"Beware of the Executive Paradox" with Troy Kanter

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Episode Transcript

Tim Geisert:
Hey, welcome to the Selling Excellence podcast for business executives. We all know B2B selling isn’t getting any easier. And what’s worse, it’s getting more expensive. Hello. I’m Tim Geyser to your host and partner at Optus IQ, a selling excellence as a service company. Our goal today is to give you insights on how you can turn your sales force. Into a company asset. We hope you enjoy. Alright, today, welcome to the podcast. This is going to be one of those subjects that Troy and I are going to have a conversation about that is happening throughout all of the business world, but now it’s really put a name on how are you today, by the way, Troy.

Troy Kanter:
I’ll do it.

Tim Geisert:
Doing great. You’re glad to be back here behind the.

Troy Kanter:
Microphone better than good.

Tim Geisert:
Better than good. Well, that’s good. You know, it’s it the, the idea and the subject for today is what we call the executive paradox. Executive paradox, Troy. What is that exactly? How would you define?

Troy Kanter:
That well, first of all, it’s derailing a ton of deals in the world of. Like and so about five years ago we stepped back because there’s just unique behavior that every year it’s been growing and growing and growing in occurrence. So we put a definition around it because to really teach and coach about it and understand it and sell through it, it’s got to have a name and you got to understand what it is. So here it is. Executive paradox. As human beings, as executives, we all aspire to be a part of a winning organization, to be part of a great team. That’s. Doing something really important that’s got an important mission and that we’re we’re on the boat, we’re on the management team and we’re personally. Innovating and creating and and making a huge contribution contribution to what that organization is trying to accomplish. So that’s the paradox. As a human being, you show up in the morning at work and you want to do something really big, something really innovative, something really creative. But here’s what happens.

Tim Geisert:
Right. Yeah, that’s right.

Troy Kanter:
You get the idea. You’re working with a partner. You get excited, you know it’s going to bring about enormous change, bring huge value to your customers, to your organization. You take the idea to your management committee or to your broader team and you’re instantly hit with resistance. Some of it is. Just passive. Some of it is just really overt. And there’s this. That’s the paradox that all of a sudden, executives recoil. It’s like I signed up for this because I want to do something really important. But all of a sudden to, like, bring about change and do something really creative is risk on my part. I’m risking my own Personal Capital. And inside these organizations, I perceive. My upside to be fairly limited like I can see the path for my organization getting value out of. Yes, but me personally, very little upside, but my downside. If I push. For innovation and creativity and it fails, my downside is unlimited. I could lose my job.

Tim Geisert:
Yeah, the risk just seems to be insurmountable. I mean, but you even said, you know, sometimes that resistance or that pushback’s pretty overt, but sometimes it’s not right. Sometimes it’s kind of a little bit more. Kind of a a. Yes, yes, yes. To a no, right, which gets the same sort of outcome, would you agree?

Troy Kanter:
Not completely. And then there’s also this phenomenon that, you know it we’ve started to see it happening and then all of a sudden. Just really accelerated it because there was this natural human reaction throughout society and throughout organizations of self preservation. I’ve got to take care of myself. I’ve got to take care of my family. So all of a sudden risk taking was already at a minimum and then it really got the brakes. Put on it. As leaders or as sellers, it’s just it’s a cultural issue inside these organizations that’s just really getting in the way of us bringing about innovation.

Tim Geisert:
So this so this paradox you talk about, I mean this is, you know, when you when you bring it to light, you kind of throw out some examples here and there you can it, it does come to life you know and then when you bring in that additional fear. Insecurity, uncertainty that was put on COVID and we. And you know, the business world’s been talking about it. Consumer world’s been talking about how COVID accelerated a whole bunch of things, but it’s what you’re saying is is it’s really exasperated, this paradox of wanting to do innovative, cool big things that make. Big change that rallies the organization, yet hitting this risk wall right? You know, just it kind of you kind of just kind of run into the problems of no, no, no. Or the risk of really implementing is too high so.

Troy Kanter:
Yeah, perfect way of putting it.

Tim Geisert:
Right. What does that mean for us who are in the selling profession? Those of us are trying to drive growth. How does that manifest itself?

