CEO Group Call - Sales Calls Deep Dive
Mastering sales calls requires a structured approach. Learn how to qualify prospects, structure intake and pitch calls, tailor your messaging, and implement value-based pricing. This deep dive covers key sales call strategies to maximize conversions and build long-term customer relationships.
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Sales Calls Deep Dive: Structuring Conversations for Maximum Conversions
Sales calls are often the make-or-break moment in the customer acquisition process. A well-structured call builds trust, qualifies prospects, and positions your offer as the ideal solution. But too many sales professionals rely on intuition rather than a repeatable system—leading to inconsistent results.
This deep dive explores how CEOs and sales leaders can refine their sales call strategy, from qualifying leads to delivering high-impact pitches that drive conversions.
Understanding Sales Call Structures
Not all sales calls are the same. Each type serves a distinct purpose in the customer journey, and mastering their structure can significantly improve your close rates.
• Qualifying Calls – The goal is to determine whether the prospect is the right fit before investing time in a deeper conversation.
• Intake Calls – These calls gather critical customer insights to tailor your pitch effectively.
• Pitch Calls – This is where you present your offer, handle objections, and position value.
The Essentials of a Strong Qualifying Call
A great sales process starts with strong qualification. Before you spend time on a proposal or a detailed pitch, you need to ensure that the prospect is both willing and able to buy. Key elements of a qualifying call include:
• Identifying the decision-maker and budget authority
• Understanding the prospect’s key pain points
• Assessing timing and urgency for a solution
Deep Dive into the Intake Call
The intake call is often overlooked, but it’s a game-changer. Instead of jumping straight into a sales pitch, the intake call allows you to gather insights and tailor your approach. A well-structured intake call includes:
• Asking open-ended questions to uncover deep needs
• Understanding how the prospect currently approaches their problem
• Identifying key objections before they arise in the pitch call
Effective Pitch Call Strategies
Once you have qualified the lead and gathered insights, the pitch call is your opportunity to present your solution with impact. Some key strategies include:
• Tailoring the Pitch – A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. Leverage the insights from your intake call to personalize your presentation.
• Systematic Pitch Approach – Structuring your call with a clear problem-solution framework keeps the conversation focused.
• Value-Based Pricing – Instead of leading with cost, position your pricing based on the measurable value your solution provides.
The Role of Brand and Messaging in Sales
Your sales pitch isn’t just about features and benefits—it’s about positioning. A strong brand guide ensures your messaging remains consistent across all touchpoints. Additionally, avoiding RFP (Request for Proposal) processes by focusing on direct value-based sales can improve deal quality and shorten sales cycles.
Luxury Sales and Pricing Strategies
For high-end offers, positioning is everything. The perception of exclusivity, premium service, and differentiated value plays a crucial role in pricing strategy. If your solution commands a high price, ensure your messaging reinforces the premium experience.
Creating a Systematic Sales Approach
Sales success isn’t about having a charismatic pitch—it’s about following a structured system that qualifies, nurtures, and converts leads efficiently. By refining your call structures, tailoring pitches, and implementing value-based pricing, you can dramatically improve your sales outcomes.
Are your sales calls structured for success? Implement these strategies, and watch your close rates soar.
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction and Presentation Setup
00:00 Introduction to Sales Goals
00:12 Understanding Sales Call Structures
03:27 Qualifying Call Essentials
08:56 Intake Call Deep Dive
12:54 Pitch Call Strategies
17:51 Combining Calls and Practical Tips
21:06 Pitching for Each Other
21:33 Building a Brand Guide
22:31 Tailoring the Pitch
23:37 Systematic Pitch Approach
27:28 Value-Based Pricing
28:32 Understanding Customer Value
31:51 Avoiding RFP Processes
40:58 Luxury and Pricing Strategy
42:16 Conclusion and Next Steps
Transcript:
[00:00:00] So sales goals. That's what we had in the past where some of you were interested in
this works. Yes. So, we will look into the base structure, and then we go deeper into qualifying call intake call and pitch call. And we can then have afterwards, uh, discussion on this. I will, I will mainly focus on the structure and will not go too detailed on every single nuance. Because I think the first start to understand when it comes to all of these things is really going into the structure that you built to get to where you want.
Which leads us to structure structure. There are different sales mechanics and sales structure. I'm now focusing only on the calls, everything that is below 10, 000 euros. And [00:01:00] let's say between maybe 1, 000 and 10, 000, you should be able to do with two possible calls. And that means there's a qualifying call and an intake that we combine with the pitch call.
So it's two calls. You get people into the first call, and that first call can be 15 minutes. You qualify them. And if the people are qualified, then you move them to the next. We will go into every single call later. So that's starting point. I would say it's roughly between 1000 euro and 10, 000. If you are below 1000 euro, you can almost sell online.
Normally, that shouldn't be a problem. It's way harder to sell online than to do phone call sales for everyone. It's what a lot of people don't understand. It's way harder to sell, let's say, 55 euro tickets than to sell 10, 000 [00:02:00] tickets. Because if you are with someone in a sales call, it's way easier to convince them.
