This Sales Technique Makes Prospects Leave Their Current Provider
Learn how to win clients from your competitors without badmouthing or aggressive tactics. In this episode, we explore "The Wedge"—a questioning technique that helps prospects see they’re not getting the best service. Perfect for consultants, IT pros, and B2B service providers, you’ll discover how to stand out, break the status quo, and win deals without competing on price. Tune in for practical tips to level up your sales game!
Transcript
Hey everyone.
Speaker A:Welcome back to the Repeatable Revenue podcast.
Speaker A:If you're a remote business builder, you're.
Speaker B:In the right place.
Speaker A:On this podcast, we explore all things it takes to create reliable, repeatable sales.
Speaker B:Growth in your business.
Speaker A:So we talk strategy, tactics, marketing, sales leadership, and maybe most importantly, self leadership.
Speaker A:You'll learn from me and my experience from sales rep to CEO to now founder of a business I've built in Baja, as well as other guests and experts.
Speaker A:You can check out rayj.green.com for more information about me.
Speaker A:Now, let's dive into why you're here today.
Speaker B:If you're selling services of any kind, IT services, you know, financial planning services, coaching, consulting, whatever it is, wouldn't it be nice if every time you walked into a prospect's office, they were pissed off with their current provider, they were pissed off with the person that was already providing them service.
Speaker B:Sales gets a hell of a lot easier when that's the case.
Speaker B:But that's not always the case.
Speaker B:A lot of times you've got to unseat an incumbent service provider.
Speaker B:And today I'm going to show you exactly how to do that.
Speaker B:Let's dive in.
Speaker B:Hey, what's up?
Speaker B:I'm Ray Green, former executive turned nomad entrepreneur.
Speaker B:I was the managing Director of the U.S.
Speaker B:chamber of Commerce for over a decade.
Speaker B:I led sales turnarounds for private equity groups as a sales executive.
Speaker B:And for the last five years, I've been doing sales and marketing consulting from the beautiful beaches in Cabo where I moved my family.
Speaker B:And I've had the opportunity to coach hundreds, if not thousands of people who are selling services of some kind, right, to other, to other businesses.
Speaker B:The thing is, when you walk in the door or you're sitting down with a prospect and they are not happy with their, their current provider, they've got crappy response times, they've got vulnerabilities in their network.
Speaker B:They've got, you know, they're dropping the ball on, on projects, they are nickel and diming their, their clients and you walk in and you're there to sell your IT services.
Speaker B:Life is a hell of a lot easier, right?
Speaker B:Because they know the pain, they know the frustration that they have, they know what they don't like and they know that they deserve better service.
Speaker B:That's great, but that is not always the case.
Speaker B:That's a problem as a salesperson because you need two things to really close deals when you are selling services, right?
Speaker B:Especially like professional services, things like that, you need pain, right?
Speaker B:They have to, they have to have some type of problem that is creating some type of pain for them.
Speaker B:And you need urgency.
Speaker B:If you don't have those two things, it's going to be very tough to close, and your sales velocity is going to suck.
Speaker B:It's going to take you forever to close deals because there's no urgency to actually get something to the finish line.
Speaker B:So how do you unseat an incumbent service provider when their client doesn't seem to be in that much pain?
Speaker B:And how do you create clear differentiation between you and your competitors?
Speaker B:That's where a sales technique called the wedge comes in.
Speaker B:And by the end of this video, you're going to know what the wedge is, why it works, how to use it, and how to wedge proof your business from other salespeople who are going to try to use it against your business.
Speaker B:All right?
Speaker B:Now, the wedge is not my own creation.
Speaker B:I didn't.
Speaker B:I didn't make it up.
Speaker B:It's actually created by Randy Schwantz, who has a book called the Wedge.
Speaker B:And last I checked, I think it sells for like, eighty or a hundred bucks, something like that on Amazon, and it's worth it.
Speaker B:The wedge is designed to do two things.
Speaker B:One is it's designed to break the relationship with an incumbent service provider.