Troy Kanter:
Well it, I mean just countless number of deals that I’ve been a part of or that I’m coaching or advising on. You hear this common theme. Met with the executive laid out this really cool, innovative product or offering got enormous excitement, enormous emotional and intellectual engagement. Great follow up. All of a sudden, silence or another kind of word that you hear a lot now, and when you’re looking at deals is well, it feels like they ghosted me.

Tim Geisert:
Yeah, it is the. It is the term in sales. Yeah, they ghost to me. I don’t know where they.

Troy Kanter:
Went where? What happened? Yeah, cause, how do you? It’s it’s practically impossible. To all of a sudden have a really deep meaningful interaction where you’ve got that again, that emotional intellectual engagement and and with your clients or with your prospect, you work through this incredible return on invested capital thesis and you see all the value it’s going to be. Thing and then he or she lays out here are the next steps, and it just goes dark. Well, as sellers, you know, the insecurity kicks in. What’s happening, what’s going on, and when you finally get in touch with that prospect. Having experienced this and watched this hundreds and hundreds of time, yet no prospect has ever said to us. Well, hey, you know what? I just don’t have the courage or fortitude to push this through the organization. It’s just it’s too embarrassing to say. Look, I hit a wall and I just don’t want to take the personal risk to bring about this value.

Tim Geisert:
Well, and it does take a lot of energy in that paradoxal world, right? Like Sisyphus always waking up every day, pushing that rock, pushing that rock, then knowing that sometimes just gonna roll back on you. That’s a little bit what they’re facing, right? So sometimes just kind of taking your out of the game yourself out of the game, tapping yourself out by. Interesting sometimes is the easiest thing to do right, which is what you’re talking about, right? Well, that doesn’t really. Solve the problem though. So what do we do about it? What are? What are? Is there some anecdotes? Are there some you know? Thoughts or ideas that you have of? Course you do.

Troy Kanter:
Well, sure as we. You know, worked with teams around the world. There’s, you know, I think we’ve got three really good practical strategies. The first one is it’s counterintuitive to almost everything you’ve ever learned about sales training, and that is #1 when you’re actually working on a really creative, innovative deal and you’re trying to convince an organization to work differently than they’ve ever worked before. Accelerate the objections. You know what the objections are going to be downstream. Get to them fast.

Tim Geisert:
Bring them right up front. Absolutely.

Troy Kanter:
To him and everything you’ve learned about sales, everything you’ve learned in sales training, 101 is never create an objection. But you know when you’re doing something really important and it takes enormous collaboration between your team, your prospects team, and then a whole list of people at your prospects organization that you may never, ever get to meet.
Speaker
That is.

Tim Geisert:
Right.

Troy Kanter:
You’ve got to figure out how to. Help your champion. Get to the objections and give him or her the language to overcome them.

Tim Geisert:
And you know, I don’t think you’re talking about the old, you know, adage of get, you know, fast. No, is as good as a fast. Yes, that’s not what you’re talking about. You’re talking about. No. Let’s really just uncover those challenges as soon as possible so that you can help them get past that paradox to get to action.

Troy Kanter:
The single best way to overcome the paradox. Accelerate, accelerate the objections. Second is you personalize it.

Tim Geisert:
OK.

