Come along, we’re going to YESCALATE®

Let’s YESCALATE® This.

While YESCALATE® is a sales program, more recently it has also been used as a verb, especially by my largest client. Now, I am not self-centeredly trying to make my brand into something larger than it is, but rather the pivot came from clients. Clients taking the practice and learning into an action.

We’re going to YESCALATE® our practices, our client engagements. Let’s take a step back as I want to share with you how I’ve used the YESCALATE® process on myself with a challenge that I had last month. With this challenge, I saw how ‘Yescalating’ a situation can achieve success.

Here was my challenge: I reached out to the 120 sales reps that I’m coaching in this program and offered them any one of five slots that I had available during the month to schedule one on one coaching, and exactly 0 of them scheduled coaching with me.

So you have to ask yourself, is it that they didn’t find the offer valid? Or can we look to the YESENTIALS® and the YESCALATE® process to ask some deeper questions, and apply micro learning quickly. So before I tell you about how I, in less than 48 hours, got five coaching sessions scheduled this month. Let me share with you a most frequent situation that sales reps are experiencing. It doesn’t matter what level they are, many are feeling this. I’m talking about elite performers, and I’m talking about brand new folks.

It’s when they have a great interaction, one that is productive and makes a connection. It’s getting that person to the next step, to actually schedule with them. Or, it’s sending out an email when they know they have something of value, having people actually respond and schedule time for their initial call. And what I’ve been hearing reps say over and over again is, “oh, times are different. People don’t respond like they used to.” And that is not true, just not true.

There are three specific questions that YESCALATE® from a micro learning perspective teaches us to ask.

These are the questions I asked myself, and that I taught all five reps I met with this week in our one-on-one meeting.

Here’s the first question: Are you addressing a current pain?

Are you directly addressing an issue or pain point that customer or prospect has. Are you giving them a valid reason why they should schedule time with you?

Here’s a story I want to share with you folks. My townhouse has sprinklers in the ceilings.I am supposed to get an outside resource to do an inspection of those sprinklers once a year. It’s very inexpensive. 50 bucks. I did it for the first two years. I didn’t do it for the second two years. So when I came home from a trip recently, there was an orange sticker on my door from the water company that said I had exactly 10 days to get the inspection done, or they were going to shut off my water.

Do you think I had a valid reason for scheduling an appointment now with those inspectors? And, more importantly, if one of those inspectors had called and said, Here’s my calendar, and when I’m available you can schedule right now. Do you think I would have scheduled a follow up? The answer is, of course.

So number one, I identified a specific pain that I knew my reps were facing. And I sent out an email.

And in that email I answered the…

Second question: Am I making it easy for them?

Do you know what I realized? I was creating a multiple step, pain in the butt process for sales reps that have so much to do, so much going on and let’s say also might struggle with attention. And I was going to ask them to find my email address, to send me dates of availability, to ask them to find out when was I available, etc. These folks are traveling when they got my offer. They don’t have time to do all of that. And then all of a sudden a month’s gone by, even if they had interest, they didn’t do it. So I set up a Calendly link.

I set up a calendar link that allowed them to click a button, see my calendar and schedule a time.

So, number one: are you identifying a pain? Number two: are you making it easy for them by identifying the obstacles and removing them?

Third Question: Are you using a valid forcing mechanism?

There are three forcing mechanisms that get people to do things immediately as long as you use them if in an honest and ethical way: Limited numbers, Deadlines, and Penalties.

Now, if you think about the notice from the water company, that’s a deadline, and that’s a penalty that got my attention. If you think about people paying their taxes, which is something no one wants to do. And yet the vast majority of Americans do it. It’s because there’s a deadline and a penalty.

So in the note that I sent out to those 120 sales performers this week, I said “only 5 slots are available. I have set aside the following 3 days next week. And, by the way, the elite performers get 1st shot. For the first 2 days I’m going to leave these spots open for them.”

I got all 5 coaching slots filled within 48 hrs of me doing those 3 things, and that’s how I myself ‘YESCALATED’ a process that had stagnated.

I had this challenge, the same challenge as these reps, you and maybe it’s the same challenge that you and your team have. And often we sit back, wondering: “Are people just rude? Are people not interested?” All of a sudden your brain is telling you all these stories, and the answer is commonly, no, it’s likely you haven’t identified a specific pain point, you haven’t made it easy, and you haven’t used a deadline or a limited number offering.

Do you want to get that customer to respond? Then YESCALATE® the situation.

Last month I was offering coaching slots and 0 people scheduled. Did that indicate a lack of interest, or was I just not making it easy?

I asked myself these questions, part of the Yesentials® Program, and was able to get action!
Number 1: What’s their pain point?
Number 2: Was I making it easy to schedule?
Number 3: Was I making it limited within, giving a deadline?

Within 48 hours, 5 people were booked. I put into YESCALATE® into practice and I ‘YESCALATED’ the situation.

Why should you YESCALATE® your sales process?

Because it works and because it’s based on science. There are things that work, and there is science that tells us why. The only question is, will you use it to help them make more of a difference? Understanding the science can help you and your team to make more of a difference in your world.

If you’re ready to apply the three steps of YESCALATE® to your sales process because you are feeling the pain of folks not responding, here are two limited offers—and yes, a link to make it easy for you!

If you are a CEO or own the Sales Function and have more than 100 reps (client facing team including sales, project engineers, etc) and would “reserve the right to better yourself and your team” let’s brainstorm together, you and me personally how your time can start YESCALATING to GET TO YES FASTER and MAKE MORE OF A DIFFERENCE for your clients.

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March 4, 2025
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