If you are on a website, you need to have the right person at the right point in time on your website to be able to sell them. So when it is above 10, 000 euros and Everything I'm telling you today is just my experience. There might be sales gurus who know better. This is just what works for me. So I just need to add more people.
So above 10, 000 euros, I divide things into three calls. It's a qualifying call. It's an intake call, and it's a pitch call. Qualifying call is roughly 15 minutes. Intake call is let's say half an hour. And the pitch call can be easily a now my experience. So this this are the two structures that I'm using [00:03:00] when it comes to sales.
So, in the end, it's two different three different types of calls and one. When we're below 10, 000, we combine the two calls, which is intake call and pitch call. So, going into qualifying call, or let's, let's start, go back, any questions so far?
No. No questions. So qualifying call. Just, um, Jens, do you have, sorry, it's the next thing. Do you have anything, so that's like a 10k limit. Um, what if you're on much bigger than that? This is above 10 K. Yeah. So even on, if you, let's say we're looking at a hundred k, would that this benefit or is that gonna be Yeah.
Um, I think it's the same. Or do you think it's gonna be more? It's, it's the same. You might have an additional call, which is then the, like the final closing call or adjustment call. But normally it should be each, this can be [00:04:00] as well meetings, but it should, should be enough. Yeah. Normally, if done well, so I'm selling, let's say my, my tickets are 60 k.
Now, I'm selling that in sometimes even two calls, but most of the time, three
qualifying call. So qualifying call is the first interaction with a potential customer inside of a call. And that can be a video call or a normal call that there are four things that we want to understand when it comes to qualifying qualifying. The main reason why we do this call is to understand, are they the right fit?
To talk to deeper. So it's it's super important to understand that we don't want to have everyone in the next calls. We want only the ones where we know we can help them number one and we know that they have the money and they're willing to [00:05:00] buy something. We don't move anyone forward with this. So we always go back to understand pain points.
What is the pain point of the person? What are the different pain points of that person? Connected to what you do going deeper into that understanding all of so you ask them question in in that direction. Then, where do they want to be, which is desiring you ask them questions about the future you ask them questions where they want to be.
Then, then the next part is the urgency, understanding how urgent, is it to them that they need to do that change that they need to step towards the future. And then the last part is, do they have the funds? Do they have the money to pay you? And that's, it's super basic. That's why it's only 15 minutes. But if you know this, [00:06:00] that they have the pain points, they have the desire that you can help them with.
They have urgency, which means they need to, or they want to move these things and they have the funds to pay you. Then you can move them into the next call. If not, You can either downsell them into something else, or you hand them over to someone else, or you just say, sorry, I cannot help. Or you can send them to, hey, read this five books, whatever.
You can still nurture them. That's what I recommend. Like I put people into the community. I said, I say, Hey, subscribe to my newsletter. And then you can listen more to, uh, about it. And then they're kind of still in my environment. And maybe in the future, they are able to, to, to pay me, or they have their interests.
And it's important pain and desire. I think is logic for everyone. Like if you cannot help them, don't move them forward. The, the trickiest thing [00:07:00] with urgency and money, we often don't want to talk about money. It's a lot of people don't like to talk about money, but it's very, very important to give them the understanding of, do you have the necessary funds to be able to work with me so I can help you or not, and that's, I have said that a couple of times in the past.
That's where you can already put. where you anchor them. So what you could say is like what I do. So we have programs that are in, in hundreds of thousands of heroes, or we have programs that are more in the 50, 000s of people. And then you directly see where they are from a, from a, from a pain tolerance.
And then some people directly say, yeah, sorry, this is definitely not for me. I cannot afford this. Then I'm asking them, so what can you afford? Then they tell me maybe, yeah, I can do 25K. So, okay. [00:08:00] What, what, what, what does it mean? 25K? What do you expect from 25K? So you can understand a little bit more about them.
In the end, the level doesn't matter. It's just getting an understanding. And then you can decide, let's say I can decide if I say, okay, let's move this person forward with the know how that this person cannot do 25K or cannot do 50K. But the key part is anchoring, anchoring them as high as possible. So if I tell you it costs 10, 000, And then the final price is 5, 000, then you're positively surprised.
If I tell you it's 5, 000 and the price is 10, 000, obviously that doesn't work. So, key part is understanding, do they have the funds and the urgency, which means they want to take the things forward within a short Period. Intake call. Intake call is an addition to that. [00:09:00] We're still, the first two ones are still the same.
So we are iterating on their pain points, which is, I'm, I'm, don't use these questions literally and say them to them out loud. That doesn't work. It depends what you sell, but like, what do you run away from is like, what is the pain you want to get rid of? And what do you, uh, run away towards, which is your desire.
