Today’s guest, Gal S. Borenstein, is the Founder and CEO of the Borenstein Group. He is a B2B digital branding & marketing strategist. Borenstein Group is one of Washington D.C.’s most influential business-to-business agencies. Since its founding in 1994, the Borenstein Group has helped hundreds of startups, early-stage, growing, and mature companies optimize their brand promise and maximize their brand equity.
On today’s episode, Gal discusses why identifying what differentiates you from your competition and the importance of knowing who your competition is will put you miles ahead in your marketing strategy. Gal also talks about understanding the unique choice you offer companies when selling your services, “What you’re dealing with is really three choices, which is you’re either the safe choice, the best choice, or the innovative choice.”
Tune into this week’s episode to learn from an author, leader, and innovator in the field of sales, Gal Borenstein.
Watch or listen to this episode:
Transcript:
Fri, 4/8 · 09:31:59 36:34
Summary Keywords
sales sell people create company customers buyer prospect question buy objections salesperson competition cybersecurity technology conversation means promise product works
Speakers
Christopher Smith & Gal Borenstein
Intro
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith, talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Listen to find out how the best of the best achieve success with their team and CRM technology. And remember, unless you are the lead dog, the view never changes.
Christopher Smith
Welcome to Sales Lead Dog. Today we have joining us a special guest, we have Gal Borenstein of the Bornstein Group, Inc., welcome to Sales Lead Dog.
Gal Borenstein
Thanks for having me.
Christopher Smith
Great to have you here. Gal, tell us about the Bornstein Group.
Gal Borenstein
Well, I founded the Border Center in 1994, which is about 26 years ago, when I realized that the technology, marketing, and advertising is a unique science within the creative industry whereby engineers and scientists and people that develop software or hardware in any type of internet related thing at a time, which is the prehistoric era of the PRI browser, had difficulties in really kind of articulating the issues that would make a sale to a customer. And I had a background in communications and being a journalist and also in understanding with a master’s degree in telecommunications. And I said, what if there’s going to be an agency out there that understands technology, and understands engineers, but also understands the idea that when you’re selling or marketing to another person or an institution, you need to really have an understanding of both sides and reverse the process and make sure that you articulated in a way that has a, why should I buy it and why now, and that really kind of created a trajectory of the Bornstein Group. So, 26 years later, we’re still located in the Washington DC area, we focus on the business to business in business to government, enterprise, marketing, branding, and public relations. And we primarily work really with technology companies that are really kind of been introducing their products and services to the market, whether it’s now advanced analytics and cybersecurity, in anything that relates to what we call the digital age and the expertise that we kind of accumulated over time, from telecommunications, to software to anything that you can call technology is amazingly useful, because what things have changed, certain fundamentals have not changed, which is how do you sell in market in business to business? And that’s really what our expertise is focused on?
Christopher Smith
That’s great. In the notes you sent me, you talk about shifting the perspective, you know, from as salespeople were all about, how do I sell this? What are the things I need you to sell this to close the deal? You shift it from? How do I sell it to why would anybody want to buy it? Can you talk…
Gal Borenstein
Yes, I think the most common criteria that people are using to sell is not that it’s wrong. But when you’re trying to kind of engineer if you will, or construct the way someone is likely to react, you really have to kind of put yourself in the customers shoes or in the client shoes, depending on your industry. And really kind of start the process with a simple kind of construct that I call differentiation. And the differentiation is never based on kind of one value. So, take for example, the sentence that if we’re able or unable to say the following, if our company specializes in X, Y, and Z, and unlike companies, A, B, and C, we do things in one, two and three, better, faster, whatever, and you can’t articulate it. You really don’t have the opportunity to sell to anyone number one, because you have not differentiated what you’re doing and that differentiation to answer your question goes all the way back to saying if even if you had like the most common product that somebody is likely to buy is why wouldn’t they buy it because if you’re able to overcome an identified the objections not only the product or the service objections. But the psychological objections of the buyer, which could be for example, I might get fired if I buy your technology. And me keep my job if they buy the other technology, which they’ll never tell you, if you’re in sales, and they’re the buyer, they’ll just say, I really don’t like your technology, or see you next year, call me next year, and I’ll evaluate it again. So psychology, in looking at overcoming objections by analyzing what is really good buyers are interested in, in addition to what the marketing departments different they’re looking at, which is features benefits, cost value, and attaching it to this process is really kind of the way to accelerate sales from six months to three months to two weeks sometimes, and especially when you know who the enemy is the competition, and what they’re likely to say that basically is the golden ticket to being successful.
