The Psychology Behind Messaging that Converts with Tim Riesterer

Tim Reisterer: Your clients expect you to know things they don't know. They expect you to see more people who look like them than they do. And they expect you to leverage that in some way that's helpful to them.

John Common: Welcome to Growth Driver brought to you by Intelligent Demand, where the best minds in B2B are redefining growth. Hey everybody, John Common here. I have a question for you. How effective is your company's messaging really? And how do you communicate? Your unique value to your prospects and your customers.

Period. But also in ways that are relevant to them, that they care about and it, and it meets them where they actually are in their journey, you know, I think, and I bet you do too, the truth is that most companies messaging is left largely to chance. And I, and I think that that is true. And I also think that's one of the biggest opportunities that companies have right now to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of their end to end.

Growth engine. And I'm not just talking about sales. I'm talking about brand, marketing, SDR, sales, customer success, and maybe even your product as well. So messaging is what we are going to talk about today. And I have an incredibly qualified person to dig into this topic with me. Tim. Tim Reister is chief strategy officer.

At Corporate Visions. He's also chief research officer at Emblaze. So good. He has two titles, two different companies. He's an author, a consultant, a thought leader, a founder, a speaker, and it's all centered around today's topic, B2B messaging, buyer psychology. Tim, welcome to growth driver. 

Tim Reisterer: Hey John. 

John Common: Thanks for having 

Tim Reisterer: me.

John Common: Oh man. I, I remember the first time I saw you years ago, I forgot what conference it was, but you were talking about, and it was one of those moments where it was like, it was like a B2B coin drop moment. You made a coin drop in my head because of how you talked about it and how you explained it. But you were talking about how in most companies.

Status quo is your number one competitor. No decision is your number one competitor that you lose deals to. And we'd heard, I'd heard that before. You know, if you work in B2B growth, you, you, you hear that it's almost a trope, a cliche at this point, but you explained the why. Behind it. And, and, and ever since that day, I was like, I got to get to know this guy.

So I'm so glad you're here. 

Tim Reisterer: Well, I'm glad to be here. Um, I spent a whole career messaging on messaging and haven't stopped. So, you know, let's just keep, let's just keep messaging here. Let's just keep doing this. Yeah, let's 

John Common: do it. Well, how has, I think that was literally almost a decade ago. Let's just start there.

How has status quo changed and evolved as a competitor in the last years? 

Tim Reisterer: Yeah, you'd, you'd love to say that, that, uh, we figured it out and, and conquered it, but status quo and status quo bias as a human condition, uh, was identified 30 or 40 years ago by behavioral scientists and behavioral economists.

And, and really it's more of a human condition than it is. Like a, a, you know, a, a current event. It's not, it's not a trend. 

John Common: It's a, 

Tim Reisterer: it's like, Oh, this year it's status quo bias and we're still selling to humans and, and, and, and, uh, things, things haven't been necessarily easy since the pandemic in many markets.

So what we've seen is the stats have continued to remain the same. That 40 to 60 percent of qualified pipeline ends up in no decision. So it is alive and well. And, um, the thing that really, I think really started to hopefully open people's eyes to this is this concept that, uh, understanding what causes status quo bias means you can start to think about how to address it and do it more purposefully, as opposed to just being like, yeah, status quo bias.

Yeah. Age of age. 

John Common: Right. Well, unpack that. I think we could always be reminded of the fundamentals, especially these days. Give us your sort of primer on status quo bias, why it happens, and some advice for marketers and sellers in B2B. 

Tim Reisterer: Yeah, we've been able to identify through the literature and our own research for primary causes of status quo bias.

I like to say four reasons people don't change their mind. And the first is called preference stability. We, when we hear information and take it in, our natural reaction is try to re stabilize ourselves. Because decisions are hard, and once you make a decision, it moves from a decision to a preference.

And so when somebody hears some new information, like when you're pitching somebody, Here's how you're going to hear them re establish. Preference stability. They're going to be like, that's interesting, John, but that sounds a lot like What I'm already doing or a lot like what everybody else is saying, when you get liked in that way, that means somebody is just sort of stiff arming you and wants to keep their current preferences stable.

So you have to literally destabilize their current preferences. There's no way around it. Persuasion does not happen without a level of uncertainty about your current status quo. And part of our job is to help people see that maybe their status quo is no longer as safe or tenable or acceptable as it Is it used to be?

And that's just a fact. I mean, people are like, I don't want to be a little dark rain cloud. Well, no, you're not being a little dark rain cloud. What you're doing is you're helping people be smarter about issues they don't maybe know about or issues they don't realize are as serious as they are. The idea is to destabilize their current preferences so that they can begin to consider or reconsider their alternatives.

And that's just part of our job as salespeople. And that's just one cause. There's three more. I'm here for it. Yeah. All right. So the other one is the perceived cost of change. It's funny. People think their status quo is free because they put in so much time, so much money, and so much stomach lining in making that decision.

They're like, glad that's done. And then they did all the upfront costs, the onboarding, and think of it as a bunch of sunk costs. So they think that's done. So when you come in with your new thing, it's like, okay, that's going to. Cost me time, money, stomach lining, and all the other things that I've already sunk.

And, and, and, and my current solution may not be perfect, but it's just part of our operating rhythm now. I believe that it will cost me a lot to reconsider what I've got. So the perceived cost of change because the perception of status quo is free. So you have to show them that there's a cost or a loss.

Associated with their status quo that maybe they don't know, or they've been willfully or blissfully ignoring before you can get them to believe they need to change. That's just number two. The third one is this idea that, um, think of it as, uh, they're overwhelmed by information. They, it's called selection difficulty, and that happens when people just have too much information, and they're trying to sort it out and separate it, and they're like, on the whole.

Everybody seems to do the same thing. So in order to make a decision, when you encounter selection difficulty, they need contrast. And the first tool that's available to your customer for contrast is price. If everything else is the same, I need some contrast to make a decision or I'm still stuck, but you know, who's the lower price.

