[00:00:00] Oren Klaff: All right guys. Welcome. Welcome. This is the deal maker show I'm Oren Klaff. We do this a couple of times a week. This is your place to discover new things about culture, technology, business, but all within the context of deal-making. I try and bring the most interesting people I can find who have a very strong opinion on deal-making.

[00:00:22] Oren Klaff: Either from the sales side, the negotiation side, the capital side, the finance side, the exit side, the origination side, the tech stack side would put all that together. Boom, you should have a couple of things you can do today with your business. I want to bring on my guest today, a very interesting character, at least from his writing and his website and his YouTube and his videos and everything that I can see looks interesting.

[00:00:46] Oren Klaff: It might be the most boring. We're about to find out Keenan, Hey, welcome.

[00:00:52] Keenan: You still doubt. Like, are you really that much of a pessimist that you're still in doubt.

[00:00:58] Keenan: We just

[00:00:58] Oren Klaff: have haven't may you know, you meet, so you meet these people at wonderful, curated Instagrams. They their, their videos are all blown up.

[00:01:05] Oren Klaff: They have an interesting thing today. You get them online and they are so I'm very happy to be here today.

[00:01:10] Keenan: If my parents could have changed my middle name, they would have changed it to authentic. I mean, that's just all there is to it. I am what I am, man. Popeye, baby Popeye. I am what I am. Yeah.

[00:01:19] Oren Klaff: So you have three kids. Are they where they are? I'm sorry. You have three kids, right?

[00:01:25] Oren Klaff: Three

[00:01:25] Keenan: daughters.

[00:01:26] Keenan: Your daughter's a girl, dad.

[00:01:28] Oren Klaff: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How old are those kids?

[00:01:31] Keenan: 16 and two weeks wait, one week is their 16th birthday and then 14.

[00:01:36] Oren Klaff: Yeah, I thought you were like a 23 year old.

[00:01:38] Oren Klaff: So

[00:01:39] Keenan: I appreciate that, man. I'm old as dirt.

[00:01:43] Oren Klaff: There's a comedy routine anyway about, well, let's not get on a strong cultural topics.

[00:01:48] Oren Klaff: Let's get into, I think what we came here to talk about. So, so look, I think gap selling is a very interesting book. I recommend it for people. I think it's complimentary to pitch anything in many, many ways. There's some things in there, you know, that you should never have written and I'm going to contact your publisher and have you take them out?

[00:02:08] Oren Klaff: No I think we agree on some things as it comes. To selling. I think the most important thing that you've done, which interests me and what I want to talk about today, as you've gotten away from features, benefits, stretch benefits, tie down Daniel and I were talking about, by the way, if you're not familiar with features, benefits, stretch benefits, tie-down if you want to make your clients and customers feel as fucking uncomfortable as possible, do that, give me an example, give an example for me in your mind of a feature benefit, stretch benefit. Tiedown

[00:02:42] Keenan: so here's my hat. It's a great hat. Monitor David is if you're looking to, to keep the sun out of your eyes, or if you're looking to, to keep cool in the summer, this is great. Look, it's got flex fit it. You don't have to mess with the thing in the back that, you know, breaks. If you open it up too often, you know, it's made of a cooling material.

[00:03:04] Keenan: So, you know, if, if this, this, this, that this is great for you and it's only. You know, $5, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? I mean, it's just talking about my stupid hat. I have no freaking clue why you would need a hat. I have no clue if you have one to happen for, I had no clue. If you ever go out in the sun, I have no clue.

[00:03:20] Keenan: If you play baseball, I have no clue who you are, but I'm going to start spewing bullshit. But my great hat hoping some of that stuff sticks.

[00:03:26] Oren Klaff: Yeah. And so Keenan, I did wanna thank you for sharing that. I did want to tell you about our new phone here. The camera is 18 megapixels that can store over 50,000 photos.

[00:03:36] Oren Klaff: That's two years of photos of kids, no matter how many kids you have. And you said you loved your kids, right?

[00:03:41] Keenan: Yeah, of course.

[00:03:42] Oren Klaff: Okay. Yeah. Well so the, the phone also has a kid lock on it, then you say you wanted to restrict screen time for your kid.

[00:03:51] Keenan: Nope. I didn't say that.

[00:03:52] Oren Klaff: Oh, you know? Okay. But many parents feel as if that that's an important thing.

[00:03:57] Oren Klaff: And then when I asked them about it, they felt like that would be important to them. And then when they used our phone, they found that this was the best phone on the market. Listen, I know you said you're interested in phone today. This one seems to fit all the things that you said that you were interested in.

[00:04:13] Oren Klaff: If we can find the right price, can we wrap this one up and get you on your way to your next job?

[00:04:18] Keenan: Nah, nah, maybe. I don't know. I need more time. Need more time to think.

[00:04:23] Oren Klaff: Okay, great. What do you need to think about?

[00:04:26] Keenan: I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure if I have a phone, maybe my, I may be able to just use my other camera.

[00:04:31] Keenan: I dunno. I'm just too busy right now.

[00:04:33] Oren Klaff: But you said your girls were the most important thing in your life to you and wouldn't have an eight, a photo that you could send to the grandparents that really. Was the best possible photo that you could produce. And, you know, you also told me your grandparents' eyes were suffering a little bit and just, you know, the, the, the best possible megapixel, the best recreation of your children for

[00:04:56] Keenan: they couldn't care less about that

[00:04:59] Oren Klaff: tough, tough customer.

[00:05:00] Oren Klaff: Okay. So, feel felt found features, benefits, stretch, benefit tiedown, and as goofy as that sounds, probably most of the people listen to sound of my voice today are doing some version of that. We heard a little bit from you, where is the problem in that? But, but break it down for us. What's wrong with giving someone, talking to them, seeing, Hey, you've got a problem.

[00:05:25] Oren Klaff: You, you know, you haven't updated your refrigerator, your phone, you need SAS software, or you need consulting service. You need to lose weight, gain weight do better accounting. You have PAC services, everything like that.

[00:05:35] Keenan: Well, what's interesting

[00:05:37] Keenan: is I'm going to get, answer your question.

[00:05:39] Keenan: You said it was really powerful to it. And even the most savvy salespeople say it, and to recognize it, you said you have a problem. You need a new refrigerator, you have a problem. You need this, have a problem in need. They blend them together. I see, I have a problem. I need a new refrigerator needing a new refrigerator is not my problem.

[00:05:59] Keenan: And I don't know how to say it any more than I said it and get sewing and all these I've done. I really want to punch people in those guys. When, when your boss says your sales manager says you, Hey, what problem they have? And you say, oh, they need new software. Oh, they need a CRM. Oh, they need no, no, no, no, no.

[00:06:16] Keenan: The problem is the part of their business, their life, their experience, or something that is forcing them to feel that their current environment is not acceptable any longer. And then they start thinking, oh, I need a refrigerator. Oh, I need CRM. But if you don't understand, what's behind that, what the literal problem is, then you're not selling a damn thing.

[00:06:38] Keenan: You're going back to what you just said. You're hoping the features and functions attached to their interpretation and you hope that they can process it enough to get enough energy to buy. But that's a, that's a crap shoot.

[00:06:50] Oren Klaff: Yeah, I agree with you. So, so just to paraphrase the thing just because you have a thing that, you know, will, can, should definitely will upgrade the quality of their performance, their life, their business doesn't mean that they are looking at it to the same frames and lens, and they deeply appreciate as much.