Christopher Smith
Right. So then by going through that process of really understanding those objections, is the expectation then that you’re working that into your sales process and your messaging, your value proposition? Is that what bring it all together?
Gal Borenstein
Absolutely. Because obviously, you got to have a product or service that, presumably, has been tested to be reliable. And really, the first fundamental question or statement I just made is not self-evident to a lot of companies, which is, especially when it comes to something that, for example, a software package or piece of machinery, at the end of the day, you have an on and off switch, and you have reliability. I mean, we assume that when you turn on the switch, it works. So, if you go to market, and you have salespeople that are selling something that they never seen, having that ability to click that button, if you will, on and off to produce an outcome. And you make a promise that your product or service is better than the other guys, if you don’t test that promise, prior to marketing it and selling it to the outside world, your promise is going to be blown away very, very quickly and your credibility is going to be blown away. And in today’s environment where you have social proof, which is reviews of customers, and the opportunity for people to research about you without ever talking to you prior to your phone or after your pitch to them. That really is a problem. But assuming that everything is right, and the quality assurance is there, and that what you’re selling, whether it’s again, an accounting software, or a kind of a telecommunication widget, or whether it’s a business service, on an enterprise level that involves risk mitigation, we really start the process by saying, yes, these are the features. And those are the benefits to the company that the buyer is representing. But what is the thoughts? What are the thoughts that the buyer might have, if he doesn’t believe in you, as in, they don’t have a friend, or we don’t have a mutual friend that told them you should talk to this company? And you have to really kind of create an almost kind of a pseudo religious experience where they get something to believe in, and then you have to execute it. And the short answer to that is, if you know what they fear, if you know what they like, if you know why they’re not likely to accept your promise, which could be as simple as they don’t want to get fired, they can get promoted on a positive level. They don’t want to experience 1000 people complaining to the Help Desk about something that they experienced reasonably because they made a mistake. And the higher you go, and the more money people are spending in that corporate enterprise environment, it doesn’t matter technology, accounting, finance, wherever you go or, or any type of environment like that, you’re going to find very often that the higher the sale goal is the more risk mitigation and what you’re dealing with is really three choices, which is you’re either the safe choice, the best choice or the innovative choice. In most of us have a say in the community of professionals that might be listening to your audience in sales and marketing started by saying we’re the innovative choice which cognitively means that you’re automatically saying I’m a risk. So don’t take your chance on me. And that is a complete opposite to what someone in a position of power in the suites that in the C suite is likely to accept. So, if you’re starting with, I’m different. And because I’m different, you should take a chance with me or, you have to give them proof points and build it in a way that by the time you’re telling them, the why now, which is why you should buy from me now versus later. They’re already kind of convinced that they can trust you. And the failure to do that which we see every day in our industry, is really kind of the reason that many technologies fail to succeed. And many service opportunities to sell failed to do kind of permeate because of not thinking through that idea of are you the best choice for you to save towards when you’re the innovator of choice. And be a safe choice. Just to be clear, we tend to think of being boring. It is not being boring. In fact, it’s the opposite of boring- safe is a combination of eliminating the objections that for the company, on the buyer side, the decision maker, the influencer at the decision maker cycle, and the stakeholders around him or her where you have the opportunity to come into the conversation fully equipped to be able to win.
Christopher Smith
It’s funny, as I was listening to him thinking, like, you know, we’re almost trained as sales leaders to always be like, oh, we’re all about innovation. And you know, that we’re so creative and all that. But we’re probably shooting ourselves in the foot, if we’re not really able to make that transition that while we’re innovative, we’re also the safe and the best choice, you know, that is not just about innovation, how do you work with your clients to create that balance?