So your job is to create clear and meaningful contrast between their status quo, And the competing alternatives so they don't turn to price, um, and get them sort of out of that selection difficulty mode. That's three. And the final one, number four is anticipated regret and blame. This is one of my favorites because you can get over the first three hurdles and then you still have that person making a decision going, yeah, but, um, what I'm doing today, you're right.

It's not perfect. It's, it's hard, but I'm not dead yet. And if I make this decision and make a big change. That could, that could kill me. Now, euphemistically and metaphorically, of course. But that's what's going on in their mind. The anticipation is that even though it's not perfect, and yes, we could do better, we could also do a heck of a lot worse, and why would I risk it for the biscuit, right?

So, you end up there, having to help people see the stories of others. that started like them and made a successful journey. You have to show them a before and after success story. And so each of the four preference stability, you must destabilize those preferences. The idea of anticipated costs of change.

You got to show them the cost of staying the same selection difficulty. You need to show clear contrast so they can make a decision and anticipated regret and blame. You have to show them somebody who took this journey with you from the start through the finish. And, and they can start to believe that they can get there too.

So it sounds, it sounds a little bit hard. I mean, it really, it, it, like you're trying to get rid of status quo bias. That's a heavy lift. You need to bring some juice. You need to, you need to do what needs to be done to dislodge it and disrupt it. 

John Common: And you need to do more than what so many, I say this with love.

It's us, it's our market, it's humans, but you got to do to interrupt status quo bias. You can't show up and talk about how in love you are with your own product. And I think that's what, that's the fallback that so many, especially product led product centric companies do is that we, we, we, we believe our own stuff so much that we don't climb out of our point of view, get into our prospect or our customer's point of view.

And even just hearing you. Freshly just now walk through those four. It never gets old, man. I'm serious. I get, it's like nothing but the hits. He's like, you're like Tom Petty, just 

Tim Reisterer: put them into a medley. You know, I don't know how satisfying that is, but, um, yeah, because each one of those, you can dig a little bit deeper on and say, so what's the technique to destabilize preference?

What's, you know, so there's way more beneath it, but yeah, you're right. I think that the natural inclination is cause we're taught that. Like we, we believe in our mission. We believe in our company. Otherwise, why are we there? And the reality is, is that, that we live in our story, but the customer lives in their story.

And their story begins and ends with them. And there's just nothing about our product centric story, um, that's going to get them out of status quo bias. There's just not enough energy there, uh, for them to go, Oh yeah, that stuff is so cool. I think I got to change. Um, because not, it kind of generally looks like the same, to be honest.

John Common: You know, I, I kicked off this episode saying, Hey, how is, Has anything changed about status quo? And you rightly said, well, I don't know. Humans don't tend to change very quickly. And so neither does status quo and hearing you walk through those four reasons for status quo. Those are universal, you know, and, and, and, and I also, it, It's good to hear you walk through them because it makes me, um, have empathy for our buyer.

Cause when you explain those four reasons for status quo bias, I mean, honestly, that passes the sniff test, especially in corporate America where our B2B buyers tend to live. Um, and it, and I think it sets the table really well for the rest of this conversation about what do we need to look at honestly?

You know, when it comes to messaging, um, the work to be done is not, it's not minor, it's not minor and our, our prospects and our customers are not, um, they're not dumb, you know, and they're not dumb and I don't think any of us think that, but there's a tendency again, we get so inside baseball, why wouldn't they buy my amazing new mousetrap?

And it's like, there are good reasons why they might not buy your amazing new mousetrap, you know? Um, yeah. Yeah. 

Tim Reisterer: Companies get, I just say. They have lazy value propositions. They're happy with the words come out because they sound right. But the problem is they sound right. Cause they sound familiar and that means they sound the same.

And so you, we put value props out there and you know, it's the old trick, right? Remove the logo and you sound like everybody else on a website. That's just where we're at. And I'm worried AI is going to make it even worse. Um, but. Lazy value propositions are to blame. People want to get to done on these things, especially product, no offense, product managers, product marketers, like they get their products.

So they throw some things out there without considering the context that's going to land in and how it's going to land. It's, it's sort of like, well, this is accurate. Um, and so, yeah, there's a lot to talk about there and the work is never done. 

John Common: So, okay. So I want to tee up, uh, a few highly related, but I think different.

Terms, concepts, tools of our trade. Um, and, and hear, hear your thoughts about them. So one is positioning another, you just used value propositions. And then the third is messaging. And I think that a couple of things, one is, I think that. People who do marketing and sales and CS stuff and the consultants who love them and serve them, IE you and me, uh, we use these words fast and furiously, but I think that they, especially those three words, positioning, value, props, and messaging.

I think it's good to define terms a little bit and talk about the interrelationships among those. Um, and the other thing I want to say before I throw the mic to you on, cause I want to hear your take on those three things is, You know, product market fit and a company's position in its market is hardly a static and movable thing.

And I think that, uh, many things have happened in the last two to three years. But one of the things for sure that has happened is companies positioning value props and messaging have been knocked out of true or out of perfection. If they were perfect three years ago, they're very likely in need of a tune up.

And that's also why I'm bringing it up. I think companies need to take a fresh. Very honest look at their positioning, their value prop and their messaging. Hey, just, what do you think about all that? And B help us define those terms. 

Tim Reisterer: Yeah. So I'm going to help you define the terms and do it somewhat generically.

And then let's go specific so that people can get some help on this. And I'm going to start with messaging. Cause my first book was called customer message management. Don't even Google it. I don't even think you can find it anymore. Um, but the whole premise was that, uh, messaging. Were the words that kind of escaped your lips when you were in front of a customer and recognize that that conversation was the last bastion of competitive differentiation.

Like all the good work you put into your product and the investment you made now rested on a salesperson having a good conversation with somebody. And you're like that, that's messaging. And, and, and so messaging had to kind of, um, fit three criteria. One, it had to work. The way sellers work like it had to fit a conversation model a dialogue model and most marketing messaging is pronouncements the other thing you had to do is it had to say just enough not too much like you you as a seller are more of a listener than a talker so you had to have really precise and specific and simple and concrete.