[00:07:13] Oren Klaff: How much you're authentically trying to help them. They're there. That gap is still there. So because you know, this is, this is what I see. This is even what I internalize. If I don't plan, I know we can help them. I know I want to help them. I know where I'm coming from a transparent, authentic, desirable place.

[00:07:33] Oren Klaff: I know if they install the SAS software that we sell, their revenues are going to go up. Their costs are going to go down and their life is going to improve. I know, I know what my, why is, you know, Simon Sinek has taught me my why. And you know, the, the, so I've got all my logos where the number one in the market, it's an indisputable fact that, of this kind of SAS software that improves their life, makes their accounting better, will get them more revenue and reduce their costs.

[00:07:58] Oren Klaff: We're the number one, we have the proof it's, you can search it on the web. I can take you through a demo. And so I have certainty in my mind that I can and will help them. And you're saying that isn't enough to jump the gap. Where do we go from there? Cause I, cause I don't want to get into people who sort of if you don't have certainty and you don't have authenticity and you don't have transparency, we don't enough time here.

[00:08:28] Oren Klaff: All right. But you have a good product, your niche refied it to where you really can help people. And you found somebody who needs your help.

[00:08:37] Keenan: So I think, I think you kind of blended a couple of things. If you find somebody you need that need your help. I'm good with that. But it's how we define that. You find somebody, right?

[00:08:46] Keenan: So my definition of you find somebody that you've had a conversation and you said, okay, I know where my accounting software solves problems. I know what problems my accounting software solves right now, whether that's in reconciling, whether that's in automating payments, whether that is in some brilliant AI that helps you find money in your, your, your out sales outstanding or in in your, your what do you call that the invoicing or whatever that can increase your cashflow?

[00:09:13] Keenan: I don't freaking give a shit what it is, but you know, what the problems are. So let's just say the problems that you solve best are improving sales, outstanding it's finding money that's being wasted. And let's say it's give me one of the accounting kind of reporting accuracy, like, like your, your, your, your reporting is, is inaccurate, right?

[00:09:31] Keenan: Perfect. Yes you believe going in and every business has those problems, but what you don't understand is that every business has a varying degree of those problems, how those problems are manifesting themselves. And then finally what the root causes to those problems are. And so your solution can only bring value if the problem is big enough, if the impact of the organization is big enough.

[00:09:54] Keenan: And if the root cause of the problem is one of the things you fucking fix too often, that they could have the provenance, nothing to do with what you fixed.

[00:10:01] Oren Klaff: Okay. Hold on, hold on. I'm 23 years old, right. And what I just heard was astrophysics. Right? Cause you know that I jumped back or I will attack and you don't want that.

[00:10:12] Oren Klaff: I got the power.

[00:10:16] Keenan: I'll simplify it.

[00:10:18] Oren Klaff: So here's my problem. I'm 23 years old. I'm one year in this Saskatoon. Right. Our product has features. We have logos of all the recognizable companies that we help. We solve these problems deeply. There's no way you have these things fixed. I'm looking at you. Right. And so let me tell you what we can do for you.

[00:10:38] Oren Klaff: Well, I think we've got to turn the lens back on you. What's the root cause. First of all of that approach being broken what's

[00:10:48] Keenan: yes, but we've got to do it's like you just said, I know my product, I know this, but I can tell you most SAS companies don't know the problems they solve. And I can tell you that because almost every time we go into an engagement, we ask them list the problems we saw.

[00:11:00] Keenan: And what do you think they give us?

[00:11:03] Keenan: We solve the problem of us not having enough money here at our company.

[00:11:08] Keenan: No, they say things like I say, what problems do snow? And they say things like list the features. Aren't they literally list the features. What business problems do you solve? And they say things like, oh, we make it faster to, to, to, to make payroll, oh, we do this.

[00:11:21] Keenan: I said, no, no, I didn't ask you what you fucking do. I literally asked you what problems do you solve for businesses? And they don't know. They literally pay us to help them go through the process. Cause it's that difficult for them to change their mindset. So what do you do to a 23 year old is maybe spend less time teaching about the product and you spend more time teaching about the four or five business problems than an accounting department, a controller, or the CFO struggling.

[00:11:50] Keenan: Why they struggle, what causes them these 20 throws can figure that out. Once you put it in a nice, easy package. And then once you just send them out and say, go ask what they're struggling.

[00:12:00] Oren Klaff: So I think by the way we did, we wrote up summary of your book. It's, you know, and then like the it's quite thick.

[00:12:07] Oren Klaff: I can't go through it all, but here it is. So it's fantastic. By the way, this book summary is available for 1999, pitch anything.com a book summaries of a gap selling I want. And I want to leave some time to get into your new book because that's a fascinating area. I think you did good. You did a good job of jumping into some new insights. As we enter an era where everything has changed, but I want to just keep pounding on this because it's very interesting.

[00:12:35] Oren Klaff: So I think w w when I looked at the summary of no, I mean, I actually did go through it. You know, this says, know your customer, scribble, scribble, scribble. So know your customer better than they know themselves. I think that is one area where you and I are just absolutely French kissing or sorry. We have where our philosophies overlap with a lot of similar components is what I meant.

[00:13:06] Oren Klaff: I get it. Yeah. So I like to think about it is when you can talk to your customer. In the same terms in the same cadence, with the same ideas, the same level of urgency the same focus as they do on Monday morning when there's something that's going wrong and they call each other when you could be on that call and add value to it.

[00:13:30] Oren Klaff: That's the way I think about it. How did you come about to this point of insight that you have to know your customer better than they know themselves. And, and by the way, if your internet just connects now, or you have sense of, you know, something you're getting a horrible car crash, but you're fine insurance, a publisher company, everybody's fine, but you are a meteor lands on you and you're, you're hardly wounded.

[00:13:55] Oren Klaff: And this is the only point that you get to it. I think Keenan is a million percent accurate. And when he says know your customer, Better than they know themselves. When you can do that, I feel like you can own the O B B not only be a credible in the conversation, be a peer to them, appear high status, have a seat at the table and be able to have a shot at changing their view on what they're buying and how they're buying it.

[00:14:26] Oren Klaff: Only when they buy it. You can talk to them in their language, the level that they talk. It have a seat at the table. I have said an sat at many, many tables where I've just been confused. You know, my role was to say something. So the opposite side of this, like I had one role to say something, but I was terrified because all the conversation around it, I didn't understand it.

[00:14:46] Oren Klaff: Wasn't in context. I had one thing to say. I finally said that one thing that I was told to say, this wasn't yesterday, this was many years ago

[00:14:53] Keenan: and it made no sense to anybody at the table make no

[00:14:55] Oren Klaff: sense. But I was told to say it and like got out of my mouth. I was terrified once it dropped like a, you know like chewing gum had shot out of my mouth and just landed the table numbers staring at it.

[00:15:05] Oren Klaff: Like, what the fuck you talking about miss low value. And so I've been in those experiences and I've been in the other experiences where people really feel like I speak to them in their language. How did you come to this insight and wa and, and frame it up for me I think it's so important.

[00:15:23] Keenan: So, so look at it came from influencing people.

[00:15:27] Keenan: So I say early in the book, your job, your real job at the end of the day is to influence people to change. Okay. We can put all kinds of fancy words on it, but really at the end of the day, salespeople are paid to influence somebody to change. And so what I realized really, really, really early in my life, probably because I was selfish, probably because I just wanted to do things I wanted to do because I was sort of a rebel.