So it's pain point and desire again. Now in this call, you go deeper into that. You, you try to understand what is behind the pain point that they are saying on the surface. Everyone that has a coaching education will understand what I mean. You go deeper and you kind of unpeel the onion. You go deeper and try to understand, okay, they say, yeah, I'm, I'm, I cannot lose weight.
I hate whatever. You go deeper and understand what is their true pain point? Is it they cannot lose weight? They, they're, they're not eating well, whatever it is. And [00:10:00] then what do they want to run towards is that you check their motivators. Like what is the reason that they want to be in that future? And like I mentioned in one of the other calls, It's for you.
It's important to understand the power of running from a pain is always higher than running towards every one of you. If we take us here on the call, I don't know, but I guess you would be okay with getting to be a millionaire, like running towards being a millionaire. Like everyone would say, yeah, it's not too bad.
But that doesn't motivate you to do the necessary work to get to be a millionaire running away from pain, which means you're, if you don't move right now, you're sleeping under a bridge tomorrow, you will find a way how to earn 20 cases that you can not 20 K 20 euros so that you can sleep in a hostel, different motivate.[00:11:00]
Then the next, next one, uh, goes more into what's holding you back where you try to understand, to hear from them. What are the different things that they have tested and, and, and tried already to get towards where they want to be so that you deeper understand, okay, these are the five strategies, six things that they have tested and they have tried out to get to the future.
So, and that's just for you, it helps you with the sales pitch. You can do this in corporate. You can do this on an individual. It doesn't matter. You can always do these things. Obviously, you frame the questions in different ways, but always with the result of what's your pain point? What, what, what, where do you want to be?
And then the next one is like, what are the different things that you have tested? And then you turn this around so that you give them an opportunity to pitch to you. Why Okay. They're the right people to work. So it's kind of the [00:12:00] last piece of that is them telling you why they're the right fit to work with.
And that sounds super strange, but it works. Because what you hear is you hear their personal arguments, why they want to work with you, why they believe that the solution that you have. It's the right solution to their future. And in the three step call, then you say, okay, I think I understand where you want to go.
I think I understand where your company wants to go. Let me prepare a proposal based on what I have learned from you today. And I will, I will share this with you inside of the next call. Super important. Never send a proposal. Never ever send a proposal only after you have presented.
So, when we go to the pitch call, obviously when we have this two step call then the, the, [00:13:00] the intake and the pitch call is together. So the you're then transitioning from. Tell me what, what, what you, what you think is like, why, why would that benefit you? You go, you then go, okay. I think what I understood from you right now, what you told me and with, with the things I believe I can help you, this would be the right thing for you.
And then you, you go into the pitch from a pitch. You always go back and and that's more the arguments you bring everything that you explain goes back to their pain Back to their desire. The solution is the bridge between pain and desire and here It's it's important that you take notes from the calls before better even record them if you are allowed You can ask every potential customer.
That's why, for example, when you have sales calls quite a lot, people are always recording them because they can go [00:14:00] back to them. So that means you go back to the other calls and then you look, what are the pain points they said? What are the future desires they mentioned? What are the different steps they are looking towards?
What are their triggers? And then your solution always goes back. When you explain your solution, you always go back to that pain, you go back to that desire, you go back to the words that they have used, not what you think you use the same words, and then you transition from this to that's the value you get monetary.
Now we'll show that in the next slides. And that's the price that you have to pay. And then you ask for the close. That's the basic structure from a value perspective. This is a super basic thing works in corporate and works as well on an individual level. A lot of people have seen this before. Uh, it's called an offer or an value stack.
So you, you put all the different [00:15:00] things in one overview of what amazing things they get. And then you put the price next to that, but you don't call it price. You call it value. So this shiny thing has this value. This shiny thing has that value and this has that value. And then you get, then you show the total value of this and then you show the price and that's not one slide you, you, you need to click in between.
So you click first shiny thing, you click second shiny thing, you click third shiny thing, you click fourth shiny thing, and then you show the value, and then you click the price. And always show this on the screen or have that in front of you. If you are in a physical meeting, you need to show this. People need to see this.
You need to go through all of this. So when you explain the first shiny thing, you go deeper into what is it? Why is it important? You look back to their pain points. So this will help you to do this. [00:16:00] When we do this, this will help you to do that. And then you explain the value you use and talk about the number.
So let's say value is 10, 000 euros. You'd say, so this thing, this part of the strategy, we develop this, this, this, what we will do is that, that, that, and the value for that is 10, 000 euros. So you use the, the, the thing they will get, the outcome they will receive, the topics that you will do to help them to get to the outcome.
And do you associate that with a value, which is a number. And this you do for every single item. And then you show the total value, which is the highest number of all of them. And then you show the price, the price needs to be way lower than, than the value, obviously. And then you ask for the, for the close.
Which can be, depending on the conversation, how it goes. So, so how, how shall we proceed? Shall, [00:17:00] shall I send you the contract? Or do you want to do an upfront payment like right now on the call? So that depends on how you structure all of that. I will not go too much in into that, but in the end it's really, okay, so when shall we book the ne the first call?