Gal Borenstein
Well, the starting point is really, to help clients understand and really centered it’s easy. And sometimes it’s kind of a journey, by using data points, which start with a question, for example, are we the first iPad, if it was a tablet, or are we basically competing against other tablet makers, for example, that already exist, because the experience that you have, if you’re basically selling the first thing, in an industry that never saw a product or service like yours, you have what we call the cost of education, and you have to create a marketing process that really kind of takes into consideration exactly that point, which is you have to educate your customers before you get to sell to them. And that’s it’s truly kind of on the cutting edge of things. But I can’t tell you how many times companies assume that people should say yes or no based on pricing or based on their belief that there are features that are faster, higher quality, more secure, you know, more robust, multiple capabilities, is the reason that that buyer should buy. And then when you have the other kind of point is know thy enemy, you’re always selling against a strong man. And when you don’t have the ability to know that you have a competition, and the competition could be for example, with a new product, it could be ignorance of the fact that there’s a better way of doing things, and your target prospect or customer is never going to admit to you there, they don’t know that there is a better way. So, by telling them, there’s a better way, you are going to lose the sale before you even begun on a psychological and branding level. And you never get to tell the story because of that listening. And then the other type of competition, which is the traditional route that most companies should take is really say is our promise. Sounds in looks like exactly the promise that other competitors or market are doing and saying and expressing whether it’s the features or the benefits or value or the use case scenarios. Is it the same? I can’t tell you how many times you the first question that we have when we interview customers that want to come on board and do an advertising campaign or visual branding campaign, or a public relations component, when we ask the question, who’s your competition? And imagine that it’s a small to mid-size company that are selling to the enterprise, which is the majority of the economy, as you know, because there’s no more three, IBM and Microsoft. And that’s it. So, when we ask the question, who’s your competition, they basically say, IBM, or Microsoft, or Amazon, which means an ant is competing against an elephant, which is never the case. In reality, you’re competing against people that maybe are five or 50 or 100 times magnitude, where you are not 1,000,000,000% magnitude where you are. And if you basically don’t know who your competition is, your chance of succeeding is pretty much zero because you’re kind of guessing that somebody’s going to want to buy your product.
Christopher Smith
How often does the competition of the status quo come into your discussions?
Gal Borenstein
As in the safe choice-
Christopher Smith
or just the customer? The customer, the prospect is, you know, I’m fine. Where I’m at, I don’t want to change, how often does that come up.
Gal Borenstein
That comes up very often because change is very difficult. Think about anyone that had the opportunity to shelter, youth or inexperience and get to the age of, let’s say 40 and 50, we’re typically you got the 20 years of experience to be a C suite person or a middle management and company, and you become a creature of comfort. And when you basically are disrupting the process of being a creature of comfort unless there is an external event. So, for example, if you’re selling cybersecurity right now, your level of comfort as a buyer of cybersecurity products, is I want to see what’s new, I want to see how do I protect my company, because you hear every day about cybersecurity hacks and events. So obviously, it’s much easier to sell and unravel your level of comfort of your buyer, when there is an external event like that. But in real life, those external events are very uncommon. So the answer to your question is you need to create that event. When you can’t get through the door, I always say you have to go through the window. And the window is if you understand the trends in the industry, and you’re able to articulate to the buyer that is so stuck in 1995, or 2010, in 2020, or 2021, or 2022, in terms of what they need to do, you really need to give him social proof that they’re lagging behind without insulting them, which means get three or four examples of companies that are exactly like their company. And get three or four examples of people that are in the same position in the same space and use them as examples that show that they’re not crazy when they’re not excited about change. But change comes with survivability, and then make sure that they understand that it’s survival of the fittest. And in fact, you are a trusted advisor that is helping them survive. Because if they don’t do it, they really are going to be extended, versus be praised by the CEO for making sure that the latest hack to the company did not happen, or productivity has increased because they bought the product at the right time.
Christopher Smith
So, when you engage with your customers, you start off by interviewing all the employees, you call it voice to the employees, and then you interview their customers. You call that voice of the customers and then you compare and contrast the information you know where the employees, the management team of say, hey, we got this incredible feature set and it really resonates in the marketplace. But when you talk to the customers, you find out something different. How often do you see that that digression or just disconnect between the management team and the customer?
Gal Borenstein
We see it all the time and it’s really kind of a good point you brought up, which is the two things that we really kind of focus on before we say, let’s go to market, and create the messaging that encourage people to buy, but it’s the marketing collateral for the sales professionals, or the website or their demo. The two things that we want to know is that the message is authentic, and resonates. And the way we kind of gazed at is, what if the CEO of a company respectfully has a message that their service company in X industry is the fastest and the highest quality over any other company? And then that’s what the CEO of that company says. But when you interview their employees, they say, you know, that’s what the CEO says. But in reality, we really have a lot of complaints about quality assurance, and we really aren’t the fastest company. What chances do you have as a salesperson to be successful, if people call BS really, when you’re selling, and they’re saying, hey, yeah, we tested your company five years ago, or two years ago, two months ago, and they didn’t experience what you thought that you’re buying market, to think that your bond is not the thing that you got. So what we focus on really is if you really kind of can align the message that management has the CEO first, then the C suite, and then the believability that it has with employees, which are all brand ambassadors, whether they’re going to fix a problem later in the process after a salesperson made the sale. And they represent a brand in that process and extend that quality assurance and friendly customer service that we promised in an ad campaign, we have the better chance of succeeding. And when we find the things that have a kind of a discord or they’re not really believable, we say okay, well, we can’t really fix world hunger in the next six months. But let’s find two or three attributes that everyone agrees about and upon and then connect them to what the market is missing. What the competition is saying, and then leverage it to create a Unison message that works for everyone.
