Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

There are so many situations where inadequate product knowledge, damaged reputation, and inefficient or poorly executed sales processes come from having untrained salespeople. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the incredible cost of untrained salespeople. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, it’s such a pleasure to be here, David. Sometimes I think I’m that guy. I’m the untrained salesperson. So, this will be very informative to me, I hope. David: Okay. Well, you know, there’s a difference between being untrained and untrainable. So, as long as you’re trainable, that’s a really big plus. Jay: OK, I feel a little better. David: No, I’m sure you’re trainable, but untrained salespeople can really cause a great deal of harm to themselves, to their companies, to their prospects, to the businesses they’re associated with. It is really kind of epidemic and It’s largely unnecessary. A lot of it comes from, particularly in small businesses an employers desire to delegate it quickly, to get it off their plate. Like, “okay, I’m not doing this as well as I’d like. I better hire somebody else to do it.” And they’re hoping that that person is going to know how to do it. And if you don’t have protocols in place, like we talked about in our previous podcast, then of course that just makes it that much more difficult. But the biggest problems that people are likely to run into, the obvious ones are lost sales opportunities, right? Cause I’m talking to somebody who could potentially buy, but I’m saying all the wrong things and I’m not positioning the company well, and I’m not finding the right needs that the people are actually looking for, and I’m saying the wrong things, there’s no way that sales is going to happen. It’s a bad reflection on the salesperson and the company, and the prospect will walk away thinking that that company is not good at what they do because the salesperson did not do a good enough job of explaining what they do. So, it creates a complete disconnect between what the business might be capable of and what the world is likely to think they’re capable of. So that’s a killer. Poor communication is another one that when you have a salesperson who is not trained on what they need to ask, what they need to find out from the prospect, how they need to address those questions and issues, that defines poor communication, because they’re just going to say whatever comes to their mind or they’re going to say, “well, I have to find out, let you know.” Now there are situations in pretty much any sales scenario where that might be the case, where you don’t have every single bit of information that they might need to know. So there will be situations where you might have to find something out. But if it’s happening more than a couple of times at any particular sales presentation, you might want to look at the process that you’re using to make that happen. The training that you have or have not received. Actually, this really does dovetail pretty well in our previous conversation about protocols. So if you’re seeing this podcast and you didn’t see that one, go back and watch that one as well because these things really tie together. Jay: Yeah, a couple of things come to mind. And the first is, how do you know you have an untrained salesperson? If they are not where you’re at, if they’re doing outside sales and they’re sitting in somebody else’s office, how do you know what they’re saying and how they’re interacting? That can be very difficult. The second thing is if they’re on the phone making those calls, how do you assess their situation there? Like I said earlier, we have a system that records all phone calls coming in and out. So that’s one way that we have to listen back to calls and give feedback. So maybe you have to go on those sales calls and listen. Maybe you have to have a hidden microphone, I don’t know what it is, but there’s two problems that you get with untrained salespeople. The first is it’ll be hard to keep salespeople. Because if they’re untrained, they’re not going to perform. And if they don’t perform, they’re not going to make money. They’re not going to make money. They’re not going to be there. And you may have a lot of potentially good salespeople, but they’re not getting any coaching. They don’t have protocols. They’re not getting training. And so you may be burning through salespeople when really, It’s on you instead of on them. David: Yeah, and it definitely happens that way quite a bit. The first way you can know whether or not you have an untrained or a well trained salesperson is you can ask yourse