When shall we book the first meeting? When shall we get things moving so that they understand? Okay, now it's about.
And then that's, that should be basic, have a contract, have a contract template that you can send them fairly quickly after the call, which has all the different things in that you use
questions. I
[00:18:00] love the structures and it's lovely. Um, could you do the first two calls together and then go into the pitch? You could, because I've just got, I've got, I've got one on Thursday, for example, where I've got an hour, I could probably easily. Go through the first ones and then deep, um, go through the first.
Yeah, you could do. I just, uh, do I just do a longer qualifying call with a more of a deep dive? I guess they're probably going to want a bit more in a little bit of marketing as well, in terms of what, what do I offer? But, um, cause I don't see, there's nothing here in terms of, of really, let's say the marketing side or the office side is that I guess there's, there's an expectation that they've, um, they've been through that already.
Um, but yeah, how, how, how would you structure it if they, if, um, if you've got an hour and they want to know a bit more as well?
What you can do [00:19:00] is, so first you need to qualify them. That's the number one piece. Like they need to have the money. If they don't have the money, then close the call. It sounds bad if I'm saying this because it's waste of your time and not saying it to them in that way, but it's more, Hey, maybe then it's not the right time.
Or you don't have the decider in the call. That's the same thing. Then you need to get to the decider when you're pitching what you can do is still you, you can do the qualifying. Let's say you feel that they're the right people to work with. You can help them and they have the money and the urgency to move.
Then you can add the intake or as part of that where you say, Okay, I will not be able to to show you exactly how I can help you today. I have a couple of ideas already, and then you can sprinkle in a couple of ideas. Thanks. But not show them details. What you can do is like, what I often do is I just [00:20:00] show.
Um, as an example, I show websites from customers. We did. I show, um, the, the structure of how we, how we do their content. Then I just use our tools. I literally go in, share my screen and show the website. I go in, open our, our programming tool and show the programming of what, what we did for them so that they see that's real life behind it.
Or I show a brand guide that we do. I can, I can, I can give you an example. So if you have something that you can share. Because we're in Canva anyhow, uh, uh, you know, James, um, thank you very much. It was great. I think we can make a role and model, uh, for a call or if, uh, if is or as each interested person for the next meeting, when it's possible to go [00:21:00] through, you know, in a, like in a real one.
Not like, you know, just slides. And so I, so like we, we pitch for you or we, we pitch for each other. We can also have this call and we can then discuss about the, yeah, about the, you mean for your product or what you sell? Yeah. Your for, for, for my product or for my services and also each, each of, so each person can, uh, do the same.
Yeah. Happy to do, yeah. Let me quickly show to Nathan what I meant. Nathan, one, one example I just showed. So what we do is like, we, we build a brand guide that looks like this. And then I'm, because this is now an empty version, I'm not showing much. Um, then I should just show, yeah, these are the colors that we are doing.
And then we are building things like this. So they just get like within it, within 10 seconds, they get a feel of what it can be without seeing [00:22:00] any, but that shows them. One thing is that shows them, Oh, there's a real customer behind it. So he has done this already and brings credibility and it shows them a little bit more details.
Same if I would show you like two, three websites very quickly. And they see me typing. Then it shows, and you could do this maybe with data models or anything that's, that's kind of attractive to them. Depends always on whom you have. Yeah. No, that's fine. I think that makes sense. Yeah. I think you just need to show, show something.
Just, and here's the, here's the five, five, six, the four key elements and how it, um, how it breaks down and what it, and what it's worth to them. Yeah. What I always recommend is not go into pitch mode that you talk all the time. Yeah. So it's, it's trying as much as possible. Let them talk, then you show them a little bit and then you transition.
So I think I have enough right now so that I can prepare really a tailor made, um, solution for you. How about [00:23:00] we talk tomorrow or the next day? Two days after whatever, and then I, I show you exactly how I can help because then you, even if it's standard, what do you do? Like what I do is also standard. I literally have almost the same presentation to everyone, at least the last part, but it looks more professional that it's like, Oh, because you use all the words that they're using and how you explain it when you pitch so that it is, they feel you did it for them.
Even though that you use it all the time. And then you, I think what is maybe interesting for everyone to understand is have a systematic way of showing, go always through the same steps. Like I have, I have a slide deck that I use, which is a personal brand audit where I show them. Here, this is what I have found out about you.
This is where you suck. [00:24:00] And these are the solutions that you could be doing. And this is how I can help you to do that. So I'm, I'm guiding them through the, the pitch in that way as well. So I go again from, from pain to pleasure, what they can achieve with it. And then I go, so these are the four phases. So I break them down into the process that we are doing.
So we do this, we do this, we do this, we do this, and that gets you to where you want to. Elevating, elevating, no, not getting rid of your pain, alleviating, alleviating, alleviating, that's it. So it's getting away from, from pain, going towards pleasure, and then going into the value stack. And you put on the shiny things, um, in the pitch.