Christopher Smith
If I’m a sales leader, and I see that, hey, we’ve got that disconnect, or you know, things aren’t aligned, as you just described? Yeah. What are some of those first steps I should take to create that alignment and address that issue?
Gal Borenstein
Well, the first thing is, again, not to drink your Kool Aid. And if you’re a sales leader in the organization, or you’re writing in the next quarter, or fiscal year, sales playing for your team, for your enterprise sales team, the first question to ask other than what is my quota and how many units I have to move in order to make my year successful and my teams are successful is, is what I’m selling believable in the context of what we’re trying to do. And then when we say believable, is going back to the tenets of trust, which have to do with, do I have the proof that what we’re selling is doing what the message is reliable, faster, more secure. And then make sure that we can pilot a campaign with a few people, a few could be 150-100, depending on the magnitude of your organization, and really kind of test different messages to see what resonates, and then come back, and then train your sales organization to really kind of pitch those messages accordingly. So, what you’re doing in reality is before you go full blast and spend, you know a lot of money on a lot of people trying something and realizing after q1 or q2 that they failed, you do a pilot, that test pilot, a pilot would be in pilot seat potentially, and that way you have the ability to predict better. And now we have analytics to help you with that- what resonates and what works. So the confidence as a sales leader that you need to have is that you know what a, b, and c are going to look fly prior to you going to market, and of course, then training your sales organization, along with the marketing organization to produce things that will be compelling, persuasive, and most importantly, overcome the psychological objections of the decision makers by knowing what they are prior to ever having them presented in public.
Christopher Smith
Yeah, I think that’s so important to really understand you have to understand your customer, you have to live in their shoes. Yes. And it’s not easy. It takes hard work to do that. And I think that’s proper. Do you think that’s why people might shy away from that is they might think it’s too hard?
Gal Borenstein
Yes. I think that the dynamic that is not uncommon in many companies, is that politics and organizational politics prevent that type of thinking and process discovery that I’ve talked about. And I always tell people, would you rather find out the easy way or the hard way, the easy way would be to actually do your homework. And, yes, you might have to have some arguments internally with the champions and the people that are in the engineering and development department, about the fact that they said that this feature works, but when you tried it, it didn’t, before you went to market, and what is their response to it, and making sure that every promise has a backup and reliability factor that you can believe in. Or you find that the hard way, hired 10, or 15, or 50, or 100 people or 1000 people to sell your product or service and find out after two or three quarters that they didn’t sell anything, because they didn’t have the right ammunition.
Christopher Smith
I love that you said it earlier. One word that I think is really important, it’s reliable, it’s that, you know, these proof points that are going to endure for a long time, because you don’t want to like create a whole bunch of momentum, sell a bunch of stuff, and then just have it fade away because you’re not delivering.
Gal Borenstein
Correct. And there was something that that we used at the bar. And so you’ve really been our tagline from the beginning, because it was kind of interesting to be in a position where your creative people and people in marketing typically have a different type of thinking, which just kind of used to be called and that was trying to say out of the box. But it’s certainly not kind of logical when you come up with a new idea for a campaign. So, our tagline has always been making creativity, a science. And when you tell somebody creativity and science, they’re typically on the opposite sides. But if you look at the book definition book being the dictionary of what is science, it’s really the ability to take something can create repeatable, and repeat, repeatable and predictable outcomes that produce scalable results. So, if you develop something that succeeds only once that’s an experiment, which means an experiment can succeed once, but if you can replicate the results, then that experiment is going to blow up in your face. But if you can create something that is reliable, and may not be as exciting as you might think, but reliable, and works to get people to buy your products, and update your products, or sell more to existing clients, or charter new territory, and you can make it predictable in scale it so you can sell from 10 to 100 to 1000 to a million times the same way. That’s where the golden ticket is in. Many organizations failed the set.
Christopher Smith
What are some of the common mistakes people make when they’re trying to do what you’re saying? But they’re, they’re falling down in spots? What are some of those common errors that are made?