[00:15:49] Keenan: And didn't like being told no, because I'd get myself in trouble. And I didn't like the consequences. Like there are a million different, you know,

[00:15:55] Oren Klaff: how dare you live my childhood.

[00:15:58] Keenan: If you had to think for a fucking second, we were that much different. You're not as smart as I thought you were. But no.

[00:16:03] Keenan: Right. So I started learning as a kid to, to understand why the person was punishing me. Like, why are you mad at me right now? And when I understood why they were mad, I knew how to respond, but didn't understand why they were mad. I would just get defensive. I didn't do it. I didn't either, but what a minute I had a teacher say something.

[00:16:21] Keenan: You're a really smart kid. And when you do these things, it's going to affect your ability to be successful. So they'll be like, oh, they care for me. So I need to respond in a way that makes them feel better, that I'm not going to make mistakes. I'm going to, they can feel better that I'm not going down that path.

[00:16:36] Keenan: Or if all the kids in the here's a good one, I did this, right. I did a lemonade stand and I try to understand other kids want to do other stuff. I'm like, but what's the eliminates that we can make somebody know, I want to go do this. This will make do, but why don't you just telling me the other day that your mom never lets you have any sweets and stuff like that, do it.

[00:16:51] Keenan: If we do this lemonade stand, you can go buy those cookies. Oh yeah. I forgot about that. You'll get us to the lemonade stand, right? Like it's always about them, orange and people don't get it. Like in the most selfish way. I can be unselfish. If I help you understand that my role is to get you more of what you want based on your terms, your vernacular, your lexicon, your metrics, your outcome.

[00:17:18] Keenan: I'm the most valuable resource in your goddamn life?

[00:17:21] Oren Klaff: It was a young age. It was very interesting. I, I came to St conclusion a little bit differently in that. You know, I'm a little different than you. W w w we grew up in the same, but you know, good-looking charismatic people like me and

[00:17:36] Oren Klaff: that's called project to dig a good hook.

[00:17:38] Oren Klaff: Right.

[00:17:41] Oren Klaff: So, so they do, you know, like to your point, I knew I got good at getting out of trouble by being charismatic, by understanding what their needs,

[00:17:52] Keenan: it was in the emotion behind why they were mad at me. Right. I wasn't, I was tatting to their emotional response.

[00:18:00] Oren Klaff: So that's theory of mind, right? How your ability to view how other people view you.

[00:18:07] Oren Klaff: But when I got into raising money or helping people raise money, we would get all the way down the road. Where they would say, I like you. I like your company. You check all the boxes. You have the securities licenses, you have the logos. I love everything you're saying. I believe that you're forthright and honest and your work.

[00:18:31] Oren Klaff: But we don't know if you can do it in our industry. We don't know if you can do all these amazing things you proven that you can do

[00:18:39] Keenan: for us. See where you're going. Here you go. It wasn't until,

[00:18:42] Oren Klaff: yep. That's what I discovered. I wasn't until I would say things like this and this is for my clients, right?

[00:18:50] Oren Klaff: Hey, it looks like the fed discount window is at 2.1% this morning. If it drops to two, you know, 2.05, you know, capital's going to circle the globe. You know, at two times the current rate, you know, we probably wouldn't be able to pull a hundred million dollars from the private equity overhang until that full circulation has happened.

[00:19:06] Oren Klaff: And with GDP sort of declining, as we're getting into a couple of variants, it sort of appears that unless we accelerate our pace now and increase the pace of marketing until, you know, through at least the end of October season, it'd be hard to project first quarter, 2022 as growth to the board. I mean, you guys see it that way.

[00:19:26] Oren Klaff: And it'd be like this motherfucker right here.

[00:19:29] Keenan: Yes. No. Do you know what you did watch this orange in my book that you're referencing the most, not the most, one of the most important elements. What did you just describe this? That's all I'm going to cut to the chase you just did right there is you highlighted a root cause.

[00:19:46] Keenan: And you cannot highlight root causes unless you understand the business. So the minute they recognize, oh, he gets the root cause that I believe he can fix the problem. That's why I get sung. We spend so much time breaking, like what traditional selling or you've seen it by the fucking pain. Find the pain, find the pain.

[00:20:04] Keenan: Fuck. I'm so tired. That stupid thing, because paint is such a broad, sweeping, fucking word that you don't know what to do with when you actually step back and you peel it back, it's really not just pain. It's the business problem, the impact on the organization and what you just described is the root cause.

[00:20:21] Keenan: And when somebody can actually say, oh, here's the problem. Here's how it's impacted. I can see how it's impacting you. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And this is why it's impacting you. Boom, boom, boom. In their words, in their, in their, you know, their lexicon that you're right. Then they just hug. You, squeeze you in.

[00:20:36] Keenan: You're invaluable because like a doctor, they finally say, oh, you get it. You can

[00:20:42] Oren Klaff: have. So I love this. I use it in my book for, you know, for people watching along there, by the way, there's a variety of people watching this. Some of them are going, this is fucking astrophysics. Like cannot fall. I have features and I have benefits.

[00:20:56] Oren Klaff: What are these dudes talking about? But that's fine. You'll get there. The reason you're saying that is because you're nine years old

[00:21:02] Keenan: or you won't let go, well, you won't change. You don't see value in change.

[00:21:06] Oren Klaff: Right. Then there's other guys are going, yeah, they work in a vertical like mortgages. That's all they do.

[00:21:12] Oren Klaff: So you know, you and I, and a lot of other people have to sell horizontal. So guys walk in and they're in a logistics business. Then another guy sells airplanes. Then another guy, you know, has machines that make this, another guy sells coffee. And then another guy does rocket engines. Right? And so we have the problem that a lot, a lot of people do is that our customers are.

[00:21:32] Oren Klaff: The mortgage guys are going. Yeah. We talk to our customers straight up about all this. Yeah. We'll forget. You guys go fuck yourself. Like you're in an easy business.

[00:21:40] Keenan: Okay. What's funny is I can even take a mortgage broker and I can show them how little they know about their customers as well.

[00:21:45] Oren Klaff: Well, that that's good.

[00:21:46] Oren Klaff: I mean, because it's 2021 and there's $8 trillion extra in the economy and you know, everybody couldn't buy a $220,000 house now is buying a $4 million house, but anyway, economics but, but I think the when you can, when you can talk to someone about what you're seeing in their business, and like you said, of the root cause and say way down here at the bottom of the.

[00:22:10] Oren Klaff: Where there's cells and there's numbers and things multiply themselves. And I'm looking down there and I've seen this a couple of times and it feels like the problem is here of giving an example from, from my perspective, loving example from yours. So a company is trying to raise money and, you know, they're out there and trying to raise $20 million.

[00:22:30] Oren Klaff: And, you know, the offers are getting are $10 million. So we'll look at the spreadsheet and we'll go, well, the problem is way down here. Like these assumptions that you're making have never been met before, by any company ever like Facebook, the fastest growing highest valued, fastest, largest IPO anomalies in human history in business, didn't get a 10th of these numbers.

[00:22:55] Oren Klaff: Fuck face and domestic here, sorry. Beavis and Butthead are going to get better results with five people. You know, then Facebook had when they had 500 people and we're the most highly valued company in the world. So it, if we can normalize these assumptions, values are going to pop up and people will, we'll see you more respectfully in the financial markets.