Speaker B:And then it's also intended to create clear differentiation between you and competitors in general.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But you're not going to do that by attacking the current provider.
Speaker B:You're not going to do it by badmouthing them.
Speaker B:You're not going to tell them that their current provider sucks.
Speaker B:You're not going to point out every single weakness of the current service provider that they've got.
Speaker B:And you're not going to even do that by bragging about yourself.
Speaker B:You do that with the wedge, which are basically just really carefully crafted questions.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:And you go in and you do you know your standard discovery.
Speaker B:You're gonna look, you're gonna find out what problems they have.
Speaker B:You're gonna find out what pains that those problems are causing.
Speaker B:You're gonna find out, you know, what have they tried?
Speaker B:Like, what has the current provider tried to fix those problems?
Speaker B:But then you're gonna take the responses to those questions and you're gonna use them to stretch the gap.
Speaker B:You're gonna create questions that make your prospect realize on their own that their current provider is not meeting the mark.
Speaker B:Sometimes those questions are going to be around things that they've already told you in discovery.
Speaker B:Like as you're asking the standard discovery questions, they're going to give you answers.
Speaker B:You're going to use the wedge, to leverage that information.
Speaker B:But other times, you're actually going to use the wedge to create the pain, to help them identify the pain, what I call the latent pain, the stuff that they're not even aware of yet.
Speaker B:And these are potential problems that they don't even know they have, Right?
Speaker B:Like, they're not aware of them.
Speaker B:It's your job as the salesperson to bring those things to the surface.
Speaker B:And it's different than most of your other discovery questions because, you know, if you were selling professional services, if you're selling IT services, if you're selling consulting services, if you're selling financial, you know, planning services, you know that one of the biggest challenges that you have is differentiating yourself, like, not getting commoditized.
Speaker B:And usually when people are selling professional services, they are all saying the same shit.
Speaker B:Like, they're all saying, hey, we're faster at that, we're better at that.
Speaker B:We have better tools, we have better processes, we have better, like.
Speaker B:But when you actually zoom out and you look at it, I've audited hundreds of presentations in the same industry and you go around, you could overlay them, and 80% of it is the exact same thing.
Speaker B:And so imagine the prospect, they don't feel any difference.
Speaker B:It doesn't actually feel like you're any different if you are all basically saying the same thing when you're trying to explain why you're different.
Speaker B:And what that means is the prospect is going to have enough reason, they're not going to see enough difference, they're not going to have enough urgency to actually change because it all kind of feels the same or worse.
Speaker B:They're going to take all the stuff that you do, right?
Speaker B:You're going to do this job of qualification and going through discovery and maybe doing some type of assessment and then going in and giving a proposal and showing them all the stuff that you can do.
Speaker B:And they take that proposal and they take it back to their current provider.
Speaker B:And the current provider goes, oh, yeah, we can.
Speaker B:We can match that.
Speaker B:And then to the prospect, it's not worth the change.
Speaker B:Like, there's a cost of switching.
Speaker B:Like, there's always some distraction or some things that need to happen some time that they need to invest, no matter how easy you make it.
Speaker B:And that is a real cost to them.
Speaker B:So they go, you know what?
Speaker B:I'll just.
Speaker B:I'll just stay, okay?
Speaker B:And you lose the deal.
Speaker B:That's where the wedge comes in.
Speaker B:All right?
Speaker B:Because when you use the wedge, you're not going in saying the same Thing, you're asking very targeted questions in a very specific way that I'm gonna.
Speaker B:I'm gonna go through, and you're gonna ask questions that, as I show you, they actually lead the prospect to come to their own conclusion, right?
Speaker B:Which.
Speaker B:Which helps you stand out, helps you not be commoditized.
Speaker B:Instead of just telling them how great you are, you're going to ask better questions that get prospects to actually think different.
Speaker B:There's basically three components to a wedge, right?
Speaker B:One is you have to paint the perfect picture of what things should look like.
Speaker B:Then you assume that that's what they're getting, right?
Speaker B:And then that leads them to come to this conclusion that there's a problem, right?
