissect in a different way, whether it's talking about how do we bring what we know works in the world of sales, right to the world of politics and help folks in that world or whether it's just trying to help folks outside of that world of politics, and just, you know, the world of nonprofits or in the private sector, finding a problem that they identify in the the area of expertise or niche that they want to focus on. And then solving that problem, right, and being able to talk about ways not just how the problem gets addressed, but frankly, the value that we bring from bringing them from point A to point B. Now, this, I say all this to yes, I do have a question here and all that. And that is I sent a lot. And it took a lot to say all that. But how do we get someone on a quick phone call? We're doing a prospecting call, right? 1520 30 seconds, maybe tops, if we're lucky, in that initial interaction to get someone to continue a conversation with us? How do we do that without pushing too hard to your point on some of those pain points that we know they are likely facing without making it so they don't feel that they can be vulnerable with us, but still making it so they are at least having their interest piqued enough to solve that problem, and they're willing to engage in a longer dialogue?

Jacob Tacher  
Short answer, in my opinion, is story. Hmm. And Brian, you asked me to tell a little bit more about my story. Because we know story works. Actually, this is probably one of the things that I did garner the most from when I was in the church, and I was a minister and was reading the Bible a lot from Jesus, which, you know, again, I'm not a Christian anymore. But Jesus used story, to communicate a message and convey a message. And the reason why that works so well, is because when you watch a movie, or listen to a podcast, or hear anyone tell a story, the first thing you do is imagine yourself in the main character's shoes, or one of the characters shoes. So when I'm communicating pain points in a cold call, the way I'm doing it, is I'm saying, hey, people invite us in for this one of these two reasons. One, and I just tell a little story. They're here, one of something's happening, and they can't get here. So they invite us in, we fix the problem, we help them get here, or, and I'm going to do the same thing I go either of those sound like anything you've experienced, that you're hoping not to anymore, or something like that, right. And because I'm using story, they get it, it doesn't become mechanism, which, you know, everyone knows, like, stay out of the weeds in the beginning, it doesn't become features, it becomes it doesn't even exactly become problem solution. It becomes, you're here, and you want to be here. Everyone can digest that really well. And everyone kind of knows where they want to be. And they might not know how they want to get there. That's why we become indecisive so much is because we know what the right answer, we don't know what the right answer is. And so if you can sell a journey, and getting them from a point in their story to another point in their story, that is way more likely to sell. And whether or not I'm gonna cold call or my first conversation is 45 minutes. I start there, because that is how I also understand them. And so I think story is one of the most underutilized mechanisms for sales. And it's harder to use. Well, you have to know stories and you know, your prospect stories, you know, your customer stories, when you close people you should be and when you set people that close, you should be paying attention to their story, because it'll be very easy for you to speak in and say, Hey, you actually remind me of this person that, you know, I called a couple of weeks ago that signed up, they were here. They had these issues and they wanted to get here and they're like three steps into that now. I mean, does that sound I'm kind of like you guys are not really. And if I say we're not really, I always give the negative reversal option because I also find that nowadays, if you don't give people that out, they're gonna think you're pressing them into something. That is absolutely not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to help them make small decisions that eventually lead that are commitments that eventually lead them to the ultimate decision to commitment, which is still theirs to make, okay, but if I can get them all the way up there, it doesn't feel as scary as running up to the cliff, from 10 feet away and jumping off blind. It feels like I can kind of see over it. I've seen a couple other people jump, even if I like hurt my leg, like it's not going to be end of the world, or whatever it is, right? So I think story is one of the more powerful underutilized tools that people just don't know how to use, and I get why. It's kind of hard to teach, honestly. And I coach, I've coached over 100 people in sales at this point, probably a couple 100 hired a bunch probably hired over 100 and start using stories, one of the hardest things to teach. But one of the most effective methods might be