Gal Borenstein
I think the two most common mistakes that people make is number one, not doing your homework, which we kind of discussed a little bit, which is to never call a company, a prospect in Starbucks and have the conversation by asking, so tell me what your company does. Or tell me what your company does in the context of what I’m selling. You need to know that before you started the conversation, and it doesn’t matter that you want to schmooze, and you want to kind of create a relationship with that person, which is important, but it should never be basically part of the tenant to start a sales conversation, whether it’s online or via phone or email by asking them what do you guys do, and I can’t tell you how many times that is still the adage where most sales organization operate. And they’re thinking they’re doing the right thing. And in fact, what they’re doing is consulting the prospect. But the second one, really is to think of yourself instead of a sales professional, instead of it as a trusted adviser, and a trusted consultant, and create and use what we call consultative selling, which is not new, and it’s been around. But it’s based on creating a discovery, where you’re listening to the pain points that a prospect has, and then leveraging those pain points to say, we actually have a solution that addresses it, and be ready. At that time did you send that to have three or four usage scenarios of companies just like the prospect industry has, and by doing so, you’re not selling anymore, you’re actually helping them solve a problem. So if you take those two things that I just said, and kind of connected it to one circle, where you should never start a conversation, that sales conversation or marketing conversation by saying, I’ve got the solution for you, or I know everything, you are basically starting with a vanity plate, if you will, or wall that will never be trusted. If you start the conversation by saying I know what I don’t know, which is not the confident salesperson that we typically are used to, you have a better chance of grading a conversation where there’s listening. And if there’s listening, there is an opportunity to identify an area that creates a dialogue. And dialogue means an exchange of information by which we can actually extend the conversation. And as you know, the longer you can talk to a prospect, the higher the chances you’re going to close a sale, or at least be considered among the top three options. The short of the conversation is, it means you’re doing a transactional thing, which means you’re going to be one out of 10, three out of 10 but never get beyond.
Christopher Smith
Yep, yeah. And it’s great in that, you know, shifting the relationship from you know, when you’re selling, you’re across the table, you’re coming at the person, but if you’re a trusted advisor, you’re walking alongside them, you’re living in their world wearing their shoes, understanding as you’re seeing their pain points, yes, and really trying to help them come up with a solution that’s going to make it better.
Gal Borenstein
Yes, and I want to, because both of us have had a, you know, kind of a tremendous career. Many years I have seen those things happening. In the old world 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, a great technique was, I found an article that you might be interested in people put a sticky note and sell it in the mail to a prospect without basically saying anything about selling them stuff. Now, there’s so much content. And so many studies that in so many facts that you can use to educate a prospect before they become an actual transaction, and build that trust. And people fail to do that. And when you fail to do that you fail to sell. And you’re basically being lumped with the rest of the nuisance that I have every day, because think about how many messages we get every day via text, email, phone calls, and not to mention zoom calls. So, you don’t have a lot of time. So, if you’re the educator, and you’re willing to be a trusted adviser and listener automatically in business to business, especially the higher dollar volume. That approach is the approach that works. And the approach that doesn’t work is my product is better than the other product or my service is better than the other service without doing your homework.
Christopher Smith
But we’re coming up on our time here in Sales Lead Dog, I really appreciate you coming on the show. If people want to reach out and connect with you, they want to learn more about the Borenstein Group. What’s the best way for them to do that?
Gal Borenstein
Well, the simplest way in the digital world is to visit borensteingroup.com. You can check us out on Google or check out LinkedIn where you can find my profile and Gal Bornstein. My first name is Gal means in Israeli Hebrew, a wave in the ocean, but most people don’t know how to pronounce it. So, I tell him get a life. But if you can visit Gal Borenstein on LinkedIn and connect from there. That’s kind of where we typically find the most interesting and most meaningful conversations.
Christopher Smith
Yeah, that’s good. And we’ll have all that in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a great rating. Follow us. You can also find us on YouTube. And thank you for listening and Gal thank you for coming on Sales Lead Dog again. It’s great.
Gal Borenstein
Well, I have to say five woofs for this. Because you, you did exactly what good people are supposed to do in sales, ask tough questions and not take anything for granted and know what you don’t know. Thank you, Chris.
Outro
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog, be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Watch the videos on YouTube and you can also find our episodes on our website at empellercrm.com/salesleaddog. Sales Lead Dog is supported by Empeller CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business guaranteed.
Quotes
- “What you’re dealing with is really three choices, which is you’re either the safe choice, the best choice, or the innovative choice.” (13:29-13:40)
- “Know thy enemy. You’re always selling against a strongman.” (17:37-17:43)
- “If you don’t know what your competition is your chances of succeeding is pretty much zero, because, you’re kind of guessing that somebody is going to want to buy your product.” (19:44-19:56)
Links
Gal Borenstein LinkedIn
Borenstein Group LinkedIn
Borenstein Group Website
Borenstein Twitter
Empellor CRM LinkedIn
Empellor CRM Website
Empellor CRM Twitter