A lot of the people that I work with now are exceptional at what they do, but they may struggle to get other people in their organization to be able to do it, because they haven’t codified the success protocols that would allow them to say, “okay, this is how we perform this task. This is how we do this. This is how we do that.” And when they start doing that, they’re just amazed at how far their people can come so quickly. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing your protocols for success. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, it’s such a pleasure to be here with you again. This may be a situation where I want to sit back and listen to you a little bit because I know you have a lot of experience and coming up with these protocols and things like that. So I’m just going to say hit me and I’ll see if I can learn something here. David: Okay. Well, when I talk about protocols for success, we talk a lot about systems and processes and the work that we do with our clients. And if you want to be able to create consistent results in your business, you need to have these things in place. Protocols is another term for it. But the reason I like the word protocols is that it sort of establishes the fact that these things aren’t optional. This is what we’re doing. This is how we’re doing it in this organization. And when you approach it like that, everything gets a lot easier because you don’t have to make a hundred different decisions now. It’s like, I know what the process is. I simply need to follow it. If you’re veering from it, you know it. If you’re on it, you know it. And so does everybody else. People who don’t like accountability will not like that. But people who do like accountability will know, Hey, listen, I followed this procedure to the letter and this didn’t work. And then you can talk to the person that you’re working with to have them explain, okay, well maybe this protocol needs to be changed or updated. It’s almost like a baseline. Most people need to start with some sort of baseline protocol that they’re going to say, okay, this is how we do this. This is how we perform this particular task. And then you have a number of people do it and they follow the protocol or they don’t. If they follow it and they get a comparable or consistent result, great. That’s a good protocol. If five different people try it and they get five different results and they all follow the protocol, you have a problem with your protocol. You need to clarify, you need to identify, okay, what are the problems with each of these steps? And I need to tweak that so that when I hand it to five different people, they can all get a similar result. That’s the nutshell version. Jay: Hmm. You know, this is something that’s so critical. I think a lot of managers miss this point. Managers are afraid to hold people to the protocol or hold them accountable, and they don’t realize that this actually robs your staff from feelings of success. Because if you don’t have a baseline, and the baseline is basically when they fall before it, it’s not a matter of getting mad at them, it’s a matter of saying, okay, what was wrong with the protocol first? And if the protocol is good, then we probably have a training issue, right? So that’s underneath the expected line. But above the line means that they met the line or they did better. That’s the only way you’re going to feel success. If there is no line, I promise you, your employees will never feel like, man, we did it. Because you never put a baseline on it. So that’s, to me, how you consistently make people happy. And that’s why I like the word protocol over accountability, because accountability always sounds negative to people. David: Yeah. I mean, accountability is basically, did you follow the protocol or not? The protocol is the list of steps saying this is how we accomplish this task. And there are probably a lot of people watching this video or listening to the podcast who have worked in a sales organization where their entire training regime consisted of “dial nine for an outside line,” back when people were working in offices with switchboards and things like that, right? That was it. That’s not a protocol, that’s a free for all. And the big difference between a protocol and a free for all is that free for alls create wildly inconsistent results and protocols create more consistent results. It’s not perfect. It’s never going to be perfect. But as long as you’ve got a protocol that provides a reasonable degree of certainty, in terms of the outcome that they’re desiring, you’re going to be in much better shape. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And you said it’s never going to be perfect, but i

Indecision comes with a high price. I think most of us in business try to make the best decisions possible, but really it becomes a matter of saying, “okay, do I have all the information I need?” And if I do, then make the decision. Say yes, say no, but make the decision. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I are back with a talk on the high price of indecision. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much. It’s such a pleasure to be here. And I think this is something that we all suffer with, especially in a new business, just knowing what you should do. What are your priorities? How can you tell that? Paralysis by analysis is very common. David: Yeah, no question. And I think some people are more wired to be decisive while others are more wired to be indecisive. If you’re decisive, dealing with indecisive people is extremely frustrating. And if you’re indecisive, dealing with decisive people can feel a little intimidating. So it’s a challenge. Jay: Yeah. And I think sometimes you need both. I mean, if you’re sitting around waiting to make a decision. You could miss the perfect opportunity, right? But if you move too fast, you’re