EPISODE SUMMARY
In this week’s episode of Scale Your SaaS, as host and B2B SaaS Sales Coach, I dive into one of my most powerful sales strategies: “Twisting the Knife.”
It might sound a bit ominous, but trust me, it’s a game-changer. Picture this: clients reporting doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled close rates thanks to this concept. Today, I’m unpacking what it means, how it fits into the real world, and how it could transform your software sales process.
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach
Episode: Episode No. 296, “Best SaaS Sales Tip – with Matt Wolach”
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS Sales Coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
Understanding the Art of “Twisting the Knife”
In the world of SaaS sales, the discovery phase holds immense power. It’s not just about finding a fit; it’s about uncovering the pain points and ensuring the prospect truly understands the severity of their challenges. This process involves more than just acknowledging the pain; it’s about making them hate that pain. Why? Because that’s what incites action.
Personalize the Approach
Consider a scenario where a software salesperson effectively utilized the technique. By understanding the customer’s pain points around cooking and fireplace convenience, they navigated the conversation to areas that truly mattered to the customer.
Moreover, they swiftly recognized what wasn’t a pain point and steered clear, ensuring relevance and engagement.
Embrace the Power of Persuasion
At its core, “twisting the knife” isn’t about manipulation; it’s about guiding prospects toward a clear understanding of their needs and how your solution is the answer. It builds trust, demonstrates expertise, and compels action when done right.
In essence, SaaS sales isn’t just about showcasing a product; it’s about fostering a genuine understanding of how your solution can alleviate their pains. Embrace the power of “twisting the knife,” and your software sales process will be elevated to new heights.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
The Analogy: Twisting, Not Hurting
Identifying Pain Points: The Key to Success
Results: Transforming Closures
TOP QUOTES
Matt Wolach
[10:12] “Discovery is the foundation of your sale. It’s everything that you can build off of.”
[16:17] “Buyers don’t just need to have pain. They need to hate that pain.”
LEARN MORE
For more about how Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com.
Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this week’s episode of Scale Your SaaS, as host and B2B SaaS Sales Coach, I dive into one of my most powerful sales strategies: “Twisting the Knife.”
It might sound a bit ominous, but trust me, it’s a game-changer. Picture this: clients reporting doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled close rates thanks to this concept. Today, I’m unpacking what it means, how it fits into the real world, and how it could transform your software sales process.
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach
Episode: Episode No. 296, “Best SaaS Sales Tip – with Matt Wolach”
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS Sales Coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
Understanding the Art of “Twisting the Knife”
In the world of SaaS sales, the discovery phase holds immense power. It’s not just about finding a fit; it’s about uncovering the pain points and ensuring the prospect truly understands the severity of their challenges. This process involves more than just acknowledging the pain; it’s about making them hate that pain. Why? Because that’s what incites action.
Personalize the Approach
Consider a scenario where a software salesperson effectively utilized the technique. By understanding the customer’s pain points around cooking and fireplace convenience, they navigated the conversation to areas that truly mattered to the customer.
Moreover, they swiftly recognized what wasn’t a pain point and steered clear, ensuring relevance and engagement.
Embrace the Power of Persuasion
At its core, “twisting the knife” isn’t about manipulation; it’s about guiding prospects toward a clear understanding of their needs and how your solution is the answer. It builds trust, demonstrates expertise, and compels action when done right.
In essence, SaaS sales isn’t just about showcasing a product; it’s about fostering a genuine understanding of how your solution can alleviate their pains. Embrace the power of “twisting the knife,” and your software sales process will be elevated to new heights.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
The Analogy: Twisting, Not Hurting
Identifying Pain Points: The Key to Success
Results: Transforming Closures
TOP QUOTES
Matt Wolach
[10:12] “Discovery is the foundation of your sale. It’s everything that you can build off of.”
[16:17] “Buyers don’t just need to have pain. They need to hate that pain.”
LEARN MORE
For more about how Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com.
Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:
All my clients say that one of the concepts I teach called twist the knife is one of the most valuable things that they have learned. In fact, people have reported that they have doubled, tripled, quadrupled their close rate just because of this one thing. So today, we're going to talk about that and what that is twisting the knife and how it applies in the real world and what you can do about it. So today's podcast, it's going to be a solo shot, just me no guest you have to hear from me. So sorry about that. But let's dive into twisting the knife. Let's rock. And welcome to Scale Your SaaS very glad to have you thank you very much for joining me again, most of the time you see me with a guest, I've got some awesome expert from the SaaS world sharing their story, sharing their experience, sharing their wisdom and their life so that you can scale your SaaS. But every now and then I decided like this is something really important that people need to hear about. And so today we're going to talk about one of those things that is very, very important. Now, before we get into that, make sure you are subscribed to the show. If this is your first time here, my goal is to help you understand how to generate more leads, how to close those deals really quickly how to scale your team, so that you can reach your ultimate goal, whether that's extremely high revenues and profits, or a high valuation and an exit, whatever it is, I'm here to help you scale your sass. So subscribe right now to the show, there should be a button right there, wherever you're listening on. And that way you won't miss out on any of that good stuff that I bring you. Now today we're talking about twisting the knife. What is that it sounds kind of macabre and really scary. When we talk about twisting a knife, what does that mean? Let me dive in and share a little bit about what that is, what is twisting the knife and how you can use it. And then also a real world example that I think might really help you something that I'm actually going through right now. And I can kind of share with you a little bit of my experience on either having the knife twisted or not, as it were. So what is twisting the knife? Well, this is a very important part of our process, the perfect deal process. And by the way, if you have not heard of the perfect deal process, yeah, it's a process that I developed in my first SaaS company that helped us get to a 63% closed rate for our team, the team was averaging 63%. And it's something that really gets your demos and your deals moving forward quickly. So you can close a lot of deals for the right valuation. And as quickly as possible. And one of that process, or one of that one of the parts of that process, the D in discovery, or the D rather than deal stands for discovery. Discovery is the foundation of your sale, it's everything that you can build off of. And I hear a lot of people coming to me, a lot of clients come to me and they say, Hey, we're really struggling, not quite sure why we're not closing, how come the competition is winning more than us. And when when we get into it, when I look at the process, in almost every case, they're missing discovery or the discovery is very poor, they're not doing quite the right things, or they're not doing what needs to be done within discovery. In order to get the buyer emotional. You see discovery, it's it's one of those pieces of the process that we think it's for just finding a fit, right, we have to make sure that this prospect fits for us. But in fact, there's so much more to discovering, just finding a fit is not going to do enough for what you need to have happen in the discovery process. So if you're only looking for fit, you're going to encounter situations where the buyer, yeah, they might fit technically, within your ICP and your parameters for your ideal customers. But they don't really have that motivation to move forward. And if you can't get them that emotional motivation, if you can't get them to feel the pain, they're in trouble. So a few other things you want to do and discovery other than just finding fit. We want to make sure that they connect with us on a personal level so that they get us they realize we get them we understand them and that we know what we're talking about. They need to understand that you get the industry that you understand the lingo, you speak the lingo that you, you, you know what they're going through. And as a seller, you should have a good understanding, regardless of how new you are in the industry. If you're brand new as a salesperson, then your higher ups should have trained you and educated you and giving you the resources so you know the industry and you can learn it quickly and start to speak the language. So we need to make sure we're doing that. But even more than that, the most important thing is buyers don't just need to have pain. Everybody knows buyers need paid Of course they do. But it's more than that. It's more than just having the pain. They need to hate that pain. They need to feel that pain, they need to say this is the worst thing ever, they need to understand how bad that pain is. And they need to know that. If they don't fix it, it could kill them. Whether that means in the business world, put them out of a job themselves, or make them have