[00:23:20] Oren Klaff: So what is your in sales? What is your version of sort of getting inside of what somebody is doing, highlighting the root problem in a way that they go, huh? I like the way you think either. Yeah. We kind of knew that, but hardly anybody talks in those terms. That's just how we talk to each other way down in engineering, or we didn't even think of that.

[00:23:42] Oren Klaff: I like where you're going. You understand our business. So can you give an example of that happening in real on your

[00:23:49] Keenan: side? Yeah. I'm going to admit it, but I'm ready to do real on my son. I'm gonna do real on your side. I'm going to play this stuff sucker lot. So I, you just explain the situation, right?

[00:23:57] Keenan: So I'm in that same situation. What I'm going to say is I'm going to say. Fuck, stick in whatever this other dude's name was. Listen, I hear you're frustrated that you're not getting the $20 million valuation that it was valuations you want. I think it was where the cash came in with valuation. You want right cash.

[00:24:13] Keenan: You don't get the 20 million of cash. You want to get a 10 minute doll offers and that's frustrating. Am I getting that correct? Yes. Listen, I was looking through your finances here and way down here, I'm looking at these assumptions for growth. I'm looking at these assumptions for cash. We'll just go with growth for growth, right?

[00:24:26] Keenan: I see that this is at this rate. Can you walk me through how you came to those assumptions and I shut up. So one of the things that makes gap selling so powerful is I ask, I teach people to ask questions. That I know that will drive me to the problem or that I know can highlight or open up the, the robe.

[00:24:50] Keenan: Right. And get them uncovering for themselves as they give me, as I listened very intently to how they come up with those assumptions, I can say, okay, I follow your logic, but let me ask you this question. Are you aware that Facebook has never, never hit those? Are you aware that Google never does? Are you aware that the assumptions you're driving to no one's ever hit?

[00:25:10] Oren Klaff: So this is really interesting. And we're going to, if you don't mind, we can just pause here and dig in a little bit. Yeah. I, it could be me and you could happily be unpaid therapy for me. I'm having to take the therapy back. I am always terrified that when I say things, when I ask discovery questions or pointed questions like that, that are leading the kinds of guys that I work with, feel like I'm back in the corner and they feel like it's like, Cheesy in the, in the phrasiology, because I work with CFOs and CEOs and I'm always afraid they're rolling my eyes when I go.

[00:25:45] Oren Klaff: Are you aware? And right. And, and the

[00:25:48] Oren Klaff: likely

[00:25:49] Oren Klaff: is yes.

[00:25:49] Keenan: Likely answer is yes. Okay. But notice the difference in the questions or I love this is probably the, be the best part of the whole show. Your question, are you aware is, is a horrible question and I don't. No, no, no. I call those self-diagnosing questions. Notice the question I asked, could you walk me through your assumptions in how you built them?

[00:26:11] Keenan: One is an understanding question to understand the other one is a defensive question to make you defend. There's a big

[00:26:18] Oren Klaff: difference there. So I agree, but some of the other questions, but it's sticking on that one. I'm always afraid. When I ask a CEO, CFO, chief marketing, or, you know, somebody see, even if it's a small company, seven person company, and I go walk me through how you built these assumptions.

[00:26:34] Oren Klaff: Yup. Yup. And no question by the way listening. And you think I'm pushing back on that? I'm not, I would ask that all day long. Walk me through. Well, I would ask it differently, truthfully fine. But the

[00:26:47] Keenan: bottom line is I want to understand that's

[00:26:48] Oren Klaff: a question I would ask. I would just say, I'm sorry, like I'm scratching my ass right here.

[00:26:54] Oren Klaff: I'm looking at this and I can't pattern match to anything that makes in human history. Like where, what McKinsey white paper, 21 year old first job after Stanford came up with this stuff because they give me their number. I want to call those guys. Tell them never to talk to you again. Like where is this coming from?

[00:27:14] Oren Klaff: So I would just that style, but I agree with the question, where is this coming from? Yup. Yup. Yup. So give me some of the other sort of

[00:27:25] Keenan: here's the key piece, but this is a really key piece on my next question is going to literally based on what they. And, and, and I have more examples, tons of examples is once people start telling you how they come up with them, I listened very intently.

[00:27:40] Keenan: And then I asked the next question, okay, did you consider, I'm making this shit up now, we're going to off on a random, but did you consider in these numbers that the current growth rate in new accounting, a new counting organization is only 2%? Were you aware of that? Right? Or did you know, did you take into consideration that now?

[00:27:57] Keenan: What do they think they're going to say? No, we did. I got ya. So I take my knowledge and I ask questions to see where their knowledge is and that's how the gap starts to be defined. So then once they, this is the key piece on, and it's really hard for people. And I love your concept about it's fucking, would you call it rocket science or something, but once they figured out it's brilliant is I then use your words, your statement, your assessments, to my question.

[00:28:25] Keenan: To guide you and show you where you messed up and then they come back and you can't get mad at me. Cause like you said, it not me. You said it.

[00:28:32] Oren Klaff: So is the risk there that somebody goes. Well, Keenan, I'm looking at my notes here. You said you wanted a minivan that was red. You had to get it in below $35,000.

[00:28:45] Oren Klaff: You wanted your family to be safe. You wanted to buy it before the weekend. I was all that correct.

[00:28:53] Oren Klaff: Step into that trap. I feel like it's close. It's

[00:28:56] Keenan: close. It's close because it's all new ones. Cause notice what you said here on, you said you needed, if you do a prop to gap selling, you don't say you needed what you ended up having the person say is I'm concerned about the safety of my kids. I've had, this is my second kid.

[00:29:09] Keenan: My dad got in a really bad car accident. And in one of my sisters is, is permanently injured. I'm afraid of that for me. The second one is we drive a lot to the mountains to go skiing every weekend. So that's a long drive and it's stuck in traffic. My kids stop throwing things around. They're throwing food on the floor.

[00:29:26] Keenan: They're not entertained. That's just too. So what happens is you don't say, you said you needed, you said you need, what I say is, this is what I recommend. I recommend this because you said you were afraid of this. I recommend this car with these features. Now they can't argue. It's not, you said you need it.

[00:29:42] Keenan: I'm literally customizing my recommendation to you on the problems you stated

[00:29:48] Oren Klaff: it's very different. We're at a hundred percent agreement. The, the language and the recommendation and the ideas not only have to be original, not only have to solve a problem, they either have, or think they might have, they have to be in terms, in specifics, in language that they can relate to in their own business.

[00:30:10] Oren Klaff: Otherwise, they're just going to wonder if you can. It all sounds good. Right. But what's going to happen is they're going to move a bunch of money over to your account, and then they're gonna be waiting for the results and there's a certainty gap. And so unless you can speak to them at the, at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

[00:30:27] Oren Klaff: So, so if you think about it, when you go into raise money, right? It sounds like you're very familiar with this. If it's top down, Hey, it's a big market. If we only sell 2.01% of the money. You know, we'll have a hundred thousand customers at $5,000 and we'll be profitable in the first six months like that.

[00:30:45] Oren Klaff: If that's a top down approach, which is on macros, it all sounds good. But unless you can show someone what you're spending for ad words, what your conversion rate is, what your long tail is, the details underneath the use, you know, that the the use of that money, and that makes sense. Daniel closed the certainty gap.