Brian Nichols  
telling stories, man, there's a reason that it's a billion dollar industry over in Hollywood, or one Yeah, it still is. But will it be for long? I don't know because they kind of stopped telling stories. Now they're just regurgitating stories with a 21st century twist, which it just doesn't feel good anymore. I don't know like the nostalgic. That is soldier boost was nice at first you're like, oh, man, it's cool to see like characters from my childhood brought back and now like, not ruining childhood character, please like I don't want to see Luke Skywalker turn into a whiny bitch, please stop turning into whiny bitches I just or making it like they, they are shelves of them, their former selves wherever it may be. I'm digressing here. But I'm Jake, as we're going towards the tail end of the episode here. Like, I think for my final thoughts, and there's a little segment we do you know, I'll kick things off here. And I'll turn things over to you for your final thoughts. But you know, this, this speaks to when we're looking at the world of politics, we're looking at the world of sales, there is so many similarities in terms of where the effectiveness lies, right we just had on our show, Woodrow Johnston, he came from the McShane LLC, and their political consultants. And he went through he outlined here's the proven success tools that we found in our world for winning your campaigns. And what do they find? It's, it's going out knocking on doors, right? It's doing direct dials for fundraising. Right? And it's like, yeah, we know that works in sales. Because we do that, right, we are going out and we're we are COVID it was much more common to go knock on doors, I knocked on many during my day. But like, you know, we knock on the the virtual door, right, you go you search on LinkedIn, you go to your networking events, you're doing the cold calls, which you guys do. And we're going to talk about that in a second, which I want you to talk about your organization. But I mean, that is that is something in both worlds, whether you're listening to the episode, as someone in the world of politics, or as someone in the world of sales in the world of business, which I know we have many of you in that audience as well. You know, this is a conversation that it transcends both. And it's relevant for both worlds if you want to be successful, and frankly, it's Ness, it's necessary, if you want to be successful. So if folks want to go ahead and learn more, Jake, obviously, we're gonna go ahead and direct them to where they can go ahead and follow you to continue the conversation, but also where they can possibly elicit your services. Jake, what are your final thoughts for today?

Jacob Tacher  
So here's the thing is like, the thing right in front of you is the thing you need to work on I have I have a couple of businesses that do all sorts of things, what I love to do, and what I would love to invite people to is to connect with me in some way because I actually love coaching and teaching. And the truth is, is most of the sales teachers out there are going to try and sell you some kind of like dream life, or some really overly simplistic piece of information, or maybe complicated piece of information that you'll just be able to download and plug in. But I mean, the really experienced salespeople know that it actually took practice to get to a certain level, your natural ability to view to a certain place and then it took a lot of practice. If you train in sales, if you train your active listening, if you train your ability, your use story and know when to use it like you would a sport or MMA or you know I was a music major can be an instrument if you actually train it so that you can improvise with it in real time, which is unlike most business skills that you have to have there's not really real time interaction happening. It's mostly prepare preparation prepared work. You can be successful, whether it's a cold call a Dornoch a conversation with your partner, or whatever you're trying to do. Right and so we help people with that we have a course on how to be an SDR and actually The train on the sales skills we don't teach how to use HubSpot or a dialer, we teach you how to have a conversation once someone answers the phone, because we know you can figure the other stuff out. We're also almost done with a course on transitioning from SDR to or center to closer or AE. And the new skills you need to have and how to train yourself for that, and how to show your higher reps or whatever, that you're ready to make that transition. Because you've invested in yourself and you're actually working in your role playing and you're practicing, you're repping it and wrapping it and wrapping it. And so if any of that sounds helpful, or interesting, or you just want to hang out, or whatever yet feel, feel free, please do follow me. Check out our websites, we have the str whisper.com. We're about to have closer whisper.com live on socials, my business partner partners also on socials more than me, we're just starting to build mine up, because I got some stuff to say. And honestly, we just like helping, like we do lots of consulting, that makes us way more money than the courses do. But you know what we kind of, we kind of undercut the market on ser whisperer created a course, for under 1000 bucks, we just put it up a little bit more, our closer course is going to be cheaper than another closure course we have. And it's gonna include roleplays, call reviews, trainings, you fill out assignments, we watched the assignments, and we pass or fail you. And then you go back until you're good enough to move on, just like any other skill in life. And if you think about the skill, you the best that that's probably how you got good at they probably made you run drills or practice or practice the one section of the song, you're not gonna be able to play through the fire in flames by playing through the fire and flames on Rock Band, you're gonna have to go into practice mode, slow down the solo, and segment that stuff. Right. And so that's how we trained sales. I hated Algebra Two, because I fudged my way through algebra one, and I was really uncomfortable in Algebra Two, and I could never really get comfortable with it until I went back to my foundations and with precalculated decal. So if you feel that way about sales, like your foundation will shaky you're not sure why you shaky you hit the next level, then read the foundations. It's this is your life, your whole life, you know, or your career, or the next five years, your life three years like whatever. You want to feel good and solid. So that's what we do.