probably not going to be prepared for that situation. So we got to find balance in the force here. How do we do that? David: Great question. Yeah. I think missed opportunities is definitely the first thing we tend to think of when it comes to indecision. But if we’re trying to find balance in the force, then that would also mean talking about, well, should decisive people do anything differently? And my guess is that’s kind of a quick one. My guess would be to say, all right, if you think you’re too decisive, then maybe you need to take a step back, aand consider things a little more. But in business, wow, it’s much more detrimental in most cases, in my opinion, to be indecisive. And there’s a great quote from Tom Watson that says: “Solve it. Solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solve it wrong, it will come back and slap you in the face, and then you can solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business.” So there are lots of schools of thought on this. The bottom line for most of us is that you’re better off making a decision, because if it’s the wrong decision, you’ll find out sooner, and then you can change it and make a better decision. If it’s the right decision, then you’re already past the point where you would have been if you were still putting it off. Jay: Yeah, I think part of this though is to be decisive, but to be informed in your decisiveness. If you don’t have good tracking of what’s going on, like, we were decisive before, and this is how we learned, and we tracked it, and so next time we can move faster because we have some knowledge, we have some key performance indicators, those things are going to help our decisions go faster, and we’re going to be more confident in those decisions. Because for me, sometimes when I feel like we’ve acted too soon, I’m not at my best. I’m hesitant because I’m hoping it’s going to work, but I’m not sure that there’s anything backing it up. David: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think you also sort of raised an interesting point, which is the difference between informed decisions and uninformed decisions, right? I don’t think decisiveness means just making up your mind without having all the facts. I’m saying basically, if you’ve got all the facts and you’re failing to decide, that to me is indecisiveness. If you’ve got all the facts and then you ARE deciding, that to me is decisiveness. But I completely agree with you. If you don’t have all the information then it’s too soon to make a decision. But in sales situations, a lot of times salespeople struggle because the people they’re talking with don’t have all the information. They don’t want to take the time to even gather all the information and they decide “no” before they have enough information to even make that sort of decision. That’s frustrating from a sales standpoint. So for us as salespeople, it’s incumbent on us to let them know, “Hey, listen, are you sure you want to make this decision based on the limited information you have?” And if they do, then, maybe they’re not the ideal prospects for us. Jay: Yeah, I do a lot of sales now. I’m the front man for our company and I’m learning all of these things, especially a lot of things I’ve learned from the podcast that we do. And a lot of times when a customer has said something to me, I hear something in my head, “you know, you really shoul

Particularly in the early stages, breaking through a sales plateau may just mean doing more of what you’re doing. But generally, at some point, we hit a plateau that is created by the fact that we can’t run any faster. We can’t do any more by ourselves. So we either need to implement new procedures and new processes, we need to get some help, or something needs to change fundamentally in the business in order to get us to that next level. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of breaking through your sales plateau. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: It’s so good to be here again with you David, and as always, I’m very excited about this topic. I know businesses that hit these thresholds. It can be a monumental task to get to the next level and they’re not sure how to do it. Is it, is it marketing? Is it adding new products? I think that’s what a lot of them try to do. They’re like, well, let’s add 10 more products to the lineup and then we’ll do it. And oftentimes that can just make the situation worse and not better. David: Yeah, it’s true. Most businesses, I think it’s safe to say, at some point run into some sort of plateau. They hit a level of sales and they can’t get past it. I believe in small businesses this is particularly true, where you’re just working and pushing and you’re trying to get to that next benchmark. And you just can’t reach it. And there are thresholds, I believe in small business, getting to your first hundred thousand in gross sales and then your first 250, and then you hit 500 and then a million and then 2 million and going from there. And in the early stages, you can generally do pretty well, like to get from a hundred thousand to 250 is often easier than it is to get from a million to 2 million. But most of us, at some point, will encounter some sort of sales plateau. You get there, you see it, you’re