[00:31:09] Oren Klaff: So I think we totally

[00:31:10] Keenan: agree. I would do differently. You know what I would do in addition, like I feel blessed that well, possibly industry I'm in is really not much for capital up that I'd prefer to raise. So I'm doing it all myself. I mean, we're organically grown, but if I was in a position to actually be a consultant for someone to raising money, or I had to go out and raise my own, everything you said is spot on and I would do that, but I would add one additional component.

[00:31:30] Keenan: Once I got somebody interested in me and they were talking about me, or once I was reaching out to get somebody interested in me, I would have a conversation around their current thesis, their current portfolio, where the money is invested. And I would try to see where I am a fit inside that to close a gap.

[00:31:48] Keenan: In other words, no pun intended. Here's your portfolio. Here's, what's not performing. Here's where your market you're missing that you're trying to fill. And I would, that would be the problem. Like you're not getting revenue from this space. You're not getting this type of return. You're not getting. I am that solution not you're giving me fucking money.

[00:32:04] Keenan: I am a solution to a hole in your portfolio, and that's how we need to do 95%.

[00:32:11] Oren Klaff: That the additional 5% is, that's why we need to be talking. But as much as I'm valuable, as you're evaluating me for your portfolio, I have to evaluate you because I'm seeing a bunch of singles and we ain't a single. And so I'm very interested because you're in this space, you cover the space, you have a thesis in the space, you have a plugged capitalist base, overhanging the space, public, blocking the space.

[00:32:35] Oren Klaff: You've got some decent companies. But I'm worried about a few things.

[00:32:40] Keenan: Your last, your last fund performed only at 7%. So many institutional investors are a little creepy about this next fund. This has to perform. I noticed the new fund is only investing in these particular areas. Let's say an AI, we're attacking this area of AI, which is a lot larger.

[00:32:54] Keenan: We understand it's a lot riskier, but the way I think this will close the gap, it's literally it get, look when people are in, in the end of the day, it's not rocket science. It's do you know what the fuck is? Keeping these people up at night. Do you know why they're frustrated? Do you know what they're concerned about?

[00:33:08] Keenan: And how do you plug the hole? It's that simple. And you cannot plug the hole until you know how big it is, what shape it is, what the force is on the other side of the whole line. Once you know all of that, you can call me, walk in and say, I am your savior. Here is why I'll prove to you. I can do it and I'll shut up and let's close the deal.

[00:33:27] Oren Klaff: I'm looking at my show notes here. It says right here, argue with Katie. But I'm just not can't find the right thing to argue with you about all right. So no I'm in agreement. That's very good. Like insult him.

[00:33:41] Keenan: That's okay. People want to, I make myself a target and I'm sure I've crossed myself millions of dollars because of my persona, but I spend more time on my, on my craft and on what it means to sell.

[00:33:52] Keenan: And I'll go toe to toe with any person walking this fucking planet, how to do this. And if you don't like my personality, cause I'm not in the blue suit and khakis, I don't give a fuck, but I will crush you at the level of how to sell what it takes, what it's about. What's the underlying psychology is. And that's all I care about my product.

[00:34:07] Keenan: So I love that

[00:34:08] Oren Klaff: we're enjoying this. Yeah, no, it's, it's a million percent. I mean, I think. This is a good Testament to, you can have all these social layers on top of you that are optics that are theoretical, that are strategic. You can be from Stanford or Yale or Dartmouth. You can have been at Facebook and Google and everything in some ways.

[00:34:30] Oren Klaff: I think those are almost negatives because they can get you in the door a little bit easier, but today it's very easy to get in. And if you can't get in a door, something happened like, I guess you don't have a LinkedIn account, but you don't have the internet,

[00:34:45] Keenan: right?

[00:34:46] Oren Klaff: Yeah. You're in Belgian, west Congo, but not in a good part.

[00:34:50] Oren Klaff: Right.

[00:34:52] Oren Klaff: Where are you calling in from? Oh, I am in Belgian. West Congo. Okay. Mother fucker will call me when you moved to a city. Yeah. I'll help you out. All right. So where was I? You

[00:35:04] Keenan: can go to Facebook and go to Stanford. You can go to,

[00:35:06] Oren Klaff: yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so in some ways you're sort of setting yourself up for failure because anybody can get in the door and now they're projecting on you, all the things they have in their mind about those social layers.

[00:35:17] Oren Klaff: And if he's very easy to disappoint people about how you should behave you know, from Stanford. And the reality is if you can get in and talk to them in their language, you have insight on the problems they have, you solve this problem. And, and I would add this if, if they believe so, I don't believe in lighting things on fire and then scoring and then selling them fire extinguishers.

[00:35:45] Oren Klaff: But if they do, if you can lead them to understand that their problem they have in like, things are changing faster than they think they have there. Yes in a worse way than they probably think because of the external changes. That's not something you control, you know, winter is coming faster and more furiously than maybe they can see and you can help them see some of the changes that are happening and that they're in the edge of their problem being kind of irrecoverable.

[00:36:17] Oren Klaff: Yep. Because this is where I wanted to go. Next is doesn't really matter what your background is. If you have insight, if you can speak in their language and insight, how they're going to get pressure externally, and then you are positioned at somebody who works, you know, a mile down the road in this problem and can provide them some insight on what is going to have very likely to happen to them next then.

[00:36:45] Oren Klaff: And here's my question. What I like to do then is raise the stakes. Two, you are on the forefront of this problem too, where winners and losers are switching places. If you get this problem much worse than you have it, I'm not even interested in it. You go to Upwork and type in I'm fucked who can solve, you know this for me, but I'm not doing it because I'll tell you why people come.

[00:37:14] Oren Klaff: Give me a real example in our business. People have gone out and try and raise money. So they put out a pitch with numbers, with a strategy, with a deck and they haven't hit their numbers. Competition can do what they do very easily and they've pivoted two or three times. Then they come to us and say, we can't raise any money.

[00:37:30] Oren Klaff: I'm like, I don't know. You peed in every single pool in the neighborhood. Where would you like me to take you swimming? Right. I go, listen, there's one thin channel. I can take you to Geneva. A third of the world's wealth is in the private offices in Geneva. They don't speak English very well. There. We could take you there, but you pee in that.

[00:37:48] Oren Klaff: That's the last pool that you can swim it, be in that pool. Right. And it's a big shit sandwich. We're all going to take a bite. So So I, I like to raise the stakes, honestly insane. You're at the edge of where this is just too problematic for me to deal with. How do you think about raising the stakes?

[00:38:09] Oren Klaff: So there's just a fork in the road. And my, my visual is, if you think about the eighties video games where, you know, they, weren't very sophisticated, you don't have like SOCOM when you're running the multiverse, you were basically going one direction coming at you, the other direct defender, right? And you all, you could move up and down and maybe back a little bit, but things were coming at you so fast, you had to make decisions.

[00:38:31] Oren Klaff: And so I like to build that scenario where things are coming at them and it's a fork in the road. And, but they're not sitting there going send us a proposal. We have to think about it. We'll go to committee, we'll talk to the Lochness monster and see what she thinks. It's like, Hey, it's a fork in the road.

[00:38:47] Oren Klaff: But you got take it. W how, so, it sounds like you understand where I'm going with this, but how do you raise the stakes and then, and then present that fork in the road.

[00:38:58] Keenan: So the way I do it is, again, very similar to when I worked with you before, and the key is, look, you're going to see, I keep coming to these same things.