Brian Nichols  
Appreciate you str whisper.com. If you folks want to go ahead, tell Jake, you heard him if you're on The Brian Nichols Show, please go ahead and do so. And by the way, Jake, do you have social media where folks can go ahead and continue to

Jacob Tacher  
do I do we're just building some new social media around my sales following we're getting it started. But it's at Jake Hatcher sales on everything. So at Jake Tatra, just like you see my name is spelled here sales. All one word. I'm predominantly be on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok.

Brian Nichols  
Rock and roll. All right, folks. Well, that's where you can go ahead and find Jake, you can find yours truly at B. Nichols. Liberty x.com twitter.com still gets weird to say x.com. No, you're right. No, yeah, you can still follow me on Facebook, though, as well. Even though Facebook decided to give me a 90 day account restriction for sharing a meme of what was the mean, it wasn't even something bad. It was oh, they took I shared a picture of it was like a joke about art being subjective and how it can get valuation at $20 million. And it's like, oh, you can have people pay you $20 million? Because they're like, oh, that's valued at $20 million. I'm not gonna pay taxes on it. And then Facebook was like, you're missing context. I'm like, It's a joke. What are we doing so anyways? Yeah, if you want to find The Brian Nichols Show Facebook page, you'll have to actually go and hit the like little notification button like the following button, I think or see first whatever it is in Facebook, but it's dying over there. So yes, go ahead and follow us be safe over on Twitter slash x.com at B. Nichols Liberty now. Two asks of my audience, three, the first of my asks will be support the show you can support the show by supporting our awesome sponsor, which is proud libertarian, they are the shop that supports The Brian Nichols Show store. Today I'm rocking my Michael Scott 2024 shirt. So if you're not onboard with the red team or Blue Team, and you think that America needs what a gold team with Michael Scott leading the charge, well, here's where you can go ahead and express who you want in 2024 at Brian Nichols show.com. Make sure you use CO T B and S for your Michael Scott 2024 shirt for 15% off your order and that's number one. Number two is that yes, we are a podcast. So if you want to go ahead and support the podcast, YouTube music, Apple podcasts, Spotify, there's so many different places to get podcasts wherever it is you get your podcasts hit the subscribe button number one. Number two though, hit download all unplayed episodes we have 700 And I think like 60 or so episodes here of The Brian Nichols Show all episode So to have amazing guests like we had Jake here on the show today, I promise we'll leave you educated enlightened and informed that's number two number three. Yes we are a video podcast as well which means we are on YouTube we are on rumble we are on sovereign which has been swans independent media entity s o v r e n n and yes, I announced that last episode. We've been trying it out we've been having some great success so yes, we officially air our episodes over on twitter.com as well in their entirety so you want to check our episodes over there. Go ahead and give us some some love over on the Twitter's again at be Nichols. Liberty. Jake. That's all we have for us today. I guess any last things on your end?

Jacob Tacher  
great being here. And yeah, man. I mean, if you ever want me to even do a sales training or anything like that, we'd love to be back. Cool and cool to see that we're on all the All right, independence. That's kind of fun.

Brian Nichols  
Oh, absolutely, man, diversify the message. Especially because, well, I know I'm not monetized on YouTube. I gotten the strikes over on Facebook. So you know, gotta cover our bases got to own our audience. Which by the way, thanks for reminding me if you want to go ahead and get my morning sales huddle, which is my email weekly in your inbox. It's usually some tips and suggestions, some tricks I've learned over the years as a sales executive. We'll go ahead and sign up for a morning sales huddle over at Brian Nichols. show.com link there on the homepage. That's all we have for you folks. Jake, thank you for joining us. Thank you, audience for joining us. Brian Nichols signing off. You're on The Brian Nichols Show for Jake catcher. We'll see you next time. You guys

Transcribed by https://otter.ai