Troy Kanter:
Because now all of a sudden you’ve got to get back to so much of what we do in selling is. You know, we get the analytic covered. You know we get the data covered. You know, but we’ve got to get through the emotion of it, and the paradox is about battling the emotion. And so one of the things that I’ve done or that I’ve coached people to do that I’ve seen work exceptionally well on the personalization side is go deep. Here’s the great question. OK, we figured out. What success looks like for your organization. What does success look like for you personally? If we get this done together? Yeah. How do you want to be measured on this? And rarely are people asked that and you get them talking about that. Then you help them say, OK, now you’re taking a risk, you’re driving change. And one of the hardest things to do is get successful people to work differently. So you’re going out on a limb. So how can I personally help you mitigate that? Disc and people will pause and use the pause used the silence because no one’s ever been asked that before, and then you can help pull it out of them. You get going and then again this is counterintuitive, but to make it really, really personalize what I love to do is say, OK, I’m going to take you through the most extreme, scariest stories I have. From my clients. Yeah. And I’m going to say, OK, we know that you’ve got to get, let’s just say for example, you’ve got to get the head of IT on board. You’ve got to get someone from the CFO’s office on board. You’ve got to get. That head of OPS on board, you just go down the list. There are seven or eight of these and it’s almost like treat them as like archetypes and then you’re then you lay out, I’m going to tell you, rarely do all seven or eight completely object or get passive aggressive on you, but I’m going to give you an example of the worst case scenario I’ve had to deal with with every single one of those. And you just you lay it out, OK? In the IT department. Here’s the hardest objections. That we’ve ever had to overcome. And here’s the greatest amount of resistance we ever got. And here’s what we did to overcome it. And you just go down the list and I know again that sounds peculiar, but then you inevitably get to this moment of where your champion has got to push through has to show fortitude. In a way, to keep that dialogue going in a way at which you’re there to help, because most of the time as a seller, you don’t know what’s going on behind the other side of the door and when you can talk about, OK, when you’re walking down to the IT department, remember the example I gave you at Acme Inc. Remember what she had to do to overcome that and all of a sudden you create this level of of partnership and and there’s this level of empathy and sympathy that you can like kind of commiserate together as you overcome it. And then when they get stuck, it’s like, look, we talked about it. Yeah. Knew the finance person. Was gonna make it tough on you at.

Tim Geisert:
This point, you know what’s what’s interesting about that, just to dissect it a little bit, as I as I listen to you, there’s there’s. Really, two parts to it. One, you’re really helping them. Emotionally, you know you’re helping them personally. That’s your key point. But there’s a there’s a byproduct of that, and that is you’re actually teaching as well. Right. You’re teaching them kind of how to work through those, those challenges that you face with all of the influencers, the ones you mentioned, plus sometimes tens 20s more than that, right. So that’s really that’s kind of cool, right to get get personal, right. So that’s number two, what’s the third thing?

Troy Kanter:
No, absolutely. Well, it’s the ultimate we were talking about. Rational and emotional, right? Complex deals you you overwhelm them on the rational well, the ultimate way in which you can help paint pictures across the organization that people can make an emotional connection to is a campaign theme. And it can’t. Can’t. A campaign theme is slightly different than a wind theme, because sometimes your wind theme is about return on invested capital, or we can do this faster or cheaper. Or this is the business imperative that will be solved. And X number of days again great. You got to have that done on the rational side. But on the emotional side.

Tim Geisert:
The campaign team.

Troy Kanter:
Again, great campaign themes are simple, and they’re easy to say. They’re easy to remember, and they emotionally charge people up. And so there are ways at which you help your champion or your advocate paint that picture and to create that internal campaign theme that connects.
Speaker
OK.

Troy Kanter:
All these disparate influencers. To the emotion of what we’re going to accomplish for the organization because all of a sudden you you create a coalition, you just not. You just battle right through that paradox because there’s power in numbers now all of a sudden I still get to own this in terms of the contribution that I’m going to make to the organization. But I as the buyer, I’m mitigating my risk because now all of a sudden I’ve got 7 or 8 other advocates. I’ve got a coalition.

Tim Geisert:
Right.

Troy Kanter:
To help get this done and to help mitigate that personal risk that I was feeling as part of my my paradox.

Tim Geisert:
And you, you know, you think about campaign, you know campaign, you know, any good campaign, we think of an ad came campaign. Or or however, however. We define it. It has those two elements, one it has kind of that emotional, you know charge. Huge, but it helps people. Summarize a lot of. Complexity, right? Like any any campaign that you have ever seen or ever done, what you’re saying is apply that to a deal, apply that to the situation for that individual in that company. That’s pretty.

Troy Kanter:
Cool. Yeah, and it and capture the mission of that organization.

Tim Geisert:
And capture the.

Troy Kanter:
Mission. Yeah. And so you’ve got you’ve got.

Tim Geisert:
Exactly. So it ties it in.

Troy Kanter:
Excel spreadsheet after Excel spreadsheet of rationally why this is the right thing for this organization to move forward, but then that. That five word campaign theme. It’s what will get it over the edge.

Tim Geisert:
Yeah. Yeah. OK. So so for our listeners, those executives out there are running sales forces, running businesses, owning businesses. All right, let’s take this then to what? Do you do? About it, what do you how do you? How do you make this a value? What we’re talking about here today, the the dynamics of the paradox? Those three things you’re trying to. Do how do you put? It into action. What’s your recommendations on how to?