[00:39:05] Keenan: I don't have to spout the shit and then go off on some tangent. It always comes back to these three key elements.

[00:39:09] Oren Klaff: I think you meant I don't spout some shit. Go off on a tangent, like.

[00:39:18] Keenan: No. I mean, look, if you don't feel like you might want to explore that I have no problem with it at the present time. Right? So it comes down to the business problem. Yeah. The impact of root crops. And so this is how I handle this. Right. We call it expanding the gap. So our customer come to us and firstly, I need love.

[00:39:36] Keenan: They'll tell you what the problem is in their world. That's a need nine out of 10 times to say, I need this. Sure. I

[00:39:41] Oren Klaff: need accounting software. That is less likely to trigger an audit. We got audited last year. Yes. We use QuickBooks anymore. We need some kind of fancy SAS.

[00:39:51] Keenan: So I, so I said, okay, great. So I'll say, tell me about the audit, right.

[00:39:55] Keenan: And they'll start telling you how to say, how much did it cost you? How long did it take? I'll find out that they got fired. Do you

[00:40:01] Oren Klaff: want 50,000 now that you asked it was 230, $2,000? Well, I'm sorry. TMI. TMI.

[00:40:07] Keenan: Yeah. Right. So I'll find out how much they will find. And what I'll do is I'll ask questions to quantify the business problem.

[00:40:14] Keenan: Right. They'll find out what the impact of the organization was, but then I'll say, well, wait a minute, are you in compliance now? Because I have the time to think about the problem. Like, but now that you've gone through all the, do, are you in compliance now? They'll say yes. Then I'll say yes. Then I'll say, how are you staying?

[00:40:29] Keenan: What would I do here? Or how were you in compliance now if using the same system, if you weren't before, what have you changed? Right. And then they'll say, well, we added six people to it. We did this look. It's great. How much more is that costing you to stay in compliance? Do you see what I'm doing here?

[00:40:46] Keenan: I'm digging into their world and I'm digging into what the, fuck's what I'm using my logic that says, if you got, if you were out of compliance and yet paid a fine, and it's still the same system, my that's telling me if you're not compliant, you're about to be out fucking minutes. So why are we dicking around?

[00:41:03] Keenan: Right. So once I get all of that on the table, then I start saying, what is the cost of being out of compliance twice? Because my brain is telling me you can't keep being out of compliance. They don't give you the same fine. And I get them like, oh shit, it's half of my, but that's how I broaden the gap.

[00:41:18] Keenan: Right. And then what I do is I say, okay, now that we're here, This is how we can fix it for you when I put in the hole. Oh, and I get to the root causes and I want to play with that root cause this, this, this, this, this, this is what's causing you. This what's causing this, what's causing it the minute they give me the root causes, there is my conduit, my road, my highway, to be like, well, I can fix that.

[00:41:38] Keenan: And right. And I even throw some more, are you doing this as, oh yeah. That's also the reason this is happening. I really get them to realize, so this cat knows what's going on. So when I finally committed. We can fix this. This is how we'll address root cause. Number one, which downstream makes that go away.

[00:41:53] Keenan: Like I'm going to put the battery in your car is going to start. You're going to get to work on time. The second thing we're going to do is we're going to give you a little you know, a little plug to plug in to make sure on those really cold days, the battery doesn't get cold. So cause you said we, when the battery works, you're in fucking Wisconsin, it's fucking freezing then started.

[00:42:09] Keenan: So I'm going to solve that. So you won't be late again now because you weren't late for three months in a row. You'll actually be back up for the promotion that you didn't get before you see what I'm saying. And so by the time I'm done, they're like, oh my God, hurry up. How do we get this happening? And here's the key piece.

[00:42:25] Keenan: And you'll love this when two weeks, three weeks go by big. I need to talk to so-and-so and I need to do this. And I need to do that. Actually, I had a conversation just this morning and our sales team call. I said, okay, take your time. But my question is this you're on the edge of being out of compliance.

[00:42:40] Keenan: We already talked about that. This takes 500. You're going to cost you another 500,000 in this. I'm very concerned about the length of time. This has taken you in the exposure it's putting you in. What can I do?

[00:42:51] Oren Klaff: Well, can you, can you hang on a second? I have to do something administratively Daniel block Keenan's number.

[00:42:59] Oren Klaff: We're going to own accounting software, but this mother fucker here. Sorry. Yeah. Where were we? Yeah. So that's how you raise the stakes is I'm very concerned as this continues and then.

[00:43:16] Keenan: What they told you, they're unique, specific one of a kind situation. Cause that's what a lot of salespeople miss. And I know you love this.

[00:43:23] Keenan: When you read the book on, if you go to the average salesperson CRM and you read six different opportunities, they all sound exactly the same. And that fricking sales person could not tell you which account it was. Right. But yet they're all different. Like if you dig in this, one's losing two grand a month, this was losing a hundred grand and this one got paid out of compliance.

[00:43:42] Keenan: This one, but they don't know

[00:43:43] Oren Klaff: where do people die in discovery in your mind? I have a very, I have a very particular view on this, which I voiced many, many times when I'm very interested, where do the guys that you're training, when you look at them, where are they? They, they know to do discovery. Cause I've been told to do discovery.

[00:44:03] Oren Klaff: Where are they? And, and you know, again, this isn't like the. A slimy salesperson that just wants a quick commission there. They believe in their product. They know their why they know their companies, why they they're, you know, on top of things and they're well-meaning and then they start to go into discovery.

[00:44:23] Oren Klaff: Where does discovery get off the tracks when they're out

[00:44:27] Keenan: to do the discovery to get them to give them one or two things, max, that the oh, Right. They don't actually go into understand the business and the nuances and they find a pain versus, oh, here's the problem. But what's the impact of the problem and oh, okay.

[00:44:43] Keenan: Now I am the impact, but what's causing it. They don't get those things. And they do a lot of self-diagnosis. They say things like you know, if you could, you know, you said it takes you too long to run reports. If you, if we could do those reports in a day, would that interest you like their, their, their, their discoveries quickly move to product discoveries?

[00:45:03] Keenan: How could I get my product into your business

[00:45:06] Oren Klaff: on that one? Because I think a lot of people right now are saying, well, I asked that right. If I could run these reports faster in a day, And they if they were faster and gave you more insight into your data, is that something you'd be interested in? Yeah, that's an

[00:45:23] Keenan: awful question.

[00:45:24] Keenan: It's awful discovery. One it's sleazy and smarmy and they see where it's coming to. Where

I

[00:45:28] Oren Klaff: go. What's the real thing about sleaziness

[00:45:33] Keenan: behind it because you're not, you don't care to understand their world. Right? Think about like, just flip it. It takes an extra second thing. I always say you leave a meat on the bone.

[00:45:40] Keenan: So they told you it takes too long, too long to do reports first off. What's too long. How long does it take you? Could you can't build the gap? How long does it take you to run reports? Well, one company could say four hours. One could say six, one could be an hour. You take 50 minutes. Why is an hour too long in your business?

[00:45:56] Keenan: Right? Number two. What are you running reports on number three, with that data? What are you doing with the data on the company number? From that data. If it's not good data, it takes too long. How has it negatively affected the company? Like, dude, are you fucking kidding me? Like if you give me all of that information, I can tell you what I can do right away.