Messages. And then third, it, um, it had to be buyer centric. It had to be in the buyer story. Now those sound obvious today, you know, but we still do company centric product centric. We still say too much and pile on too much and we still do pronouncements as opposed to conversations, dialogues, things like that.

So messaging I look at is like, I called it the three foot moment when you're Cross the desk. Of course, our three foot moment is now across like a webcast, but it's, it's still the premise that you're in front of somebody with your lips moving and you're, you're trying to create an experience. 

John Common: Okay. 

Tim Reisterer: So the value prop is, you know, goes up a layer from that.

That's, that is just sort of like, this is, this is true north. This is, this is the truth we want the market to know this. This is, um, again, contextualize. I like to say, um, a value prop is. What's important to the customer unique to you and defensible from a competitive standpoint, meaning that we like to call it that wedge that you own is important to the customer, unique to you and competitively defensible.

That's where you find a value prop, but you got, you need all the ingredients in there to create a value prop. Otherwise, you've got a feature benefit statement. Um, so value is something that provides some sort of advantaged or distinct value relative to what the customer needs, and you do better than the competition.

Um, and then ultimately, positioning is, I would put at the highest level of context, is that there is generally a, a, A mission, a problem, a why that this, that you, the reason for being, why does this product even exist and what's going on in the context we're about to place it in what's going on in the customer's story that, that we want to bring some sort of, uh, Ultimate impact on and value for, so it's 30, 000 feet and then a value prop gets down to, you know, maybe 3000 feet and then the message is three feet and, and I think you need to think of it as a cascade and you have to think about where each, like, does positioning ever make it to the public or is positioning inform the value prop and then the value prop gets, I like to say translated.

Into a message that works at the three foot level. So that's how I think of those three buckets. I don't know. I hope that's helpful. 

John Common: No, it is. It is. And I, you didn't say the word category, but I think category is the, is the, is one way of talking about the context that these nesting Russia, Russia nesting dolls that you just walked through sort of sits in with, you know, is that's the other thing I would sort of suggest is that Is that, uh, you're positioning your value prop and your messaging exists inside of a category and which, you know, depending on what books you're, you read and what authors you like, you know, we can talk about category creation, category evolution, I'll, I'll throw that back at you.

Do you have any thoughts about category as a, as a concept? 

Tim Reisterer: Yeah, I, I guess it depends. Like creating a category is hard, so you've got to have enough money to create a category. That's right. Um, and. If you're trying to create a category, that means the buyer does not have that category in mind. It's not part of their thinking.

It's not part of their budgeting. So there's always a need to tether yourself from a strategic initiative standpoint. Like this is the thing we affect. And, and so you start with, what are you affecting for the customer? And then I always go to, and what challenges exist With the way they're doing that today.

And it's like, Hey, you're trying to solve problem. A what we see when companies are trying to solve problem a today is they miss this, they miss this, they forget that. And they under shoot this and, and those things are meaningful. And we draw a circle around those things and say, that's what we do. And, and it's like, is that a category?

Uh, that'd be awesome if it's a category at some point, but the reality is, is these are the, the flaws, the gaps, limitations, missed opportunities. Relative to that mission, that strategic initiative, and you draw a circle around that we're in business to solve those things. And, um, so hopefully it's got a category, um, uh, but if not, customers should be able to relate to those, uh, in lieu of category.

John Common: Yeah. Even if there isn't a category. Gartner quadrant for it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like on some level, every customer, especially if you do a good job in your marketing and sales should understand their pain and their opportunity and their world that they live in. That's what I'm hearing. You say is category or not.

Anchor in on a problem to be solved or an opportunity to be unlocked. And then that begin, that's the thread upon which you pull, pull into positioning, pull it to more to value prop, pull it into messaging. Um, I like it. I like it. I, this is exactly the kind of stuff I've been dying to talk to you about.

So I'm having a blast already. Um, let's go, I'm gonna go back to messaging and, and, And talk to you about, I know that when you and I've talked and I've read your content, you anchor in on, and you even said it a second ago, messaging are the words that come out of a human being's mouth, that human being, think of it as the seller.

And, and yet we also know that the way humans buy things has become Vastly more digital. And in B2B, even more so, and I don't have to tell you the research that I bet you have run across or done yourself, that shows just how much of the B2B buying journey is done in teams, not single people. It's done very digitally and even though it breaks our hearts to say, so, our buyers aren't dying to talk to our salespeople.

So, so with that as context. When you think about messaging, it's sometimes if you're lucky, it will be coming out of your sales team's mouth or your CS person's mouth. But more often, it's not going to be coming out of their mouth. It's going to be coming out of something called marketing, I think, and probably delivered in digital channels, I think, and you're nodding.

So how much of your, of what you profess of what you've researched, your, your best practices, And, and advice applies not only to a salesperson's mouth, but across the enterprise's mouths, which are often digital. 

Tim Reisterer: So yes, every one of those trends is real. Um, so starting with the salesperson, they're showing up later and they're kind of showing up where somebody has done a lot of research and homework and.

The messaging you give sellers has to recognize what can they do to still add value because they got called in for a reason like there's something from these folks so we can talk about what later stage messaging and value add for a seller looks like and what it doesn't look like is. Going back to stage zero and doing traditional discovery.

We found in our research that just ticks people off like hey I've I've done all that So we'll come back to that because you're right to get there They were engaging something and so what we've been finding is that our research is Everything is still a conversation. The goal is to create some sort of dialogue, even if it's online in the consumption of content.

So we move back from a sales conversation in the first place we find is something like a sales cadence. The voicemail, email touches, uh, and social touches that a seller might do or BDR might do or marketing might do put certain people into a cadence, a multi touch ABM campaign or nurturing campaign.

All of the concepts that we've researched about how do you help change people's mind how do you move them off status quo absolutely has to come through in your copy content you just simply have to think of the funnel and what would have been said by a seller in the past now has to be said through these other tools these other form factors these other channels and you still have to accomplish the same goal you have to help somebody who's doing self service research answer the question why should I change right why should I change my You know, do it now.