How many, how many do you recommend? Topping that as much as possible is five. Okay. So if you've got five, five or six, that's okay. Or are you getting a little bit [00:25:00] too many then? No, it's good. So what I do, I, I have broken it in my value stack is broken into four pages. So first page is phase one, building the personal brand with X amount of topics.
Yeah. And the price phase two is the next slide with this headline and that price tag and this date phase three is this headline details, price tag, and then phase four is the same. And then I have a summary phase page where I have phase one, phase two, phase three, phase four is the value. And that's kind of the price.
Yeah. I've got about five. I've got about five of those to mine, which probably, yeah, maybe, maybe there's an, maybe there's another one on, um, on coaching and stuff, but, um, yeah, if you, if you work with big phases divided into, into all of this slides, it sounds ridiculous when you hear it, but it helps people to [00:26:00] understand, okay, this here, we go from there to there and it's kind of, you have.
a little bit like the, the story arch, which you use to get to the future. And even that it sometimes feels slow, you still, you associate all the value that you create for them to this tiny number. And then this tiny number goes to this tiny number. And it's not tiny. It can be 20, 000 euros, 15, 000 euros, 20, 000 euros, but it's still comparable.
It's smaller pieces. And then they already calculating. I've seen it last time. One of the CEOs was literally typing on his, his iPhone. It's like, okay, 15, 20, 13. And then, and then you come in at half that. In terms of the, uh, the price and, um, and maybe not half, but at least, yeah, I mean, you can go half easily, but at least you need to have, I think you need to have at least a [00:27:00] considerable drop, like 30 percent at least to, to have the effect of the, of the thing.
I would not go ridiculous, like, like you, you dropped 90 percent that's, that doesn't work because then at least B2B, nobody believes you. Yeah. If you can, if you can drop 90%, then it's stupid. Important. And I just discussed it the other day with someone. A lot of people are pricing on costs. Don't price on costs, price on value.
If I give you the example on what I do. So I do personal branding as a service. We have CEOs to build their personal brand. establish a strategy, establish and link it to the business marketing and PR strategy, launch the personal brand and operate the brand for one year. I can do that for, let's say a startup founder that just gets started.
A startup founder that just gets started [00:28:00] has no money compared to a CEO that has a 400 billion or 400 million company. It's in the end, what I do is exactly the same, the value to the CEO of 400 million business. Is way higher because for this person, getting a customer is maybe 10 million. Yeah. For a startup founder, a new customer is maybe thousand, 5,000, a hundred thousand.
It's still not enough to be able to charge the high price. I, I, I charge. So as, as more you understand that that's the value your customer gets, that's one of the things I'm asking always. So what is a, a is a average customer value for you? If I know that the average customer value, like one of my, um, clients just said it a couple of weeks ago is, is 11 million.
Then I'm asking them, do you believe that with the visibility I have, you can get one customer more per [00:29:00] year, which is 11 million. And then they say, yes. So you give me 60K, you get 11 million. That's a deal, right? So always, and that's, there's a word, um, that's one of the sales gurus always said dollarize.
Which is put, put money to what, what the other person's benefited. So me, me asking the question to get the other person saying, yeah, it's 11, it's 5 million, even if it's like 50, 000, a new customer. Then I would say, do you think you can get five customers? It's still a higher number than what they pay me.
And then you can do the same with the cost savings. They have on the other side, the other, um, opportunity costs they're missing. So it's just putting a number to. And the number of course need to be then always valuable to, to, to you so that it's, it's favoring you.[00:30:00]
And you need to balance the, the, yeah, what, what are they running away from and what are they running to? Exactly. Yeah. And, and if you, if you can, without even you showing it on screen, if you can give them. understanding that the return on invest is super good, they're in favor of saying yes all the time.
Yeah. If they have the desire and the funds, if you did the first step right, people will buy, except they don't trust you. And it's of course a different issue.
That's, I was getting the, the, the question from someone because I don't show, um, If you, if you take my CEOs, I don't show, um, testimonials because CEOs on that level are not driven by testimonials. They're not buying from me because someone else is saying Jens is a nice guy. They're, they're outcome driven.[00:31:00]
And I can always say, like, anyone that has ever worked with me will happily talk to a CEO and tell them, Hey, I've worked with Jens, I can happily jump on a call. That's way more powerful than me having a video of someone saying something like that.
Cool. Yeah. Thank you. No questions.
No questions. All clear. And I guess with you, Jens, you're, this is, um, specifically looking at Um,
one in sales, do you ever get involved in RFP processes or do you just say no?[00:32:00]
I don't. I have done it, of course, in the past. Yeah. The tricky thing with RFP processes, they, the only thing, and because I worked my whole life in, in corporate, the only thing they look at is price. So the RFP process, when you look in purchasing organizations and big companies, they focus mainly on price.
They don't focus on quality that they don't focus on value to the business. That's why for me, it doesn't make sense. I mean, now with personal branding, anyhow, not, but even before with consulting as well, not so unless, unless you've got a, um, unless you've got something that's dramatically cheaper for the same price, then yeah.