a mental breakdown, because they're working too hard. Or maybe they lose revenue, they lose customers, they lose time, whatever it is, they need to know that it's a potential killer. So this is where twisting the knife comes in. Let's talk about this analogy. Now, again, this analogy sounds a little sinister. But just bear with me here. So imagine your prospect comes to you, the prospect comes in, they say, Hey, my shoulder hurts. Now I know you're not a doctor, you're not a physical therapist. This is an analogy. My shoulder hurts. Well, as a representative as a seller, even if you're the founder, a leader, you should totally understand your market, you should understand your buyers, you should know exactly what's what, within your industry. So if somebody comes to you and says, My shoulder hurts, well, you should quickly be able to identify, is it really the shoulder or actually, there is a knife in your belly. And in your head, you're thinking that you say, Whoa, they're telling me about the shoulder. But actually, there's a knife in their belly. That's not that's not a good thing. Yuck. And so, being that expert, which, as a seller, you shouldn't be, you should be able to identify that it's not really the shoulder, that's the main problem. It's, it's the belly, and the knife that stuck in there? Well, most sellers, they don't want to upset the tie. They don't want to kind of make waves and make that buyer feel uncomfortable. And so even though they see that the bigger problem is the belly and the knife, they'll just try and solve that shoulder problem. And so they say, Oh, the shoulder, okay, tell me Well, how do you how long have you felt that? And they ask him some questions about and then they start to sell the product towards the shoulder. Don't do that. So that's step one. That's what most sellers are doing. What we want to do is at least get to step two. Step two is where a seller becomes solid, they start to realize that, Hey, I can't just start to help them with the shoulder. I can't just tell them how they're going to solve that. I need to take it one step further. I need to get them to identify the problem. I've identified because I'm the expert. But I want to make sure they know that they have that problem. Oh, hey, yeah, that shoulder? I guess it's not not great. But you have a knife in your gut, that knife is in your gut right now. And that's where the buyer might say, oh, oh, yeah, you're right. I didn't even realize that. Sometimes they don't even know that they have a problem. They don't even realize that they have another issue. They've been so focused on the shoulder. They don't even know that there's a bigger, more pressing issue. However, most sellers stop there. Most sellers will say, Okay, I did my job. Yeah, high five. I got them to realize that there's the real problem. I pointed it out. So they must realize it's terrible. Right, cool. Let's go solve it. Let me pull the knife out. I'll be the hero and explain how the product is going to solve it wouldn't pull the knife out, we're gonna go right? Wrong. Because what just happened was sure you pointed it out. Sure. Now they identified it. But they still don't realize how bad of a situation it is. Right? That prospect doesn't yet understand that that knife can be a killer. And especially if you say, Hey, you could solve it like, okay, so I could get this solved. No problem. That's not good. Why is it not good? Well, we need to get to step three. The best sellers, the elite sellers. From my experience, this is about 3% of sellers within the software world, the elite sellers will realize I can't pull the knife out yet. I do eventually want to be that helper, I want to make sure that they're good to go. But I can't do that just yet. Because in order for them to take action in order for them to actually do something, we need to make sure that they know how bad the problem is. So instead of pulling the knife out, we twist the knife. Now, this is the point where people who haven't followed me for a long time say this guy is a terrible salesperson. This is why everybody hates salespeople because they're trying to hurt you. Stop right there. This is not about that. This is not about me trying to be a salesperson that is a bad person not trying to tell you to be a bad salesperson. It's actually the opposite of that. And here's why. If you twist the knife, you are not introducing new pain. I'm going to explain an example. What I mean by that. You are not introducing new pain is a pain they currently have that they did not read Lies was a bad thing, they didn't know it. So we need to make sure they understand that if it is really a bad thing that could kill them, they need to know that it is your duty to tell them that it's your obligation to get them to realize how bad the pain is. Think about that. If your product is truly great, many of you out there probably say, Yeah, we have a great product, great product. Awesome, so awesome. It really helps people they love it, it saves this, it solves this. So if your product is truly great, isn't it, your obligation to make sure that they use it, if you're not good enough at sales, if you don't do the right things, if you don't twist the knife and get them hating their problem, and they don't use your product, you failed them, because now they're not using something that's