Chapter 14I'm not a fan of pitching if there's no need

The objections you fear most are easier to handle than you think, and the way to handle them sounds wrong the first time you hear it. You disqualify the person out loud, you agree with their objection before they finish saying it, and when they tell you they'll do it themselves, you hand them the system. The one question left after that is "why you", and your calendar answers it better than any slide.

The guy who had it figured out

A founder came on my show and told me how he sells. He sells to car dealerships, and he reaches them by text message. By the end of the call I knew two things: he was good, and he did not need me.

I told a show guest about him on a debrief the next day:

Yesterday, I was on a call with a guy. He's got it figured out. Like, I can just tell he's got it figured out. His GTM motion is so solid.

So I said so, to his face:

I'm not beating that system. So, I'm just like, dude, you've got it figured out. Good luck. Thanks for coming on the show.

I didn't pitch him or try a clever angle. He'd just given me his time and a good episode, and the honest answer was that what I sell would not move his number. Pitching him would have been the only way to lose him.

That's the rule, and I'll give it to you the way I said it on that debrief:

So, I'm not a fan of pitching if there's no need.

People hear that and assume I pitch less than most founders. I pitch more. My rule is to pitch on every call where there's a need, and the need decides it, never my mood or my pipeline. Out of thirty or forty people I talk to, about ten have no need at all, and those ten get a thank-you and a good episode. The rest hear what I do.

The water in the desert

The flip side of "no need, no pitch" is the part founders find harder. When there is a need, you owe them the pitch. Holding it back is the rude move.

I put it this way to a founder on a debrief in October. By the time we reach the end of an interview I've given and given, and I've been asking questions the whole way. Somewhere in those answers the need shows up:

It is Criminal for me to not present my solution to you. It's like if you're a dying man in the desert and I have a bottle of water, like it would be more mean for me to not give you the water

Think about that the next time you feel shy about the last five minutes of a call. If the person in front of you just spent half an hour describing a problem you solve, silence is no gift. You're watching a thirsty man walk past the water.

So the decision is simple, and it happens before the call ends. Did they show a need? Pitch, with permission, in one minute. Did they show no need? Say so, thank them, and still tell them what you do, for a different reason.

Disqualify out loud

This is one of my newer moves, and it took me twenty years of selling to find it. When I'm not sure someone is a fit, I tell them I don't think they are.

I actually disqualify them off the bat.

The words are plain:

I don't even think you could be a customer.

Then I ask permission to tell them what I do anyway, and I give them the real reason I'm asking. They know people. Somebody in their world might need it.

I love telling people what I do because you never know who you know. You might know someone.

What happens next still makes me laugh. The pressure flips. I've taken the sale off the table, so they stop defending against it, and a lot of them start doing my job for me:

And now for the rest of the call, they're trying to convince me how they should be a customer, which is like super awesome.

I didn't plan that effect. I found it by being honest when a call was going nowhere. Now I use it on purpose, and I keep it honest. If I say I don't think you're a fit, I mean it. The moment it turns into a trick, people smell it.

The same honesty runs the other way. Some founders want the cold email without the show, and I've watched that version fail across enough customers that I won't sell it anymore:

I'm at the point where if you don't start your own podcast, I don't want you as a customer

That line costs me deals. It also means every customer who signs up already believes in the part that works. I would rather lose the deal on day one than lose the customer in month three.

Agree with the objection

The objection I hear most is about cold email. Everyone has received bad cold email. A lot of the founders I talk to have tried it and got nothing back. For years I walked into that objection and tried to argue my way out of it.

Then I stopped arguing and started agreeing first:

all the resistance I used to face when I used to position it as cold email, I front the conversation with those objections. So, I've turned the attacks into my weapons.

I say the bad part before they can. I told my business partner what I'd learned in the field:

I've realized that cold email in and of itself is bullshit.

They nod. They're relieved, because they expected a pitch for cold email and they got someone who agrees with them. Then I tell them about the exception, the one thing we found that breaks the pattern:

And then, I get them nodding, nodding and I go, there's one anomaly. There's one caveat: podcasting, the warm invite, that's the solution.

When it lands, you can see it on the screen. On some calls the founder realises he's on that call because of the exact thing I just described. He got a cold email, it carried a warm invite, he said yes.

They're like, oh my God, I'm on this call right now because of this.

The structure works for any objection worth answering. Agree with the true part out loud. Show them you've seen the data. Then show the one exception and let them connect it to their own situation. The first beat, as I said it to a founder in September:

I go, cold email is awesome but it sucks in the way most people use it. It doesn't work. I've seen the data.

Why you

Next comes the question every founder asks in some form, which is why they should pick us when any agency could send emails. I used to answer with credentials. Now I answer with my calendar.

I would just challenge anybody you're talking to to show them your calendar. And if you can find anybody else that for the next 3 weeks, for 12 hours a day, they're just in front of investors and they're ICP, then I'd be like, go to them.

I mean it. If someone shows them a fuller calendar, go to them. I don't think they'll find one.

The calendar does a second job too. It kills the reference request before anyone asks. I told my team in October, in language I'll leave as I said it:

They don't ask for references because I'm showing them my goddamn fucking calendar.

A reference is somebody else telling you it works. A calendar full of investors, customers and partners for the next three weeks is the thing working, live on the screen in front of you.

"We'll do it ourselves"

The third objection sounds like the end of the conversation. "We're not ready." "We need to raise first." "We'll build it in house." Most salespeople hear that and go for a discount.

I go the other way. I give them the system.

So for now, I'll just send you a bunch of leads, like emails that I can just pull from our system, and I'll even send you some copy that we would send on your behalf just so you can kind of do it yourself even

Leads and copy, free, so they can run a test on their own. I tell them to send a small batch from their own address and see what comes back. Their show doesn't even need to exist yet; they can say they're meeting guests ahead of a launch in the new year.

And if you see like 5 out of 25 people write back, you've just beta tested the idea.

Why give away the thing I sell? Because a founder who has seen five strangers say yes to his invite no longer needs convincing. He needs scale. And when he goes looking for scale, he knows exactly who handed him the first five. I said it plainly to a founder in August:

if I'm going to do something for you, I'd want to move the needle even before we engage

Not caring

None of this works if you need the deal. People feel need through a screen. I said it on a podcast in September: sales is a cortisol game, and the moment you think about your mortgage, you're done.

If I think for a second when I'm talking to a salesperson, if I don't make this sale, I don't make my mortgage or a little guy here is not going to get food. I've already lost the sale.

The cure is volume. When you talk to forty people a day, no single one of them can hurt you. A no stops being a wound and becomes information. I put it to my team in October like this:

if someone says no, almost like, thank you, yes, for saying no.

Disqualifying, agreeing and giving the system away all come from the same place. You can afford to be honest because you don't need this one. And people buy from the person who doesn't need them.

Try this week

1. Write your three disqualifiers. These are the three facts that mean someone cannot get value from what you sell, written as plain sentences you'd say out loud. 2. On your next call, before you mention price, check the three. If one applies, tell them plainly that you don't think they can be a customer, and tell them why. Then ask if you can tell them what you do anyway, because they might know someone. 3. Write your answer to the objection you hear most. Start by agreeing with the true part in one sentence. Add one line on the data you've seen. End with the exception. 4. Build a starter kit you can hand to anyone who says "we'll do it ourselves": twenty-five leads in their ICP and the invite you'd send for them. 5. Put your calendar for the next three weeks on screen on one call. Say nothing about it and watch what they ask.

Which of your current prospects would you tell, today, that you don't think they can be your customer?