Why should I choose you? Like they got to answer those questions that a seller used to help them answer. Now they got to kind of answer them on their own and they got to be able to, um, share that in the organization. So your messaging and your content has got to surrogate. The salesperson with their lips moving, um, and, and, uh, because they're still trying to accomplish the same thing with their research, which is to answer those questions, the yes, as they need to get to the point where they now are like, yeah, we're maybe willing to put some money on the line.

And now we gotta, now we need to talk to some people who can help us sort this out, because usually what happens is a salesperson shows up and the first thing is the customer is overwhelmed by everything they know. Um, but. Um, again, uh, to say that then you continue backing up the buying journey and you can see that you must answer the questions that a seller used to and your messaging and whatever assets you're putting it in, whatever campaigns and whatever content has to accomplish that because buyers are not changing in terms of the questions they must answer for themselves, they're just accessing it in a different way.

John Common: I'm so glad to hear you validate that. Thank you. And, and to the folks who are listening bookmark, what he just said, and it may be, you could argue this, it's a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but it is, if so, it has been forgotten if it was ever known originally. And so many B2B, I'll call them go to market teams.

I'm being euphemistic because they're not acting like a team. And that's my point is that Tim, what you just said is that the buyer has questions. They never really did care whether it came from sales or marketing. But meanwhile, on the go to market side, those of us who are marketing and selling to our buyers, we have for too long, I think, Treated and even called it different words and confused ourselves for decades and decades.

I think, you know, marketing is, is different than sales. Well, it is different in sales than sales, but it all should be landing on the same buyer who has these questions. They're just trying to solve their problems. So I just really love what you just validated is that whether it's coming out of a salesperson's mouth or your, uh, mid funnel nurture program, or, you know, Or your ABX program or even top of funnel, your social, your thought leadership, your podcast, whatever it is you're doing.

If you're interested in selling them something, you're going to have to answer these questions somehow, some way. And here's a crazy idea. Why not have marketing and sales answering those questions from a similar point of view, from a similar, uh, corpus of information and, um, I just really anything you would add to that or 

Tim Reisterer: I think marketers are like, are moving from like, Oh, I was in charge of awareness and eyeballs and interest.

And now I've got a, I've got to take it further down the funnel. This is why we're getting more activity and work with marketers because we come, our source story is from the customer conversation and how they frame value, how they make decisions and choices. And, and, and now marketers like, Oh, we get to push that into our, output.

Um, and, uh, we used to be able to stop a lot higher cause awareness was easy. That just required frequency, you know, and maybe some snappy headlines, but now we have to have like conversation level 

John Common: content. Do you need an expert B2B media partner? I'm not talking B2C. I'm not talking just pay per click. I'm not talking rando consultants.

I'm talking about an expert B2B media team with the chops. And the expertise to reliably find your target audience, the right segments, the right accounts, the right buying teams, the right personas. And at the right time, when they're ready for your message and the platforms and the channels they frequent and trust.

That's what a B2B media partner needs to do for you. And that's what you'll get when you go talk to the folks at Intelligent Demand. All right. So I want to tee you up. Cause I know you, I, I, I know that you have a, I actually literally the best answer I've run across in the entire industry for this question.

And that is, um, sorry, I get, get ready. Don't, don't, don't trust me. You do this in your sleep. Um, okay. So what we know, we began the episode talking about status quo bias and What I know because I'm a student of yours, um, uh, is that status quo is something to be overcome when you're in the acquisition part of your bow tie or the acquisition part of your end to end growth program.

You have to, because they haven't spent money with you, you're trying to win their business for the first time. Status quo, the role of status quo and what we should do with it I do about it changes once they become a customer of ours and it's time for renewal. And yet it, and it changes a little bit significantly.

A third time when we go to sell them, they bought my chocolate. I want to go sell them peanut butter. So an expansion motion. So with that said, talk to us about the, the way we approach the value conversation, the way we approach messaging differently for acquisition, renewal, renewal. 

Tim Reisterer: Yeah, so this is one of my favorite topics.

You're right. I know, I know. Um, so when we were doing the work on what we didn't know was the acquisition side, we were like, this is how you do messaging. And, and somebody was like, just literally so smartly asked the question. Would you really be that disruptive and do those things if it was already a customer?

And we're like, well, I think, you know, but that's, we, we never stopped there. So we're like, we should actually study that. And ultimately we did a series of studies that became our most recent book, the expansion sale, where we look at renewals, price increases, expansion, upsell, if you will, and apologies even in terms of trying to protect and recover from service problems.

And they all have their foundation in the same thing. When you. Are partnered with a customer. There is you are now the status quo. So you were trying to beat the status quo, disrupt the status quo, unhinge the status quo when you're trying to defeat the incumbent, whatever that may be DIY or competitor.

You have to do all those things. But now you are the status quo. And so when you go in for the renewal or the cross sell, the last thing it turns out you should do is Disrupt status quo because you're disrupting yourself. And it's more than that. It turns out you actually want to leverage and reinforce status quo bias.

You want to remind them of things. So for example, what we talk about in the book is that this idea that they've sunk cost. Into bringing you on board and you've sunk cost into integrating them and and doing all of the onboarding and change management. And, and honestly, do they really want to spend that time money and stomach lining again?

Well, that's true, but you don't want them to forget that. So you actually at renewal time and expansion time, remind them of the sunk cost because Those are moments where they could go, maybe we should look at somebody else. Maybe we should entertain a competitor and you just want to be like, well, this is all that we've done.

This is what you've done. We have a client that documents all the people hours that both sides have put into their programs to get to where they are at renewal time and adds up the cost of that. And kind of presents it as like, do you want to do that again? But they, you know, much more finessed and the other is impact.

You can have the goal within your contract is to demonstrate some business impact, generate some results. And the thing we found is that. Your customer isn't sitting there tallying your results. So you have to take some responsibility to document the business impact the results and the outcomes you've affected so that when you get to renewal, you have two friends that that ultimately make up what I call your incumbent advantage.