targeting it, you’re working toward it and you just can’t seem to hit it. And so it’s really just a matter of getting stuck. It’s like, I feel like I’m stuck and I’m here and I need to be here and I’m not sure what to do next. Jay: Yeah. And I wonder how much of it is that they’re not really sure how they got to the first plateau. I mean, they may think that they know, David: That’s true. Jay: But it could be something completely different. And this could go back to something we talked about in a previous podcast: following up with your customers. Find out why they purchased, how they feel about their purchase. Are they returning customers? Are they not returning customers? So if you didn’t understand why they bought in the first place and how they felt about that purchase, it’s going to be hard breaking through that next plateau. David: It is, absolutely. And the biggest hangup that I see for most people is not knowing, “what do I do next?” And as you indicated, people get to a certain point in some cases, they’re not sure how they did it. What’s that referred to as? Unconscious competence? Jay: Mm-hmm, David: Where I’m doing things and it’s working, but I’m not even sure of what I’ve done. So I haven’t gotten around to building a system around it to put that into place so I can replicate it. But there’s also the idea that what gets me to here will not necessarily get me to here. Right? So what gets me to level one won’t necessarily get me to level two. That’s not always the case, particularly in the early stages, you can do more of what you’re doing to get to a higher level. But generally, at some point, we hit a sales plateau that is created by the fact that we can’t run any faster. We can’t do any more by ourselves. So we either need to implement new procedures and new processes. Or we need to get some help. Or something needs to change fundamentally in the business, in order to get us to that next level. Jay: Yeah, something that can be very hard for people, delegation, right? Letting go of your baby, right? David: Yeah. Jay: That you worked so hard on. And now you’re going to trust some new employee with some new aspect. It’s not easy to hand those things over. But often, if you’re not willing to do it, you’re not going to grow. David: That’s true. And some people don’t want to. Some people are like, okay, look, I don’t want to have employees. I’m comfortable with the way things are. And if they are, then that’s fine. If they want to get to another level of sales though, then it’s really going to be a lot more about processes. If you’re determined not to get additional help, at least in terms of human resources, then you’re going to have to figure things out in terms of either techn

From a sales mindset connection standpoint, market domination starts with the idea that it’s possible. And if you’re not sure that it’s possible, ask yourself this, your very best clients. When they think about who to go to for the products and services you offer, who do they think about? Obviously, if they’re your very best clients, it’s you. They’re thinking about you. So you’ve already achieved a level of mindset or market domination with your very best clients. That demonstrates that it can be done. So then it’s a matter of saying, okay, well, how can we do this with other people? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of the sales mindset connection. Welcome Bianca. Bianca: Thank you so much, David. Very happy to be here with you. And I’m just curious, what do you say to people who think mindset is woo-woo? David: Yeah, there are a lot of people who feel that way. To some extent, I’ve been one of them. And in fact, Bianca is our newest addition to our team here at Top Secrets. She and I actually met in a clubhouse group years ago, and we were talking about the idea of mindset there. And I said, well, I’m not really all that much into mindset. Most of my training is about the specifics of what to do. And Bianca said to me, well, I don’t think so. Everything you talk about is pretty much mindset related. And I didn’t realize it at the time, but it really kind of opened my eyes to the fact that, yeah, a lot of what we do, even though it’s not geared to be about mindset, is about mindset. So the whole woo-woo thing really kind of touches a nerve with me because I felt that way in the past. It’s like, oh, mindset, well, no, you just need to do the stuff. But the reality of the situation is that if you don’t have the right mindset, if you’re not willing to take the necessary actions, then you’re not going to be able to get there. So it seems to me there’s always a mindset element that has to be there, whether or not you really want to think about it. Bianca: That’s so true. And you know, for me, it’s great to see that. I mean, you have this ability to connect with people on another level and that’s, you know, congrats to you for having this mindset. Fantastic. David: Well, thanks. And so do you. And that’s actually how we started communicating was in this clubhouse group and so when we connected again recently, I just thought it would be so great to have you on our team because I know that that’s an important aspect of what you do and your communication with people has been great. So I’m really glad we’ve been able to