[00:46:15] Keenan: I will walk away and not have to spend enough time with you because I can't fix it. And it's, I can get stuck in my pipeline or two. I will have you literally eating out of the Palm of my hands to solve that problem yesterday, because now I know how big the problem is, how it's affected your business, what the root causes are, why it's costing you, I own you and how I can fix it.

[00:46:31] Keenan: I own you. So when the typical salesperson says, says, well, tell me about reports. So it takes too long. It's frustrating. And they say, well, if we could do this, I get way much more information. And I slay

[00:46:43] Oren Klaff: you a million percent. I think when somebody asks me those questions, say, Hey, you know, if you could get reports that could visualize your data more deeply and you'll be able to get more insights, but it'll make better decisions about your business.

[00:46:54] Oren Klaff: Is that something you would want? Right. And, and so I just think like, Hey motherfucker, you don't know that. It's annoying. Like if you don't know my business well enough as to what is the kind of business? Wow. How did you get here? Could you go back to where you came from? I don't know who met you in here, but you came into the wrong door.

[00:47:18] Oren Klaff: Right? And, and because my sense is from, for most of the people we're talking to, they know nine out of 10 scenarios. If you've been in a company for two years, you know, nine out of 10 scenarios that your co your clients are facing and you don't actually need to do this much discovery, there should be in my mind, it almost all the businesses I've seen like two or three data points that let you do a big leap forward in discovery.

[00:47:52] Oren Klaff: Right? Well, how much. When do you need it? What do you want to use it for? Run it down.

[00:47:58] Keenan: Okay. I'm going to give you a chance for you and I to argue. Yeah, here's what I think. I'm not sure we agree. So watch this. We're gonna, you're gonna need some, something everybody can follow really quickly. I use this example all the time about you just been diagnosed with a terminal brain cancer chances.

[00:48:10] Keenan: You got six months to live, but I happen to sell the only pill on the planet. That'll save your life. Right. And what I try to send to people is it seems obvious like, oh, someone and it costs a million dollars. It seems obviously everybody's going to pay a million dollars. I'm going to survive. What I walked through is this.

[00:48:23] Keenan: Well, let's just say one guy or girl is 35 years old and they just got engaged. They want children. They're not married yet. Their parents are still alive, but not much longer. And they want to come to the wedding. The person has a phenomenal job and blah, blah, blah. That's one scenario, right?

[00:48:39] Keenan: Another scenario is the person who's 92 years old. They haven't seen their, their, their children a long time. They've outlived two of their children. One doesn't come anymore. They don't see the great, great grandchildren and they spend their day staring at a stupid television all day. Another scenario is a 65 year old guy.

[00:48:54] Keenan: Who's just recently divorced. He's miserable. His kids hate him. Like, do you know how many individual scenarios I could paint for you? Orange that would impact somebody's decision to buy that. And that is the power of the gap is I don't assume all that because I could probably take two Cummings, look identical and pull you so far apart that you thought you were both buying for the same reason, but they're entirely different reasons.

[00:49:19] Keenan: And my ability to understand those unique reasons is why I win.

[00:49:22] Oren Klaff: Okay. Two things. One is, this is what I call the Dan area. Alley phenomenon. You have all these

[00:49:28] Keenan: fancy names for shit that I just call

[00:49:31] Oren Klaff: it. Whatever you have a low intellect, you have to come up with names for stuff that sounds intriguing. So let's pick it up.

[00:49:36] Oren Klaff: Dan Ariely, you know, good guy communicate with him, but basically he takes 12. You know, USC mattered a graduated USC college students with, you know, 1 42 IQs and 4.0 grade point averages in high school that, you know, are white one black dude and one Chinese chick. Right. And they put them in a room and he gives them, give them all coffee cups.

[00:49:59] Oren Klaff: And half of them, he allows to write their name on the coffee cup and the other half you know, name of a random person who's printing on it. They let them drink coffee out and they have lots of engaging conversations and comes back around and says, Hey, I want to buy your coffee cup back for you.

[00:50:10] Oren Klaff: And the, you know, the, the guys who didn't have their name on it, just, you know, give them back like, Hey, 25 cents is that too much? And people wrote their name on it. They're like, Hey, I wouldn't sell it to you for five bucks. Fuck off Dan Ariely. And so the conclusion is blah, blah, blah. That's what your example is, right?

[00:50:24] Oren Klaff: Hi. I gave him a real world example, guys, walk in and they go, Hey, I need $20 million for what, how fast you need it. What's the use of force. Right. And, and, and what's your valuation based on what industry are you in based on that I can go and do quite a lot of work to impress them that I'm in their world.

[00:50:52] Oren Klaff: So then I can go in, in further discovery and extract the meaningful information. So guys, 95 or 35 or 17 or 42 that's, you're not extracting information like this is, this is face value. There buyers have some information that they're protecting. What's your budget. Perfect example. What's your budget? You know, no matter, no matter what somebody tells you, when you ask them what's their budget.

[00:51:20] Keenan: I'll let me tell you what they're thinking. Never asked what the budget is.

[00:51:24] Oren Klaff: But, but you can get

[00:51:25] Keenan: to it. Of course, I don't need to get to it. I don't need to get to it. But

[00:51:30] Oren Klaff: my point is what's your budget is just one of those questions, which is like, when's your drop dead date, right? When do you have to decide who's really the ultimate decision maker, right?

[00:51:40] Oren Klaff: At what, what did the competition price this at? There's some days. Yeah.

[00:51:45] Keenan: And that, and that, you know, what's so funny though, when you go back and listen to this, I want you to go to the piece where you started with whether they're 17 or 19 or 35, whatever. Right. And I have to know what, how, and when, right?

[00:51:58] Keenan: The one piece you miss go back in the notice, you didn't have no why. And even if somebody is raising money, there's always a human element Orrin. And I like this in your book, you talked about the human element a lot, right? So if I'm a 17 year old, right? Who is the coder myself, I'm not in for a whole lot of money.

[00:52:17] Keenan: If the thing fails, it's going to suck. But not the end of the world. That's a very different paradigm than if I'm 37. It's my third fucking shit. Go with this. I've lost a shit

[00:52:27] Oren Klaff: load, but they have to tell you that like that's dead obvious. No,

[00:52:32] Keenan: it's not. That's the point I'm trying to get to the middle. I start asking these questions.

[00:52:36] Keenan: I literally will do this and be like, wait, this is your third one. Let me just pretend Emily. Let me ask you. You, you told me, you just got married. You told me it's your third one. If this doesn't work and you don't get money, are you going to go this again? Or is this your last go with that?

[00:52:50] Oren Klaff: Right? I cannot keep doing this.

[00:52:52] Oren Klaff: I'm getting fucking tired. I'm going to okay.

[00:52:55] Keenan: Exactly. So how I approach this? How much discount I can get for you is I know I'm dealing with a different mindset and what you want to work with. The discount I can get for you. The change you'll do for me versus the guy who's 31 at his first one. He's gotten away.

[00:53:11] Keenan: He's been his base forever.

[00:53:13] Oren Klaff: I love it. So here, here's what I'm thinking like this, what you're getting at, because originally I didn't fully appreciate where you were at. Y, what I think you're getting at is the why is, is, is not the Y up here floating around that. They tell everybody that did hell grandma, that they it's the why that's like on their, in their DNA

[00:53:36] Keenan: to make the decision.