going to solve their problems. They're using something inferior, whether it's another product or another process that's not using a product at all. If you don't do the right thing, you're failing them, because now they don't have the right product in their hands, and they're going to be worse off. So it's your obligation to do it right to get them to understand just how bad the problem is. So twisting the knife is not about you being a bad salesperson. And this is why people hate sales. It's about helping them to understand how bad their own problem is, right now, we cannot introduce a new problem, you can't come up and and guess something and start scaring them about something they're not facing. Now, it might be something they're not aware of. But it has to be a problem that they actually have within the organization or themselves. So we're not introducing a new problem, we're highlighting the issues, the weight, the gravity of their current problem. And that's a big thing here. Now, it's called twisted knife just because the analogy makes sense. But you're not actually hurting them right now you're getting them to realize the pain. Okay, it's a big distinction here. And so the best sellers, they're twisting the knife. And they're asking questions like, How are you personally affected by this? Does that mean you miss dinner sometimes with the family? Right, then what has this cost you or cost the company? Where would you be without this? And even more so actually diving in and trying to figure out the financial impact? Okay, so if this happens, how often does that happen? And when it happens, how long does it take to fix it? And who's fixing it and how much you paying them? So you're telling me that you're spending 40,000 a month on just this thing? Is that what you're saying? By the way, you twist the knife like this people, I guarantee you they haven't figured it out on their own. And so one you just became an awesome consultant, because you're helping them figure this out. So they now trust you advise you, they now see that you know what you're talking about. You've identified this problem in such a way that they hate it now. They've come in thinking, yeah, let me just see if this product helps to now, holy cow, we're losing 40,000 a month. Quite a change. And you did that. And by the way, when they start saying, holy cow, we're losing 40,000 a month, guess what? They want to fix that right now? Oh, you have a product, oh, other people have used it successfully Great. Let's rock your demo doesn't have to be as strong your demo doesn't have to be amazing. And wow them, they just have to know that you have a product that solves it that other people have used and trust. If you can do these things, you can win big time. One of my clients, Greg, once he started doing this, he said that his clients are now 90% closed after discovery. before they ever see the product, they're basically ready to go. Because if you do do your stuff, discovery, well, if you twist the knife, like we're talking about here, then you don't have to have some wild demo some wild product even it can be an average product. It's the discovery that wins. So I told you, I'd give you a real life example. So this is an example that I'm going through right now. So at my house to get real personal with you at my house. It's all on electricity. We've always wished that there could be natural gas so that we could use it for the stove and the fireplace and the grill outside. It's all electricity. So we called the neighborhood gas company and they said no, we can't do it. We can't get gas there for whatever reason I'm not sure what it was. I think it's like too far away it would cost millions of dollars just to pipe it in. And so the next option is you get propane and you can have a propane tank installed at your home and this is a pretty cool thing. And so I've had these propane companies coming out to visit to see if I can put gas into our home and start using in some of our appliances our fireplace. Well, a few of them, kind of did the regular sales thing. They looked at it, took some pictures and then sent me out quote, but one guy came out. And he started to ask questions. He said, Well, why do you want gas? Like, Well, I think it's better for cooking. And I really like it. When I go to my mom's house, she has a gas stove and it just helps me regulate. I like cooking a lot. And so he started understand, okay, this guy likes to cook. She started asked, What do you cook? How often do you cook? And you start asking me these questions to learn about that. He started realized cooking was a big thing for me. He said, We also mentioned the fireplace. The fireplace, right, okay, yeah, we want the fireplace. Well, how often do you set a fire? Well, actually, we don't set a fire as much as we'd like because we have a wood fireplace, and we'd have to get the wood and then we have to put it together. And then after gotta get a starter in light, and then it goes out quickly. And it's kind of annoying. And I just don't I really love to just flip a switch and have the automatic fireplace turned on. Yeah, it's not quite as cool. I know. It's not quite as classic or great, you don't get the wood smell. But it's so much easier, right? For anybody who has an automatic fireplace and just clicking on it. It's good to go. So much easier. And