Speaker B:Because you've painted the picture.
Speaker B:You've assumed that that's what's happening in their business, and they come to the conclusion on their own that they're not getting the picture that you painted, and that creates the gap.
Speaker B:What makes this so powerful is the fact that they are coming to conclusions on their own.
Speaker B:There's two types of wedges, all right?
Speaker B:Before we get into this, there's.
Speaker B:There's two ways that you're gonna use this.
Speaker B:One is called reactive, right?
Speaker B:That's when you're taking what they've told you, what they've alluded to, what they've hinted at, what they've said, right?
Speaker B:So if they have a current provider that's maybe not like their.
Speaker B:Their customer service isn't good, or the.
Speaker B:The foundational pieces of whatever it is that they're selling aren't necessarily there.
Speaker B:Again, like, if you're selling IT services, which I'll use as an example, because I have a lot of experience in the industry, then you go, okay, well, you know, if their response time sucks, okay, or if there.
Speaker B:There are some network vulnerabilities or there are some other challenges that are there, and they've told you that, then you can use the wedge reactive.
Speaker B:The ninja level use of the wedge, though, is the proactive wedge, right?
Speaker B:And the proactive wedge is when by asking the question, you bring things to the surface that they weren't even aware of, right?
Speaker B:So, for example, I went to my doctor, like, two months ago.
Speaker B:He listens to my.
Speaker B:My heart with stethoscope, and he goes, has anyone ever told you you have a murmur?
Speaker B:Instantly, I thought, huh, I now have a problem.
Speaker B:Because by asking a question, it's like it's been surfaced.
Speaker B:You can do something similar if you craft questions the right way, by the way, stress test, ekg, heart's fine.
Speaker B:Think about it in terms of your business, right?
Speaker B:Like, how would this work for you?
Speaker B:So, for example, you walk into an IT business and they mention something about slow response times.
Speaker B:They're putting in tickets, they're not getting fast enough response.
Speaker B:And you as a salesperson go, oh, um, okay, yeah.
Speaker B:So when, so when your current provider like last missed one of those, those service windows, like a critical service window for you, and they did a root cause analysis and they looked at, you know, why that happened and you know, why the window was, was missed and gave you a roadmap of how they were going to change that, like the steps they were going to take to improve that and make sure it never happened.
Speaker B:How happy were you with the plan that they gave you?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And so what you've done is you haven't said, oh, that sucks.
Speaker B:You haven't said, oh, we have better response times.
Speaker B:You haven't said, oh, we're stronger at that.
Speaker B:What you said was, oh, well, when they missed a critical service window and did the root cause analysis, you're assuming that, that they did that and identified like the, the core issue and demonstrated that they weren't going to do this again and showed you how, how happy were you with the plan?
Speaker B:I'm assuming you got, I'm assuming they all, they did all that you've demonstrated what you can do or what you would do by assuming that's what somebod is doing.
Speaker B:And when that's not there, there's now a gap.
Speaker B:Another example would be if they've told you, like, they've got take like network outages, right?
Speaker B:Like we've got these network outages.
Speaker B:Well, after the last network failure, after your current provider, like, you know, got you up and running immediately, I'm sure, and they gave you a plan showing how they were going to prevent future outages.
Speaker B:How, how actionable did that plan feel to you?
Speaker B:Like, did it feel clear and actionable?
Speaker B:I'm not asking, did they fix it quickly?
Speaker B:I'm not asking, did they do, you know, an actual analysis and actually figure out what's going on and get that solution in place?
Speaker B:I'm asking, hey, what'd you think of the plan again?
Speaker B:If that hasn't happened, I now see a better way.
Speaker B:And we've now created some space between us and the current provider.
Speaker B:Now, I'll give you two that are more proactive, right?
Speaker B:So they haven't given you a pain point that you're trying to agitate or dig into.
Speaker B:And one in it may be something like, hey, so when Your, your provider last did a security audit and identified what the vulnerabilities in the network were and shared a report like highlighting what those were and the plan to prioritize getting all those fixed.