[00:53:37] Keenan: Remember I said this in the beginning, it's all about influence a change will influence the decision. So what you just said is that's it that why is where the decision comes from? And if I can't get to that, I'm not

[00:53:51] Oren Klaff: influencing. How do I know that I'm there? So here here's the prompt. Here's, here's the dilemma, right?

[00:53:59] Oren Klaff: I can do this. Cause it's, it's, it's through all my experiences of obtaining my people heard this a lot. You might not have my losing numbers. So the way I got into. And I'll get some with this is I was working on a deal. My partners, very wealthy coma, $80 million guy. I was a zero million dollar guy and I needed this deal to close and not be a negative.

[00:54:20] Oren Klaff: Right. We were working on for a long time that the so we were the seller, the buyers, it was we were selling an asset and the buyers were agreeing and they were asking for more information and they were going to close and then they stalled and they wanted another legal review. And finally, my partner sent them an email and I needed this to close.

[00:54:38] Oren Klaff: Like they were in were all we had to do was like, give them more time and answer another couple of requests. And my partner send them an email, subject line, only lose my number, all caps. And I was like, okay, well needs to live now. Right. And, and I'm done and I'm like, Russell, . Don't worry. I'm like, no, I'm worried.

[00:55:01] Oren Klaff: Right? Cause in my frame of mind, nobody in the history of business, whoever wanted to, you know, swim with the sharks or Tom Hopkins or do a deal with any other company ever sent them an email, all caps lose my number and then, Hey, so sorry. Really? Can't I'm sorry. We were so difficult. We'll close tomorrow.

[00:55:20] Oren Klaff: Really appreciate it. Thanks for being so patient billion bucks. And it was like a $30 million deal, but for me, so and that opened my eyes to what I'm like. Well, the universe works in upside down the anti-gravity counterfactual ways than I even begin to understand. I started plumbing, get into this world and open the door and everything like that.

[00:55:41] Oren Klaff: But I, so I've had these experiences for 20 years of those little things ingrained. So I know when somebody is there for me as do you and how you've described it, how does Joe bag of donuts? Yeah. How does somebody new to these processes know that they're at somebodies, that they're deep enough that they're at the Y at, in their DNA?

[00:56:08] Oren Klaff: How do they know when to stop digging for that? And that they're there and there isn't like you, you know, it intuitively you've been doing it since you were six years old. W w is there a couple of steps somebody can take? I mean, I think that this is somewhere where we could really move a population of people forward is, is yes.

[00:56:27] Oren Klaff: They need to get to the Y. But how do they know that they've got the why that matters? That's inside the DNA.

[00:56:36] Keenan: So the way I'm going to, okay. So I'm going to try to do this in a structural way. Not an intuitive way. Yeah. So that's where the concept of the gap came up. Right? So if I spend enough time getting you to tell me where you are today, Right.

[00:56:53] Keenan: I'm going to die. Okay, great. Let's just do it. That the pill eats. Cause it's easy. Everybody understands that. Right. That's so great. Well, how old are you? Okay. I'm 35. Are you married? Just recently married? Do you want kids? Yes. What do you guys think? And we always talked about two or three, right? Okay. You know what do you do for work?

[00:57:07] Keenan: Right. I have a great job. I love my, my wife has just started her own business and I think it could be big. So I flush all of this out and then I'd realize, okay, you have terminal brain cancer. You have six months. So now the, so now that I know is the future, the current state is you've got six, your, this is your you're currently married, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:57:25] Keenan: And then the future state is you want these things. Okay. So now if you die in six months, you don't get those. There's my gap. So I can simply now I, I sort of know it. I can simply say so I, and I know no one would ever say this, but for the lesson, it's fair to say. So understanding this, Paul, there's really nothing that you wouldn't do to make sure you walk.

[00:57:49] Keenan: You first have kids walk the mocked out. Like you have way tons of life left that you're not willing to give up yet. Do I understand that? And you measure it because walking the kids down the aisle, watch them graduate high school, your wife's business being successful, you getting promoted to VP blahblahblahblahblah right.

[00:58:05] Keenan: That gap becomes so big. It, the why is built right into what I call the intrinsic motivation. It's as plain as day, but the cool part about it. And I'm glad you asked this question is most people try to go, like, here's the guy, they try to go right down the middle and grab it. You can't do that. You can't, you have to anchor somebody in what's going on today.

[00:58:26] Keenan: You have to anchor them and why they don't like it. That's the key piece. Why you don't like it today? What pain is it causing? What are the problems it's doing? How is it impacting you? Right. And then why is it happening? What's going on? Then it's like, okay, if we can solve this, what is it? You're looking for the outcomes.

[00:58:42] Keenan: What do you want them to be? And then it's this big, this big, this big, this big, this big. And it doesn't matter once, you know, the size of it. All you have to ask yourself is, is what I'm selling worth. Right. That's why I can people say, well, you can't do it on something like a pack of gum. You bet your ass.

[00:58:57] Keenan: I can, if I find out you stopped into my seven 11 store, I would take the time. But, and I find out that you're going on a first date and you just ate garlic over lunch and you don't have time to go home to brush your teeth. And you haven't had a date and gotten laid and a year and a half. I could probably charge you $20 for that fucking gum right now.

[00:59:15] Keenan: So don't tell me I can't do the gap. It all comes down to the uniqueness of each situation. If you just going home and it's an hour drive, you mouth tastes like, yes. All right, here's the doll 50 grade, but it's still the same product every time on seeing that. It's my unique situation of where I am now and where I want to go.

[00:59:34] Keenan: That drives the intrinsic motivation. And as a sales person, it's your job to uncover it and help them see it.

[00:59:40] Oren Klaff: It's the water dispensary machine that knows what the temperature is outside.

[00:59:45] Keenan: I'll go with that. So

[00:59:48] Oren Klaff: this is awesome. Listen, I'm getting the hook on time. I know, years as well. We didn't get to the new book, which is really,

[00:59:54] Keenan: I don't have a new book.

[00:59:55] Keenan: So I'm really curious what my new book

[00:59:56] Oren Klaff: is. Oh, I don't know. Was it not taught? Wait, are you Jonah Berger? What's your name again,

[01:00:03] Keenan: baby? I'm Carl wind's

[01:00:04] Oren Klaff: guy. Who is this guy? Damn. I wish they would give me the names of the dude before they come on. All right, well then your old last book, not the, the hold on the title is w w how you didn't write 20 books, two selling, not taught. Yeah, not taught. I want to talk about, but we'll have to come back to not talk another time, because this was fun.

[01:00:25] Oren Klaff: We're going to melt people's brains. If we go into not taught, so this is fantastic. I really want to endure. This methodology, I think Keenan is giving it to you straight. I think I'm in alignment with the things we talked about here. And I think you could, you know, here's what you do. Just take picture anything, rip out a page, you know, and then take a gap selling, you know, and rip out a page and then make a much thicker book and confuse yourself.

[01:00:54] Oren Klaff: But at least we'll have sold two books. Okay. All right. So I will see you here next time. Hang on just a minute. And I got a quick message for people, and then we will talk for a moment often. If you're planning to become a dealmaker at this level, make sure to join the daily dealmaker. We get into one little piece of this daily.

[01:01:19] Oren Klaff: And so you're just stacking and stacking and stacking these tools and tactics and strategies until they come out of you as naturally as they come out of me and the people that I work with, add the tips, tools, strategies, tactics a little bit every day. And by the end of a year, you'll be a totally different new improved person and a very strong deal-maker.