Your first friend is that documented results. Anchor them on a positive experience and documented investment reminds them of the sunk cost. And that creates a huge barrier to entry for the competition who comes in talking about some new stuff. And, and, and so when you lead a business review or you lead a renewal presentation, Or an upsell presentation, do not talk about anything until you've talked about the investment that everybody's made and the impact that everybody's experienced.

So they're like, wow, there's more where that could come from and they start to see the competitor is somebody who's going to disrupt everything and put all that at risk and potentially put that budget burden back on the business, but you have to remind them. You can't just infer hope they infer it or they remember it because the deal team, the decision team was different than the implementation team and all of them have changed during the life of this contract.

So it's your job as the incumbent. It's incumbent on the incumbent to remind them of these things and leverage. Your advantage. In other words, you're reinforcing those causes of status quo bias. You reinforce the perceived cost of change. You've reinforced preference stability. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I do. Anticipated. So you actually just take those four causes of status quo bias, and now you play them in your favor. And. Um, we have been able to show 16, 17, 18 percent improvements in retention rates. Then if you'd have gone in the old fashioned way, which is, Hey, it's renewal time. You want to hear about our new stuff?

And, and all of a sudden, guess who you sound like? You sound like the competition who's like, you want to hear about our new stuff? And it turns out that your customer does want to hear about your new stuff, but at the end, not at the beginning, it's not even like they're saying, please tell me what we've spent and please tell me, you know, you have to know that psychologically They're in a position to need that reinforced and all of a sudden you've created a firewall against the competition that's super hard for them.

Even when they come in with their lower price, it will look really little compared to the sunk costs and the business impact and everything else. 

John Common: Acquisition is why make a change. Yep. Renewal is why stay. What is expansion? 

Tim Reisterer: So we call it why evolve? Because the idea is. I wanted to say why do more, but I wanted, we ended up with one word and we're like, what's the synonym for do more evolve?

Like it's like, and it feels like it's non disruptive, right? It's this idea of, Hey, let's just continue to do more together. Um, let's evolve this relationship partnership and these results. And, and so the, the, the premise of this was when you're trying to upsell and cross sell. The why change story is still too harsh because they're an existing customer.

Don't disrupt yourself and the why stay story and just tagging on, Hey, would you like a little extra? Not strong enough. It turns out why evolve is a hybrid. It's, it's kind of a combo. It needs that emotional energy of the why change story, but it needs the sort of the reinforcement of status quo of the why stay story.

So the why evolve story starts out similar to why stay where it speaks to the impact and the investment. So you just, you can't pass, go, you can't collect 200 until you've documented and reinforced status quo bias. But the next move is, is what we call, uh, sharing emerging trends. And so your job, this is what's really cool about being the incumbent, is you're still working with other people like them.

As well as working with them. And now you have this cat bird seat where you can say, here's what we see going on out there. Now, let me tell you how that compares to what we're seeing going on in here. All of a sudden they're like, wow, cause they don't get that vantage point. So now that they've let you see what's going on inside, they're super voyeuristic when it's like, how does that compare?

What does that look like? And you're sitting there being able to tell them that story. So we call that, um, introducing emerging trends. But then the second part after that is the idea of what we call share hard truths. And often what I recommend is the why evolve story is really baked into your QBRs or EBRs because you want to share some hard truths, but you want it to be in the comfortable confines of an existing contract.

But they actually want to hear this from you again, because you have this interesting objective perspective from outside in and inside out. And you go. And so these are the things that, uh, you know, we're a little concerned about based on these trends and what we're seeing out there. And, and here's some hard truths.

People who are, are, are dealing with this, have made these choices or done these additional things. These are still undone here. So now the hard truth introduces potentially. A new need or an unconsidered need that they, they didn't have because they weren't able to see the outside and the inside and, and just, you know, sort of triangulate that whole thing.

And you're like, so, um, I think we should all take a look at this. And then the idea is to show some contrast. So here's some risks of not doing something about this in a timely manner. But here's the upside of doing something about this in a timely manner based on what we've seen out there. And now you've put the customer in the position of being able to weigh those things.

You were very fair and saying here's here's the pros and cons of this thing. Um, it's very consultative. Why evolve is very consultative because you are now able to consult not as some outsider with opinions. But now because you've got the inside and the outside vantage point. And so it's a super powerful tool if you use it, right.

Um, your clients expect you to know things they don't know. They expect you to see more people who look like them than they do. And they expect you to leverage that in some way that's helpful to them. And I always say it evokes or provokes the most powerful emotion humans have, which is sort of the tendency to want to sneak a peek at.

The others are someone like them. They're void. We're voyeuristic. Naturally. Yeah. We lean in when we hear like, well, let me tell you what's going on out there and how that compares to what you're doing a benchmark. I'd love to know that. So, um, yeah, why evolve is, is, is really a great hybrid because you got that emotion of the hard truths and where they stand relative to the trends, but you've also reinforced status quo with the investment.

And the impact state, uh, discussion at the front front end. So, um, yeah, like, uh, it's, it's an opportunity that most people don't know fully again, how to maximize. They usually go in guns a blazing with like, can I tell you everything new we're doing? Um, and you want to lead them to that. You don't want to lead with that.

Yeah. 

John Common: Oh, Tim, you are, uh, I love talking to you. This is, this is, this is great. Um, you have such a great way with words and I love that your anchoring is in psychology. You know, you, you, you, this is, this is what hooked me about a decade ago. The first time I met you is that you, you're not talking about, you know, blogging and tactics.

You're talking about human psychology, the, the, the core sort of human drivers and then how to connect that to what we do as marketers and salespeople. Um, 

Tim Reisterer: yeah, I worry that B2B has always sort of. Neglected the human side. We think, oh, they check their human brain at the door. And now it's about jargon and acronyms and whatnot.

And we've done experiment after experiment, even with C level executives. And we find out they are just as emotional as you. Any average human being when it comes to thinking about risk and how they respond to it. And so, yeah, I, what I like to say is the stuff that we do is actually just useful in life.