so that's kind of what we need. At this point. He started realize that and He's twisting the knife around that big time he's going into Okay, well. Is it frustrating when you wish you could have a fire? You don't have enough time to set it? Yeah, yeah, it is. It's I hate that. So he's really doing a great job of twisting a knife. I don't know how this, this gas propane sales guy learned this. But somehow he did whether through experience or training, and it was working. I'm like, Yeah, I hate that. I need to solve that. But then he started asking about well, there's another thing you can also run gas to that would really help and that's your water heater. And we could we could help out by putting in a tankless water heater, this is all the rage. I know. It's a cool thing. We have a big tank water heater. It's like a big ol round cylinder deal. Well, we could put into tankless he said, or you could put in a tankless and say, oh, okay, I hadn't thought about that. What are the benefits to it? He said, Well, if everybody has to shower at the same time, you're not going to run out of shower water, you're not gonna run them hot water. In my head, I'm like, Okay, well, we don't really ever run out. It's a big tank. And even though I have two daughters, my wife and me and we all shower, I've never felt like it runs out. So that's not really a big thing. And he said, Well, what if it breaks? I'm like, Well, it's kind of new. And even if it breaks and water goes everywhere, it's all angled. It's in the garage angles out. So the water will go out. And it probably won't affect the home too much. Like, what about the space? It's a it's like, well, it's in the garage. We got a ton of space in there. It's kind of a big area. And so none of these things. Were really pain points for me. Right? Like all of those things he mentioned about the fireplace in the stove. I'm like, Oh, you hate blue? Yeah, got it. We've got to fix that. But the water heater, I'm like, No, not a big deal. And if you can learn to identify the differences in your buyers have when you're kind of learning through discovery when you're poking and prodding and asking these questions. And you hear the difference of Oh, yeah, gotta fix that. And me, man. That's key to learn to identify their reactions. And this helps you understand where to twist the knife. And guess what, this guy was so good. He realized, well, that's not gonna work too much. Let's jump off that he got away from it. It's like, yeah, maybe you don't need it. We're not talking about that. So he looked at an opportunity to upsell but then realized, it's not really a thing. And it was so cool. And for me, watching him go through this process, understanding it deeply since I train it. It was really neat to see outside of even just the software world that this works everywhere. This process, the perfect deal process and twisting the knife works in any sales situation. So we need to use it within the software world. Identify what are the key main pains, what are those things and what's not a pain. And once you figure out what's not the pain, great, we don't have to waste time selling that. Do not go into your demo on stuff they don't care about. Do not do it. You will bore them, they will hate you. They'll think you're not for them. He stopped telling me about the tankless water heater as soon as he realized there's no pain there. Awesome. He started telling me about the fireplace and the stove and the grill those things I did have pain around those things I did hate and he twisted the knife to make me hate it more and I cannot wait for him to install this. Even though I'm paying 1000s of dollars. I cannot wait for it to happen. Because I want that pain gone. This is the power of twisting the knife. Okay, it's awesome. It's incredible. The stories I have around my clients learning to do this, like Brian who went from 11% close rate to 42% just by using this tactic. It's wild. Okay, so twist the knife. Identify What the real pain is get them to identify the pain. And then make sure they hate the pain. If you can do those three things, you're gonna have buyers begging you to get started with your product and then you did fulfill your obligation and making sure they're using your product, getting themselves better improving themselves solving their pains. Okay, this has been a lot of fun. I hope you've gotten a lot out of this by the way, a lot of these things now this is kind of a long form. But a lot of these things I share in snippets so on tick tock which we just started definitely go follow me there because I post specific unique things on tick tock you don't see anywhere else. So go into tick tock for us. Tick tock, follow me there, Instagram, LinkedIn, probably you're already on. That's where we're very, very popular. Facebook, and YouTube. Obviously, you might be seeing this on YouTube, but follow everywhere because there's different stuff on each spot. And once again, make sure you subscribe to this show. I've got some awesome guests coming up in the new year. I cannot wait for you to hear their stories and learn how you can scale your sass. Thank you very next. Thank you very much I should say. And I will see you next time. Take care.
Intro/ Outro:Thanks for listening to Scale your SaaS for more help on finding great leads and closing more deals go to Mattwolach.com