Speaker B:Did you feel like you had all, everything you needed to be confident that you were safe going forward?
Speaker B:If their current providers not doing proactive assessments, if their current provider's not sitting down and showing them reports and showing them what they're going to do, if they're not showing them the work that they've been putting in, then we have a gap.
Speaker B:And we do that by asking, how confident were you that you were safe?
Speaker B:Not is the provider doing all that stuff.
Speaker B:Another example proactive would be, you know, so when your, your last provider did the, the employee training like, you know, show, teaching them, you know, how to avoid cybersecurity risks and what the best practices were and created the plan to customize that training for your team and, you know, and showed you the plan to ensure that it was actually adhered to afterwards because, you know, a lot of trainings, it's not adhered to.
Speaker B:So when they did that and showed you how it was customized and showed you the plan to make sure it was here, adhered to, how happy were you with the results after that?
Speaker B:Well, hell, if they're not even doing training, we have a problem.
Speaker B:If it's not being customized, we have a problem.
Speaker B:You need two things really, to be successful with the wedge, all right?
Speaker B:And this.
Speaker B:And this is really important.
Speaker B:You need, first of all, you need to know what you do best?
Speaker B:What are your strengths?
Speaker B:What is your unique selling proposition?
Speaker B:What is your unique angle?
Speaker B:What are the strengths of your business?
Speaker B:Is it employee onboarding?
Speaker B:Is it culture?
Speaker B:Is it, you know, response times?
Speaker B:Is it, like, think about it.
Speaker B:What is truly unique and what are you truly good at?
Speaker B:And if you don't know what those are, then how are you going to convey those to somebody else?
Speaker B:And if you can't convey those to somebody else, you are going to get commoditized and compete on price.
Speaker B:So zoom out and think strategically.
Speaker B:What are our strengths?
Speaker B:What can I lean into and what can I use to differentiate us?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:How can I use our strengths and create a wedge question that paints a perfect picture, that assumes that, you know, the other providers are doing it, even though I know they're not, and helps a prospect see what we do better on their own.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:If you don't know what that is, then you start, You've got to start there.
Speaker B:And if you actually look at it and Go, gosh.
Speaker B:We don't really have anything that stands out.
Speaker B:Boom, there you go.
Speaker B:Like you gotta do that.
Speaker B:Okay, That's a business strategy.
Speaker B:Okay, so know what your strengths are.
Speaker B:Second thing is do some competitor research and find out what their weaknesses are.
Speaker B:On sales teams we'd build battle cards.
Speaker B:Like we'd find out who are our competitors, what are their weaknesses.
Speaker B:Over time, if you're selling services, you're going to hear what the competitor's weaknesses are because you're going to be asking what the problems and the pains are and you're going to be able to start to put that together, organize that.
Speaker B:Get really serious about understanding your competitors.
Speaker B:Like, ask for proposals if you can like, or ask for contracts.
Speaker B:Ask for things like that so that you can actually start to understand what your competitors are doing.
Speaker B:When you know your strengths and then you know their weaknesses, you can start to create these questions that help highlight what those differences.
Speaker B:Now I've done this with a lot of companies and there's a handful of mistakes that, that people tend to make first when we do this, they don't take the time to paint a perfect picture.
Speaker B:I'm telling you, this is a really important part of this tool.
Speaker B:If you are not creating a vivid, clear picture of how it is things are supposed to be, then it's not a very powerful tool.
Speaker B:The second mistake that I see people make, asking yes or no questions.
Speaker B:Oh, so did your provider customize your training for you?
Speaker B:So you want open ended questions and that's sales one on one, like in general.
Speaker B:Because when they answer beyond yes and no, you're getting a lot more context, you're getting a lot more data, you're getting a lot more information.
Speaker B:So don't ask closed end questions, don't ask yes, no questions.
Speaker B:Ask open ended questions so that they can come to the realization and give you context along the way.
Speaker B:Third mistake that I see pouncing on the revelation too quickly.
