This newsletter is for founders and sales leaders who want to scale revenue faster.
In this weeks issue:
- I'M HOSTING A WORKSHOP: How to Choose Your Champion, tomorrow @ 2p ET
- Problem Aware
- Savannah Bananas
- Michael Ovitz
- Annual Planning
Quick Promo:
I'm hosting a workshop on How to Coach Your Champion on Tuesday, Dec. 9 @ 2p ET
Sign up here
Now onto this week's newsletter:
Problem Aware
The most important sale you have to make has nothing to do with your product.
Your prospect just told you they're "all set" with their current solution.
You know they have a problem. A big one. You've seen it dozens of times with companies just like theirs.
But they can't see it. Or worse, they won't admit it.
This is where most salespeople lose the deal before it even starts. They jump straight to pitching features and benefits to someone who doesn't even know they have a problem worth solving.
The Psychological Wall Between Indifference and Interest
Back in 1966, a guy named Eugene Schwartz wrote a book called Breakthrough Advertising. It's dry as toast, but it changed how I think about sales and marketing.
Schwartz argued that every prospect exists somewhere on a spectrum of awareness. He outlined five stages, from completely unaware to ready to buy.
Between each stage is what Schwartz called a "psychological wall." On one side is indifference. On the other is intense interest.
Your job is to help prospects climb over that wall from indifference to interest.
Why Most Sales and Marketing Fails
Your prospect spends most of their time in "business as usual" mode.
Neil Rackham (the SPIN Selling guy) calls this the starting point of every buyer's journey. The prospect is comfortable. They're getting by with their current solution, even if it's inefficient or broken.
Then something changes. The pain gets worse. The market shifts. Their boss starts asking questions they can't answer.
That's when they move from "business as usual" to "recognition of need." Schwartz would call this moving from unaware to problem aware.
And this is where you come in.
Most salespeople wait for prospects to recognize their own problems. They rely on inbound leads. They hope marketing will educate the market for them.
The best salespeople do something different. They actively help prospects recognize problems they didn't know they had.
Help First, Sell Second
At Levelset, we had a core value that guided all of our efforts across sales, marketing and customer success: "Help First, Sell Second."
This was our operating system for how we showed up in the market.
We created content that educated construction companies about how to get paid faster.
In the process, we taught a generation of contractors a better way to manage payments on their construction jobs. We published guides, ran webinars, and shared stories from companies just like theirs.
We were helping people understand their own business better.
And you know what happened? When they finally recognized they had a problem, they already knew who to call.
Your Content Is Your Sales Team
Every piece of content you create should serve one purpose: move someone from unaware to problem aware.
You can't move someone from unaware to "ready to buy". That's too big a leap.
Just get them to acknowledge they have a problem.
This means your content needs to describe their current challenges in a way that they understand. It means showing them what "good" looks like. It means introducing language and frameworks that help them articulate the pain they're feeling.
When you write a blog post about a customer challenge, you're building a bridge over Schwartz's psychological wall.
When you speak at an industry conference about the problems you solve, you're creating recognition of need at scale.
When your sales rep sends a cold email that describes a specific challenge the prospect faces, they're selling the problem before they sell the solution.
Finding Your Champion Starts With Problem Awareness
Here's the beautiful thing about this approach: the people who respond to your problem-focused content are your future champions.
A champion is someone who has recognized they have a problem and they are motivated to fix it.
They're the person who will stick their neck out to recommend your product. They're the person who will navigate internal politics to get budget approved. They're the person who will educate their colleagues about why this matters.
But you can't find a champion until someone is problem aware. Someone who's still in "business as usual" mode isn't going to be your advocate. They don't see the need to change anything.
Your best champions are people who just climbed over that psychological wall from indifference to interest. They're feeling the pain and they are ready to do something about it.
What This Means For Your Sales and Marketing
Stop leading with features. Stop talking about how great your product is.
Start with the problem.
Write content that helps people recognize they have issues worth solving. Create resources that educate prospects about challenges they didn't know they had. Share stories from customers who faced similar situations.
Make your first "sale" by getting your prospect to acknowledge that they have a problem.
In your sales conversations, spend 80% of the time establishing the problem and defining the desired outcomes, and only 20% showing the solution. This seems backward, but it works. You can't sell someone on a solution if they don't believe they have a problem.
You can always schedule another meeting to go deeper on the product.
Train your team to resist the urge to pitch too early. The best salespeople are patient. They help prospects work through their own realization that change is necessary.
Your Next Step
Look at your last five pieces of content or your last five sales conversations.
How much time did you spend helping prospects understand their problems versus pitching your solution?
If you're like most companies, you're spending 80% of your time on the solution and 20% on the problem.
Flip that ratio and watch what happens.
The prospects who engage with problem-focused content are already halfway through the buying process before they ever talk to sales. They're problem aware. They're looking for solutions. They're ready to be your champion.
And once you have confirmed the problem, the desired outcome, and the prospect's interest... it's time to set a next step in the sales process by scheduling another meeting to go deeper into the product.
What's got my attention right now:
- Savannah Bananas I've listened to a few interviews with Jesse Cole, the founder of the exhibition baseball team, and I am so impressed by what they have built. The showmanship is world-class. And it looks like they are having fun. When I think about the spirit of "be remarkable", the Savannah Bananas have it.
- Michael Ovitz I've written before about the David Senra and the Founders podcast, but the recent interview with Michael Ovitz is a must-listen. This guy is a force of nature that changed the entertainment industry. Very inspiring.
- Annual Planning Every year I use the last few weeks of the month to review the year and get ready for the next year. I have done this every year for about a decade, and I've built a process that works pretty well. But I'm always looking for ways to make it better.
Here are a few resources that I have liked:
Steve Schlafman's Annual Review
Farnam Street Annual Review
Sahil Bloom's Annual Planning Guide.
I like the Big A$$ Calendar for my office, which is a nice visual of the entire year on one page. I also use the Hibonichi Techo Cousin Planner for my daily journal and keeping track of planning.
What are your favorite tips for annual planning?
That's it for this week. One more ask before you go: Can you please forward this email to one person that might find it useful?
Have a great week!
Martin
Have a question? Hit reply and send it over, I reply to each one of your emails.