You know, um, it's, it's, it's very hard to compete because there will be always someone who is cheaper. And that's one of the things that I have learned for myself. I'm not going to be the cheapest. I'm going to be the most expensive. That's my strategy [00:33:00] because like right now i'm still in the beginning. I built the I started to build the business in november If we talk about the ceos, I will charge double and triple that in the future,
but it's it's it's always easier to be More expensive than anyone else because you have as well then the, the power of the, of, of the cash flow that you can do better things. It's very, very hard to be the cheapest. I've worked in Ikea, believe me. Yeah, exactly. . And, but they can do it because of the, the structure of the business.
That's, that's their benefit. That's why nobody else can compete with them on the price. 'cause they have built the business from the beginning in this way. And they own end to end because I think for me, so what, what I've been doing is, um, um, or what we've got is like tech that speeds up a lot of the, [00:34:00] all the stuff that you do in a typical data, um, work, and it's about 20, 20 or so steps.
So I can speed up a lot of those things 20 times. But, um, I'd also want people to pay for speed. I think my, I think, I think my strategy should be people paying for speed, not, uh, reducing my cost 20 times because my price 20 times because I can do the, uh, thing that, uh, but, um, I can, I can, speed and quality are going to be the two things that get, I think, um, uh, people will buy for because, okay, you can do the same thing multiple times in that, in the, in the same time.
Or you can do it on, or you can get, get it, make sure it's better tested, make sure it's better thing, and you can make it, um, more tailored, for example. So I think there's more so you can either go either way and, uh, spend that money in a different way. Um, yeah. So yeah, I think, I think that's, um, that's probably, that's, um, it's, it's a good, that's a good thought.
A, a [00:35:00] good analogy for use if we talk about speed, is fiber, fiber cable from the tele telecom, because you, you, it's not much faster. But you, you, you pay almost like triple for, for speedy fiber, at least in the Netherlands. So it's okay, because what they do is they don't sell the, the data as such. They don't sell the cable, they, they sell you the experience that you are going to have.
They sell you like, it's amazing. You can, you can watch with five people at the same time, Netflix or whatever, like five devices. So it's, it's all an emotional self. Of course, that's difficult with businesses, but in the end, it's something that, that you can look into is what are the benefits to the company and as well the individuals that are on the other side that you sell to on the speed on the quality of the data, because sometimes it's, [00:36:00] it's, it's not what we think it is.
Sometimes it's the Let's say that just making things up, you're increasing the speed and you're increasing the quality of the data. And therefore the, the person that you have on the other side has less pain and less difficult discussions in the company. And that's the sales, why they're buying is it's not because of the data.
It's just, they don't want to have this stupid discussions anymore. Exactly. And they're, um, they're making sense of things and they're, they're able to have. Like for like conversations, not just, uh, it's about arguing about things. Yeah, exactly. So, and that's what you can, if you go into the intake call and you have clever questions formulated, you can ask this like not directly, but kind of around the corner you can, you can drop things.
Oh yeah. The other day I talked to that company. What, what, what the person told me there was this, this, this, is that the same in your company? And then you get the confirmation or not. And, and if you say this, then they are sometimes [00:37:00] opening up and tell you even deeper shit, which you can then sounds bad, but use against them in a positive way to, to tell them how good your product is.
But that's, that's the number one thing to find out because that's the whole sales argument. We'll go into that direction. If you understand that's the, that's their pain points and that's where they want to get to. How can you use it in a way that you understand? So one thing is company pain points. One is individual pain points.
So company is most of the time, the logical part, and then the individual part is the emotional part. And then you link this two together.
So you can say, so this is where you, where we work on the speed of, of, of this and this and this and this, and this will help you to don't have the stupid discussions anymore. Like you can get rid of the old part or whatever it is. Yeah. [00:38:00] Of course, you need to fit to what they told you and as well, the language, but yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. That makes sense. Cool. Thank you. That's good.
Hello, rising stars here, Frank. And here's coming to this topic. If you go back to the automotive industry, they use the same platform for the high quality cars. The only difference are the materials and the design is a minor changes in the design. It shall be the, the leather, it shall be the steering, it shall be the things.
You don't see the intangibles, but you get the conception that you are paying for the high quality you can get for the money you have and the personalization. At the end of the day, you need to get the feeling that the company is a big company is doing something tailor made only for you, because you have the ability, the possibility, because [00:39:00] they offer you a An umbrella with different options.
It shall be the color, it shall be the texture, it shall be the haptic, it shall be the motor, it shall be the brakes. And if we can get to this kind of options. Using the same platform, we can increase our perception in front of the customer. And when the customer goes to another customer, he say, Hey guys, I got the best, uh, attention I can pay for that money.
And I got this kind of vehicle. I got this interior. I got this comfort. Comfort is the, the, the, the, the word here, if we can get. Oh, if we can find the comfort in front of the customer, we, we get it because if they pay for the intangibles, the comfort, what discomfort. I can drive eight hours alone without getting a pain in my back.