Troy Kanter:
Do that well. Again, now that we’ve we’ve named it.

Tim Geisert:
Right. We campaigned.
Speaker
It right? Yeah, that’s right.

Troy Kanter:
So now you, you, you. You have it. There’s a power of awareness. So all of a sudden when you get stuck, you’re not. You’re not casting a whole bunch of different lures into the lake. That’s around changing your terms or changing your price or, you know, kind of shadow boxing. A competitor that really doesn’t even exist. It’s like, all of a sudden, you can step back and have a very deliberate. Real strategy that you know, look, this is now. A really important, yet exceptionally complex side of getting deals done and so we’ve got to rationally and emotionally help each one of these individuals work their way through this. And you got to teach and coach and give your sellers room to get this done and give them talk time on how. To get it accomplished, it’s. Strategic thinking and messaging deal by deal has never. Been more important.

Tim Geisert:
Well, you know, you talked to. A lot of CEO’s. And you know. What’s some of the reaction when you talk to them about the executive paradox? What, what, how do they react to that?

Troy Kanter:
Yeah, like I’ll give you 1-2 weeks ago. You know, one of our, one of my favorite CEO’s, I mean, the guys just built an amazing organization and he heard me talking about this in one of my sessions and he pulled me aside. He goes, what’s this? BS this executive. Paradox and and I started to explain. He’s like, well, that doesn’t exist. Here, and I’ve literally had a dozen. CEO say. Well, yeah. Yeah. But not not at my company open door. Creativity. Innovation is part of our value.

Tim Geisert:
Right. Yeah, they’re they’re rewarded for risk. Yeah, right.

Troy Kanter:
And I just said, I just smile and cause it’s it happens this way every time I said OK. Who is a line executive or a function level executive that you just know if the door is closed, they’re going to give you? The straight scoop? Who?

Tim Geisert:
What’s that?

Troy Kanter:
And he was like, well, that Cheryl, I mean, OK, let’s walk down the hall, see if chery’s here today. We walk in, close the door and I said sure I want to tell you about a concept that we’ve coined and I want to get your perspective on is that happening here and all of a sudden she just smiles, looks at the CEO and goes well. I’ve never heard it put that way before, but I spend my day trying to unravel. That happens all the time and every single time.

Tim Geisert:
Wow. Wow.

Troy Kanter:
CEO’s got this like, you know this like, it looks like an owl, you know that he’s getting really big and he’s. Really quiet, but it is. It’s just it’s just this human phenomenon. That again is senior level executives. It’s just like you can’t ever stop talking about it and trying to actually reinforce those values that you’re trying to drive. I mean, it’s that work is never ever, ever done. Right. And now with this. You know the great resignation and the level of turnover and new people that you’re bringing in and out. It’s more important than ever. Yeah. As a leader of an organization or of a sales force that you’re just constantly driving home. The importance of what we do, why we do it and what do we really recognize and reward in terms of their behaviors within this organization and when people do take the risks you got to celebrate it. Even sometimes even you got to have a bigger celebration for when something goes S because you got to get people comfortable.

Tim Geisert:
Right.

Troy Kanter:
Right, we’re trying to innovate and we’ve all done it as executives like like it’s hard to innovate and you don’t get it right. You miss more often.

Tim Geisert:
Give them that neck. Then you do hit. Yeah. So and so you want to feed that. This is a, you know, the executive paradox, you know? The purpose of our. Our podcast is to help executives kind of see certain things have to do things in a certain way, change and improve the way they they grow their companies. This is interesting in that this is something that’s happening in almost every company and every executive and hopefully our listeners now have a little bit better, if not a lot more. You into what’s happening in their company when it comes to the executive paradox to get past it. And get back. To growth. Thanks Troy. This is a great sesh.

Troy Kanter:
Yeah. Enjoyed it. Thanks, Tim.

Tim Geisert:
Hey, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Selling Excellence podcast for business executives. I hope you’ve gained some insight on how to turn your sales force into a company asset now. Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And for more information on what we do at Optus IQ or to schedule a discovery call, visit our website. At www.auctusiq.com until next time, this is your host, Tim Geisert, and a partner at AuctusIQ.