Speaker B:Okay, so what happens is you paint the perfect picture and then they go, you know that doesn't happen.
Speaker B:And you immediately jump in and start, oh well you know, like we do this and we do that and they really should be doing this and they, they suck and we're awesome and this is that.
Speaker B:No, no, no, know like don't like.
Speaker B:The best response a lot of times is like body language.
Speaker B:Like something as simple as like that's powerful.
Speaker B:Like no, words is often more powerful than words.
Speaker B:So don't jump in.
Speaker B:Well, we do this and this and this.
Speaker B:Don't beat your competitor up.
Speaker B:That Is the questions job.
Speaker B:Another mistake that I see is overuse of this.
Speaker B:You know, you should have a few wedge questions in your back pocket.
Speaker B:You should know what they are based on your strengths, based on general competitor weaknesses.
Speaker B:But if you ask every question in this format, it instantly becomes recognizable what you're doing, right?
Speaker B:Like so if you ask one after another after another after another after another, I would say one, maybe two wedge questions is all you need.
Speaker B:If you've crafted them carefully enough, that should be more than enough.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:But you don't want to overuse it because then the pattern of the question starts to become a distraction.
Speaker B:Now how do you wedge proof your business?
Speaker B:Well, you think about that and you go back to your strengths.
Speaker B:You go back to your competitors weaknesses.
Speaker B:Flip that around, what are your competitors strengths?
Speaker B:And you start thinking, okay, what can I build into my company to do that?
Speaker B:Now, a few very specific ways that you can wedge proof your business.
Speaker B:First of all, communicate with your clients regularly, right?
Speaker B:Like maybe you need, depending on your, your sales cycle, depending on what it is that you do, it may be a weekly communication monthly or maybe quarterly.
Speaker B:But you should have regular communication with your, your clients.
Speaker B:And you don't want to be waiting until the end of contracts to actually check in with them.
Speaker B:Like so have them as part of your regular cadence highlight the value that you're delivering.
Speaker B:That's going to help competitors from sneaking in with like their own, their own wedge questions.
Speaker B:The second thing that you can do is do proactive audits, right?
Speaker B:Like constantly look for ways to help your clients.
Speaker B:Their systems, their, their operations, their processes, their money, whatever it is that you're helping them with.
Speaker B:Do audits and assessments and don't be an order taker.
Speaker B:You know, don't be somebody that's only responsive or doing what they ask you to do.
Speaker B:Like the more proactive you are, the less likely they are ever going to be to even think about competitors.
Speaker B:Third thing is be transparent.
Speaker B:If you have found holes in your service, you may share that, right?
Speaker B:Like be transparent about your reporting.
Speaker B:Be transparent about what you're doing.
Speaker B:Be transparent about what you're seeing.
Speaker B:If you're transparent about what's happening with your service, then it makes it very difficult for a competitor to like paint a picture of you being inadequate.
Speaker B:And the fourth thing is educate your clients, right?
Speaker B:Like make sure they know why your services matter.
Speaker B:Make sure that they know the proactive stuff that you're doing, like the measures that you're taking.
Speaker B:Make sure that they know what you're doing to keep everything in their life or their business running smoothly.
Speaker B:When people are educated about it, they're less likely to be swayed by competitors offering like bigger promises.
Speaker B:So that's the wedge in a nutshell.
Speaker B:That is how you unseat incumbents.
Speaker B:That is how you create differentiation.
Speaker B:That is how you break those relationships so that you can land a client and then wedge proof your business and keep others from coming in.
Speaker B:Hope it was helpful.
Speaker B:Adios.
Speaker A:Thanks for joining us this week on Repeatable Revenue.
Speaker A:Make sure to check out rayj.green.com where you can subscribe to the podcast and if you found value in the show we'd really appreciate a rating on itunes or wherever you're listening to this.
Speaker A:Or you can simply tell a out about the show that help us out too.
Speaker A:And if you want to explore any of my other resources like my email newsletter, my coaching program, any special events, you can find it all at ray j.green.com thanks again.