That is comfort. And [00:40:00] you are paying for the for the price of the car because the car has I don't know, uh, small motors in the seats And you and you don't get tired something like that if we can get if we can transmit This kind of feelings in front of the customer, we can increase the prices, double or triple, as you say, uh, say Jens.
Uh, and I find this amazing because inside the, uh, fashion industry, the Karl Lagerfeld, they say China gold, China gold. If you are the cheapest, it doesn't mean nothing. You need to be really expensive. And the quality. Last more than the price. That is another analogy. I was feeling I found time ago in inside the industry, the fashion industry.
If we can get this comfort point in front of the customer, we can get the, the, the business. That is what I wanted to say. Thank you. It's a, it's a different sale [00:41:00] when it comes to, to clothes, because like for you, what you do is a luxury. It's not a necessary, even what I do is luxury. It's not really that someone really, really needs that personal brand to survive.
But that's why you can price a time because not everyone wants to do it. A lot of people wants to have it, but they don't know how they are ready to pay for it. So for years, that's why I always said like for you, a leather jacket should not be 5, 000 should be higher. Yeah, and now I'm working on that and I was doing my market research and I, every company I found with leather products I put inside my Excel table and I can get the average price to get higher, really high, high, high.
As you said before, if the people pay for my products, they shall or they must know that it's indestructible. They pay for the quality. [00:42:00] Exactly.
Good. Any, any questions?
Any more questions? Thank you.
Nothing good. We see us next week or this weekend for those that are joining. Okay. Looking forward. Thank you very much, everyone. Have a good one. Thank you. Bye.
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Transcript:
Personal development masterclass. One of the topics that's dear to my heart, because of what I have seen over the last 15 years is that personal development is quite seldom in organizations. It's not really taken, uh, in a proper way, at least in my eyes. So that's why I'm really keen on sharing this today.
So we have two. main perspectives. One or two topics for today. One is personal development talk versus performance evaluation. And then we do a deep dive into how I'm doing personal development talks. And then we do questions in the end. Personal development. So we have one part, which is the personal development talk, and then we have the performance evaluation.
And a lot of organizations, focus on performance evaluation. And the difference between those two is that the performance evaluation, the main part they are focusing on, or the main source of that is the company. So the company is on the top. And from there, it goes into, the individuals and the different tasks that need to be done to accomplish what's happening in the company, what is required to do to be done in the company.
And the individual that is doing the task is the last point. And then inside of the performance evaluation, you're looking backward. So you look, how did this person perform in the past? The development talk is the opposite. So the most important part of the. Development talk is the future. Where does the person want to be in the future?
And it has nothing to do with the outcome of the company or where the company wants to be. The goal of this is, and why, why do this personal development talk? I believe that if we are developing people in organizations beyond what the organization needs, they will contribute more to the company. They will contribute better.
So the goal of what I'm doing with development talks is finding out what the people desire and going deeper into that. And we will have a look at that in the next couple of slides. And then look, what are the different tasks of the organizations that fit the person and what the person wants to be. And then you marry these two things.
And then it works as well from a performance evaluation perspective. So that's my perspective on development talk and performance evaluation. Let's go into personal development talk a couple of, I think it's almost two years ago or something. I've developed this in as, as a worksheet. So if anyone is interested in getting this worksheet as a PDF.
Happy to share that. So, the starting point of a development talk is really a setup of the atmosphere and the place. So you are going to do a development talk with another person. So you are the manager and the, the other person is like reporting to you and then you're meeting up. So what you need to make sure of is that you have, an appropriate place.
The best case is always doing this outside of the office environment in a. In a place where people feel well, the atmosphere is super important. The time of the day is important, not doing it on Friday afternoon, for example, when people want to go on the weekend, of course, you need to be aware of your relationship with the other person, depending on how deep your relationship is.
You of course have then a perspective on how deep you can go. And how much that is. And then what is important as well is that you put the note-taking responsibility to the person that is inside the room or is working with you. So me as a leader, I always give the note taking responsibility for the other person because then you see what they understand and what they get out of that.
And then I always do as well. A version in front of us so that people understand this. So printing out this worksheet as an example, if you do that in a physical space, then you print it out and then you go into the development talk. And the starting point of the development talk goes really wide.
Looking into what's the personal vision like. I always ask these as open questions without showing them the worksheet in the beginning. Who do you want to be? And that's very, very, very wide. Like, who do you want to be? What does it mean? Some people who have never had a conversation like this, struggle with this.
So they start with, yeah, I want to be a manager. I want to be something specific. So they go very, very, very specific and they don't really look into the future. So the first round of this, I just, Help them to find out who they want to be and they write down, they write down a manager. I want to be a good father.
I want to be whatever they come up with. And then I go to the next question and I show them the next question, not before. So why do you want to be that person? So then they're reflecting on the answers they have given and then they go back and refine who they want to go to be. And that's an interesting process because what.