So that's the bonus of doing our work is when I give a keynote, I'm like, Hey, take these notes for how you can. You know, unseat, uh, the incumbent and defeat status quo bias as well as convince your wife that you need that new Corvette, you know Get your kids on the straight and narrow, you know, you 

John Common: Um, all right, so At this point in this episode, which I can already tell is not going to be as long as it I wish it could be Um, I think we've laid a really great canvas upon which to start stacking some um Some things I want to quickly ask you to talk to us.

What is value selling? What is the opposite of value selling? So, uh, first of 

Tim Reisterer: all, value is in the mind of the buyer. Um, so understanding how people frame value is really important. And what you need to know about a buyer's journey is frame for value. Changes as you go, partially because the personas who get involved.

Change. So we've, I think, tidally or niftily named some of the courses we train based on the moment in the buying selling journey and the value moment that you're trying to accomplish. So the first product and training we have is initiate value. You have to convince enough people to take a meeting, so you have to initiate and create engagement.

We call that why engage. And then you have to, once you've initiated value. You now have to create enough value that they believe they should mutually, you should pursue an opportunity together. So it's initiate value, create value. And there's different psychology in each of those moments because there's a different outcome.

So why engage, why change? And now you move into initiate value, create value, what we call elevate value. So elevate values about literally what it sounds like. How do you package this up in a way that a business or financial buyer will also get as excited as the person you created this value perception with, and they take you into that room, they walk you upstairs, and now you have to be able to build a business case and justify it.

That's often where people think value selling is. It's like, it's an ROI, right? It's a business case. No, that's one slice of the value selling where that moment is important, but guess what happens then when they sign off on it? Then it goes into procurement and purchasing and they have a different value framework and mindset.

So how do you manage that tension? We call that capture value. So you can see where this is going. Initiate value, engage, create value opportunity. Elevate value. We think we got a deal and it's, it's, we can make a decision. Capture value. Don't let all that leak out. Don't don't don't unscrupulously discount.

Don't, don't, um, don't, uh, negotiate without getting something back. And, and, and, and again, like you can almost picture the persona in each value moment and what's motivating them and you have to bring value to, to, to that value. In that perspective, and then we call the final product expand value, which is the retention and the expansion because based on the psychology of that setting, so all of that value is the story and the skill for each value moment is pretty distinct because of the outcome you're trying to facilitate and who you're most likely key decision maker is in each one of those.

And it moves. So you have to be good at all of those end to end to get deals done anymore. So we're like, you gotta be good in every value moment of truth to know what the definition of value is, who it's valuable to, and frame it up so that you can get moved to the next value moment. So 

John Common: those five value moments, they seem pretty universal.

Have, has your research confirmed that they tend to be true regardless of the B2B vertical in which you're selling? 

Tim Reisterer: Yeah, it's sometimes it's condensed based on like the velocity of the deal cycle and the size of the deal, but you can, you can kind of, you can see them happen. Um, it just, to me, it's a matter of how elongated or how compressed they are, but they have stood up, um, in every B2B setting that we've applied them to.

John Common: So if that's value selling, I don't, I feel free to say that's a dumb question, it's not a good question. What, what does value selling replace? If an organization has not had the aha around value selling, what are they doing probably? 

Tim Reisterer: Um, well, it's funny, they're, they're probably solution selling, cause that was big for a long time.

Um, Mike Bosworth collected a lot of royalty checks on that one. Um, and, uh, and so solution selling was supposed to be more about, uh, identifying a problem and then aligning a solution. And what really happened is. Then that really became sort of feature function benefit selling, because you quickly said, here's what we got to take care of that.

And it wasn't about value. It was about what the thing is and what the thing does. Right. And I always like to say solution selling was about what the thing is and what the thing does, hopefully tethered to a problem. Value selling is. More about what you do and what you'll do different and you'll do better.

Not what our thing is and what our thing does is what you're doing, how you're going to do it different, how you're going to do it better. It's a subtle flip. Um, but it, it's, it's an entirely different model of thinking about the conversation. 

John Common: It makes me think about the difference between sales enablement and buyer enablement, you know, and sales enablement being the things that your sellers need.

To go create and win their pipeline, buyer enablement, being recognizing that the act of B2B buying is confusing, risk filled and very unpleasant and difficult, how can we help the buyer understand and navigate their own pain and opportunity, make a great solution and really unlock the value that they spent, uh, money and stomach lining.

I love that. Uh, acquiring like it's sort of, you know, am I thinking about myself or am I thinking about my buyers? What I'm getting at? 

Tim Reisterer: Right. And I guess. I would hope that sales enablement content puts sellers in a position to enable their buyers. 

John Common: You would hope so. 

Tim Reisterer: And, um, so it, it, it shouldn't be one or the other.

What I see happening, what's interesting or where we haven't gone yet is like, what's AI going to do? Like, so now you have self service and then you have AI. And the question is what's left for the seller? What are those remaining humanizing skills or humanistic skills that are still distinctly Something that only a human can execute on.

And that list is getting narrower, but like we're studying those right now because we think it's going to be so important that you started leaning into those skills. And Gartner likes to call them value affirming skills. Sort of like buyer enablement, this idea that you got to help the buyer, uh, see the value and then affirm that with and for them.

So that can actually get to a decision and value affirming skills. I'll give you some examples like active listening and then within active listening, there's subtle layers. So we're studying active listening right now. And we're trying to understand is active listening, just like nodding and agreeing and, and, and, and confirming.

Or affirming, or is it clarifying? Is it elaborating? Is it perspective taking? Is it decoding, um, empathizing? I think I remembered most of them. So there's, it's probably all of them, but we're trying to figure out which ones matter the most and then what those actually look and sound like. So we're doing actual neuroscience.

Brain studies to see which ones affect buyers as sellers engage them. So we got would be sellers and all the gear and we got would be buyers and all the gear. And we're watching at the subconscious level, which of these humanizing or value affirming, um, active listening family of skills has the most and best impact and when and how.

And, and so all that to say is like, is it sales enablement? Is it buyer enablement? I don't know. Now it might be. Value affirming, uh, might be the new word, but then, you know, you peel that back and figure out again, we're going to go in and say, what works the best, what works when, and why, why is that the most effective at, at getting a buyer to, um, you know, come to the positive affirmative side on your behalf?

