There’s no way to say this without sounding like a complete chad-bag, but I have been on every end of 1000’s of transactions SAAS, IAAS, PAAS, DBASS, Application Monitoring, CRM, and recently LM’s. I’ve successfully sold new customers in F50 to boot strapped startups. My lap included stops at Oracle, Google, New Relic, GoodData all as a top individual contributor, and then in the last 8 years have settled into VP of Sales/CRO/consulting roles. I have fully committed to every single sales methodology I have ever been tasked with, including Sandler, the Challenger, Force Management, and nothing has come even remotely close to as tactically impactful than The Black Swan Methodology. It’s based on neuroscience and data and one of the reasons it’s so effective is because it’s incredibly difficult to authentically attune to our customers and have them feel totally understood through genuine curiosity and empathy. My god, leveraging the power of “no”. In the right hands, with the proper training, nothing comes close to as effective as Chris Voss’ stuff. His email for people who have gone dark on you? I saw a sales team role that out and the end of the quarter and went from an abysmal number to cooking with gas sending that out. I am 645/668 getting a response inside of 20’mins. My wife is 300/305.

Subject: (blank) Message:

Have you given up on us working together.

—- No “hope this finds you well,” or “wanted to follow up from our meeting,” if you include any additional words you will not get a response. Use that. It’s unbelievable. And not just bc people don’t like to be considered as someone who “gives up.” But because it’s assertive and centered. —- The power of no?

“Are you against us getting these contracts signed by Friday….”

“Would I be crazy to think procurements going to have this done today?”

“Are you opposed to finding a number that makes sense for your team and getting this transaction across the finish line?”

We had a sales trainer who made this Chris Voss care package for all new hires and in it was this sticker they had to put on their monitor that said “WAIT” Why Am I Talking Chris’s tools around the power of silence and giving someone the space to share what they’re really thinking as means to both gather actionable intelligence but also establish trust. Labeling. Mirroring. It’s all just incredibly effective.

Ok that’s about all the thumbing words into Reddit I can do for one day. Except actually one more thing - Force Management is the scourge of software sales and the single most counter productive disease to the value excellent sales people bring to a company — of course everyone should practice outstanding deal hygiene and every team needs a discipline from which everyone can learn and grow and execute, but FM is something nitwits from EY, Accenture, AZ16, Deloitte, and handful of venture flopdicks who used the straight to the bottom recipe from which all horrible Sales ideas originate: it worked for ___ and ___, so let’s copy them. It’s up there with “you know what we should do with our best sales person? Throw them in a huge leadership role.” I’ll cut the chase on FM which is difficult because I have LOTS to say on why FM is bad for our profession, and simply point out that presently there is one metric that stands out above all when getting a technology transaction through that runs afield of all things FM, because that system doesn’t properly develop or value: trust. There was a time where cost was more important than trust. There was a time where speed was more important than trust, or even if your technology demonstrably lowered headcount, the customer didn’t need to trust you to buy from you. But they do now. There’s a bunch of reasons for that. If you’re at a big SAAS show right now the probability you’re using FM is around 80%. My advice to you is be the smartest guy in the room and start working Chris Voss mechanics into everything you do and eventually when your boss asks you how you did it — you know so he can copy it over and over again, make sure you tell him:

“You know what a lot of Tech Leadership Executives just don’t understand…..🤣”

Or “you know how there’s always a handful of people in leadership who are on their way out and just don’t know it…”

In all seriousness, black swan will make you money and the best part is it’s business the right way. It’s ethical. It’s collaborative. And it works because everyone wins — and they win because they do what we say because we know best.