You as the manager that is holding this development talk are doing, you're literally shutting up and just asking open questions to tell me more. How, how does that feel? What does that look like? What would that look like in the future? So you only ask open ended question when that gets the person talking and reflecting.
So if you're saying this, what does it mean? So, and then they're explaining, explaining, and they go in a loop between who am I going to be? And why do I want to be that person? So until they have clarity, and the first loop is always. The starting point where they don't know what's going to come, then who am I going to be?
They come up with high-level topics and then they go, Why do I want to be that person? Then they go back to Who am I going to be? And then they go deeper. And I always then give them a perspective. Okay, think about five years, 10 years from now, who do you want to be? And then they go more particular in all of these things.
And then we go, we don't close this, we keep it, we put it aside. And then we go to the next sheet, which is a personal development map. So I want them again to reflect on certain questions. And it doesn't matter in the order, I just take them clockwise right now. But it's really going and answering the specific questions.
What do I want to learn? So you're asking this, the person that is in front of you. So what do you want to learn to be that person? So linking it back to that person of the future. And then you're asking, what do you want to improve? And then they come up with things. So it's, it's like writing down the, all the different topics and then what do I want to leave behind?
And then they come back with topics that they want to leave behind. Another question is what excites you? Yeah. And then going deeper into this, who is important to them? And then what is important to them? And when you have done this circle, you go around it and they were deeper in this topic.
What quite often happens then if you ask them, so how, if we go back to the other one, is that still the same thing you want to be? Because they have now clarified what they want to be. and answer the question, they go back to this one and then clarify, no, no, no, I want to be this, I want to be this. What I always ask them, in this part is to paint a picture.
So when, when we have finished with this one, I go back to this one. And say, from a personal vision perspective, imagine a picture and describe the picture that you see on the wall. And then they describe to me who they want to be and who they are going to strive to be inside of a picture and explain everything that is around them.
I've had, for example, a person that told me where they are going to live, what, how it feels, um, in this picture, where the kids in this picture, where the wife or husband and, and going really into details and then linking this to. A job perspective as well, because in the end, we are at least this part is in a job environment.
So they are linking that to the job environment of who they're going to be working with as well. So these two are super powerful. And then you go into the next step, which is a goal perspective. So it starts with the staircase. So in the top right corner, we have what is the goal. And the starting point is really, um, defining that goal.
So if you want to be this person in five years, what is the goal for the next year for you to be very specific? And of course, you can do smart goal setting and all of that, but it's in the end, What does feel right for that person? What is the development goal they want to reach in one year from now?
And then they formulate that goal. And then you go to the bottom of this page where you look into where do you stand today on a scale from one to 10. So they're rating themselves on how close are they to that goal. If they're close, then they're at 10 or 9. If they're far away, then they're at 1. And what always happens is they're somewhere in between, obviously.
So when they have rated that, then you look into what are the things that get you closer to that goal, meaning moving your scale from 5 to 10. And that's what they are writing down above the stairs. So, above the stairs are the things that are getting them closer to their goal. And then they're defining this in bullet points and formulating that out.
And [you do that obviously all in a conversation. You ask the person who is doing the development talk, you are asking them questions to get them moving. You're asking them clarifying questions about the topics that are put, into the sheet. And then the next part is, what are the things that getting you further away from that goal?
So downstairs, if you think at it from a staircase perspective, and then they're writing these things down and then they have a clear picture of a goal staircase where they, they know they want, where they want to be linking that to the vision that's five years from now and the goal picture, and then they rate themselves.
And have then clear understanding of that are the things I need to do to get to my goal and that are the things I should not be doing. And then the last step of the development talk is getting specific. So now we zoom into one year and actionable goals that help them or tasks that get them towards the one-year perspective.
So what are the things they're going to do? When are they going to do this? What do they need to make happen to be able to do this? What are the things they need help with and how I'm, how they going to measure them? So it's a very, very simple setup where they write down literally the different steps that help them to get there.
And they're putting measurable goals towards the goal. And this is roughly. I would say one and a half hours, even if we go through this right now in a theoretical setting in, let's say 15 minutes in a real conversation, in a coaching style, where you ask the manager or coach the other person to find out what they are desiring and where they want to be.
It takes roughly one and a half hours if you do that well, sometimes it's faster depending on the relationship as well. The fascinating thing with this is it has zero to do with the company you work in and one hundred percent to do with who they want to be. And as well as zero to do with you as their manager, if you're their manager, like your perspective, your opinion on anything of that.
Um, just to give you a couple of examples, I've had people that told me that they want to be. building their own company in the next five years and they worked in the company and I was their manager they told me because they trusted me that they wanted to build their own company and we built a plan for how they were going to build their own company and I've had situations where people told me that they want to get married in the next five years and then we built a plan to get them towards marriage getting married and looked into how that does that work with the career perspective same with kids and all the other things so this is a development tool you That I use with everyone that is working with me over time because I believe that as further we as managers and organizations help people to develop as better it is.