John Common: We will have to have you back on the show once you do that research and you unpack that. But I want to, I want to, I seriously, uh, uh, if you can't tell, I enjoy this, but, um, but let's, let's, let's click in a little bit. You brought up AI, you know, you win AI bingo today. So, um, uh, it's an AI drinking game. I hope not.

We're all going to go to the ER. Right. Right. No, but is, I'm going to ask a, Provocative, silly state is, is the art and science and profession of sales a dying thing? Is it becoming, uh, is becoming extinct? Is AI the nail in the sales coffin, Tim? 

Tim Reisterer: Um, Not in my lifetime, but I'm pretty old.

So, uh, cause I, you know, I don't want anybody like going to Vegas and betting on this, here's what I would say. We keep testing this stuff. So recently, another study we did, we actually created an AI salesperson giving a presentation. Um, we used a real person's voice, one of our own people, and put it into a really good AI looking human talking and all that.

But it, and then we put it up against a human, uh, and, um, and we found that people, it was perceptively different. And amazingly different like they just all the vectors were were down and off and bottomed out for the AI presenter. So what I would say is there's still there's still room there's still time there's still opportunity.

Um, I think that AI I'll get I'll jump on the train. That says AI is going to free up sellers to be great at value affirming skills. Um, because it's going to take care of, of some of the hard repetitive tasks and, and, and give them back time. The question is what will they do with that time and will they be good at it?

And that's what I think everybody's got to sort of figure out. And if you are good at it. And people still need to make decisions in some form of complex decision making process. You'll be out there, and you'll be valuable as you try to break the tie to get to team to the decision. You get to facilitate a consensus.

You get to do these things. That, um, the buyer who's gotten so confused by all the information and all the people in the room just can't get there on their own. That's when you're going to count. And, um, that that's going to be worth a lot. Um, so that's where they should pay you because that's, that's the moment of truth.

I'm not sure that pushing out another email is so, um, let, let your AI assistant do that. 

John Common: Yeah, I buy, I think I'm on the same train with you, uh, maybe one day, but not, not yet. And, and everything you said, uh, holds the, holds the promise and the opportunity, but I think we, you know, we're going to get there one step at a time.

I love, I love that. And I, before we start to round out the, uh, the, the episode and start to land the plane, I, I, I, I can't let you go without, um, asking you to give us a peek at the new stuff. So when, when you and I were talking about this growth driver episode, you started to tell me a little bit about some new recent research you've been doing.

And I wrote down a phrase that you have a great way with word escalation of commitment. Is that, is that, talk to me about that or anything adjacent to that. 

Tim Reisterer: Yeah, so, escalation of commitment is not my phrase, that's out there in the behavioral sciences. It's a thing. What it essentially says is, as you go further down a decision process and you put All this effort into it and you've rallied the troops and you've continued to spend a little money like you're going to build a building and you've spent money on some initial blueprints, then you've built some architectural drawings and then you've done some video fly throughs like there's an element, your commitment to the program, the problem you're solving and even the provider.

That you've been working with escalates and so the idea of escalation of commitment is real because if everybody believes that in a B to B buying cycle people are 50 to 70 percent along the way of their decision you have to go there's probably some escalation of commitment going on here like don't tell me I'm wrong and and maybe don't get in the way of this I kind of know what I'm doing I know the problem I'm solving and I know the few vendors I want to talk to you and somehow you find yourself trying to get in the deal.

And the question becomes and you get that meeting and and now it's time to do some discovery. This is what I was saying earlier that this idea of taking them back to stage zero type discovery questions when they are at stage four escalation of commitment will not get you in the deal and it will not change the process.

That traditional consultative discovery is absolutely dead in a world where you're going to find more buyers who have escalated their commitment. So the question really becomes, how do you deescalate commitment just enough to get yourself in the deal and affect the process to some degree means you have to have a different set of questions and you have to have a different set of ideas for how to do that.

So this idea of the skill, I think, moving forward. In the world of getting in a deal and doing discovery is I have to master and you have to master this concept of deescalating commitment, not so far and so much and so hard that they get mad and they don't include you in the deal. Like, thanks for nothing.

That was mean. Um, Or they decide to abandon the deal because you told them they were on the wrong track you want to do just enough to get yourself in that deal and consider because they're like I Probably would now be malpractice if I don't include you and oh, by the way These ideas you gave me about how to affect the process.

Those are pretty good, too I should include those and and real real subtly. Uh, um, but you can come check out we got more information that's coming online daily Um is that when you are trying at stage zero trying to defeat status quo bias You're trying to, um, you're trying to say, yeah, but when you're in a later stage and now you're not trying to necessarily just defeat status quo bias, you're trying to deescalate commitment, which is sort of a similar but different move.

It's now yes. And have you thought about this? Yes. And what about adding this to the process? And you're giving them some ideas for how to make this thing better, but you're not stopping the train. Defeating status quo bias at its rawest is. Yeah, you're doing something, but here's why it's wrong. And so I think it just is as simple as I can make it.

You got to move from, yeah, but when you're stage zero defeat status quo bias, trying to like even set up a problem to yes. And. When you're trying to deescalate commitment and they go, those are good ideas. I think you need to be included because you're so smart. Um, and we'll, we'll flesh that out more.

We'll teach you more on that, but that's where it's going. 

John Common: That's really nuanced. I, I, I can see how done with the wrong level of nuance. It, you could be shown the door. Very quickly to your point about the, if you're stage four or whatever, stage, whatever deep committed. Um, I don't, I don't want to be confronted with throwing out all of the work we have done to get here, sir.

Right, right. 

Tim Reisterer: I don't want to be told that, that we were aiming at the wrong problem and we got the wrong vendors. Uh, you know, that, that there's too much water under the bridge sort of thing. So now what are you going to do? Um, so there, but there's a way, like my, my point being is the techniques that we're talking about will double your odds of getting into the deal and double your odds of being able to adjust the process in your favor.

Um, if you use the, the, the yes and techniques that we will teach. Sounds a little bit like comedy improv. Yes. And, um, but, uh, so if any of you have done any comedy improv, you know, This your, your future may be in, in, in deescalating commitment and in mature sales cycles. 

John Common: So more to come. Yeah, good. Good. By the way, since how can people find out about that research?

How can they connect with you? What's the easiest way? 

Tim Reisterer: Yeah, they can, um, pursue one of my two titles. Um, so, um, corporate visions is the company I lead strategy for corporate visions. One whole word, corporate visions. com. And we have a lot of resources there. And then emblaze is our community. So we have a sales community and we call it emblaze growth.

com and it's a sales leader, commercial leader community. And that's usually where our research. Premieres or appears first. Um, so you would want to check out one of those two, uh, or just find me on LinkedIn and say, Hey, where's this stuff? And I'll, I'll send a note back to you. 

John Common: Totally. Totally. You, you have proven to me multiple times that you are a kind person when, uh, when a rando reaches out.

So I appreciate that. I can, I can be your character. 

Tim Reisterer: That's the moment in my career I'm at right now. It's just, you know, spread the milk of human kindness. It's like, 

John Common: okay, um, Hey, lightning round, a couple of simple, simple questions, deceptively simple questions. Imagine, I want you to imagine you are an enterprise CMO and then enterprise head of sales CRO.

And then I'm going to go enterprise CEO. I'm gonna ask you the same question. What's one piece of advice from Tim to each of those three people as those three C sweet. Go to market executives are staring down the barrel of 2025. 

Tim Reisterer: This may feel like it's slightly out of left field, but one of the biggest, and I don't want to even sound like I'm jumping on some of the trendy train here, but in personal experience, how's your partner network, um, find a partner who's installed base should be your next best customer.

And hopefully that partner would also be like, yeah, you would help my stuff be more successful. Like find that synergistic symbiotic relationship. It's not just about having channel partners, it's about having partners with an installed base that screams for your stuff. Because the customer is like, Oh, wow, yeah, I need, I got this, but I need that.

Um, and the partner's like, yes, that would be helpful to me too. If they got that there's, you can find those, um, go after that. Because to me, as you think about your ICP, you can come up with a hundred variables that make someone an ICP. But having X installed might be the secret key. Like they have this installed in addition to being this size and in this market.

And that we found that time and time again, that there's like something about the, the context, the situation that they're in and what they've got installed. Creates a better opening than others, like not having this or not having that. And I, I'm going to just say that's true. I think across all of those titles is the idea that, um, your next best client is probably one of your partners install base and create the kind of marketing into each others and, and it, and then vice versa.

Right. Um, and because the, the story that will resonate is. I know what you're trying to do because you've invested in this. And here's the things we typically see that are still left wanting. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's close that loop. And, uh, and guess what? Your partner's going to want to promote that too.

So it's not like you're just jumping into their install base. They're like going to be like, yeah, I should probably. Talk about this myself. Um, so I hope that wasn't too like two out of left field. And I hope I, I sort of covered all three with one is that your, your, your partner network, um, is an untapped future.

Um, I would also tell people this may be out of left field to, um, winning back lost customers is also the fastest, best way to your next new customer is. We've done the research that they come back faster, but depending on how they left, uh, affects how you go after them. It's way faster to win back a lost customer than to get a net new competitive customer to, to change.

And so think about win backs. As your next best acquisition strategy. Um, and, and, and you may find that to be another fast pass, uh, to some revenue growth, so partners and windbacks. Uh, I don't want to say the same thing as everybody else. So hopefully those are two, um, new ones for folks today. 

John Common: I love it.

That's great. I can, Tim, I can see a string of future books. You just keep knocking them down. It's like you're at the end of your career, whenever that happens, 50 years from now, see what I did. Um, 50 years from now, you're going to have created like The B2B growth rosary bead, you know, it's going to be like, start with status quo.

I'm just going to keep following B2B to beat all the way down. And by the way, what you just said about windbacks is great. And I have a suggestion for the book that you write after that, which is not a windback, but it's, we call them boomerangs at intelligent demand. So it's, it's, they bought you at Acme.

They've moved on to beta. How do you, how do you land and land the next one? 

Tim Reisterer: Yeah, I I think the book could circle that whole idea of like migrating alumni boomerangs as well as winning back because here's what happens. They go somewhere else and the grass is not greener. That's right. And they have and you can remind him of some fond memories and you can tell them how you fix things that they were concerned about.

And, and there's still enough fondness and some inertia that they're like, yeah, this didn't turn out as well as I thought. Give them permission, you know, not, not wait for them. Um, and so, yeah, let, let's do that. Um, AI, Tim, 50 years from now, 

John Common: Tim, you have been, uh, this, this episode was like chock full of insights and it's because every bit, because of how generous you've been with your.

Your experience and your wisdom and your research. Thank you for being on growth driver. I really mean it. Thank you so much. My pleasure, John. Thanks for having me. All right, everybody. We'll talk to you soon. That was a fantastic discussion with Tim. Uh, after we hit pause in the recording, I just thanked him so much for his time.

He's um, he's a smart dude and I'll tell you every bit of what he and corporate visions does around sales. There is so much. Value to be applied on the marketing side of the house. And that's what we're doing more and more with our clients is helping imagine a world where your messaging isn't sales messaging in one silo and marketing messaging in another silo.

So I just think this episode is fantastic. I'm going to be thinking about it for a long time. So I want to thank you also for spending your time with us today. We're trying to build something really special and valuable here on growth driver. So if you like it, follow us. If you see our content out there, like it, comment, share it with your friends and know that growth driver is brought to you by the talented and kind people at intelligent demand.

If you work in sales, marketing products, CS, I don't care. If you've got a growth imperative. That you're working toward and you would benefit from a conversation with an expert B2B growth partner, go to intelligent demand. com and request a free consult with one of their growth experts. I can personally vouch for you.

They would love to talk to you and help you out. If it's a fit last thing, see you soon on growth driver. And thanks again for your time. Bye everybody.