put this together. But for most salespeople, it seems to me that mindset may be in the back of their mind. They may be thinking about it, but for the most part, they’re probably just thinking, How do I make this next sale? How do I make this next contact? And so while I don’t think you have to spend a ton of time thinking about mindset every day, just recognize that if you don’t at least have it going on somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re probably not going to do the work you have to do in order to get it started. Bianca: Yeah, that’s so right. And I know you talk a lot about the first contact and what that means, but please tell me, you know, why do you think the mindset is so important when having the first contact with your potential client? David: Well, first contact is difficult for a lot of people, and a lot of people think of first contact as just being cold calls. And that’s one example of first contact. And in those situations, mindset is really hard for some people. J just the idea of the fear of picking up the phone is an issue for people, which is all a mindset thing. If they can’t get past that, if they can’t Overcome the mental blocks that are involved in having to pick up the phone and initiate contact with a stranger, then it’s definitely going to impact them. But it doesn’t just mean for cold calls. Some people feel the same way about a social media post. I’m posting something, I’m kind of afraid to put it out there, I’m a little nervous about it. And until you get to the point where you can get your mindset working for you, you’re not going to be successful with it. It reminds me of that quote from William Shakespeare, who said, Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. And what that means to me is that if we’re afraid to do things, we’re not going to take the actions, and then it’s impossible to get the results because you’re not taking the actions. Bianca: Wow. With that, I have another question. I think that’s important for people to hear as well. Like what are the mindset

Staying in touch with prospects is required, and creating value in your communication is certainly something that will keep you from being a pest in sales. Because if what you’re saying to them is going to help them to accomplish a result, they’ll be a lot more likely to pay attention to it. But ultimately it’s required. You can’t just skip it. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of staying in touch without being a pest. Welcome back, Bianca. Bianca: Thanks so much, David. And wow, such a topic. Please tell us, why is it so critical to stay in touch? David: Well, I think for anyone who is in sales, you recognize that you’re probably not going to sell something in one call. You’re going to need to have multiple points of outreach, multiple contacts with a prospect or client before you’re going to be able to make that first sale, let alone the second or third or fourth. So staying in touch is obviously a critical part. of the process, being able to reach out to them on an ongoing basis without coming across as annoying or without coming across as what most people would describe in sales as a pest. I think this is something that more salespeople tend to think of than prospects or clients. I mean, unless you’re really annoying, right? In which case they may think you’re a pest. What I’ve heard from a lot of salespeople is this exact thing. How do I Remain in touch with the people that I need to be in touch with without being a pest. And so again, I think that’s why this topic is such an important one. Bianca: Now that’s, that’s absolutely so right. And that leads me to my next question, like what do you think people mean when talking about being a pest? David: I think the concern is what’s going on in their head, what they’re thinking about. If I’m a salesperson and I’m going into any interaction with another human being with the idea that I want them to buy something. If that’s my motivation, then it’s likely I may be thinking in the back of my mind, oh, I hope I’m not being a pest about this, But, If you can make it about the person that you’re interacting with, then it’s totally different because now you’re not just there to sell them a product. You’re there to try to help them with whatever it is that they’re trying to do. So if you’re selling custom imprinted promotional products, you’re not just selling them something that has their logo on it, you’re selling them awareness or you’re selling them more sales in their business, or you’re selling them the idea of being in front of more people. So when you think of it in terms of what it actually delivers for them, it makes it a lot better for you. Bianca: Well, that’s so true. And yes, absolutely right. But what about, you know, because this is a sensitive topic as well. And what if you’re afraid to make those calls? What if you’re afraid to send that first message or you just think you can do it? David: That goes back to mindset, which I know we’ve talked about in previous podcasts as well. But I think if you’re in sales, you recognize that you have to do it, right? There’s no alternative. You have to be able to reach out. Now, it doesn’t have to be a phone call. It doesn’t have to be a networking event. It doesn’t have to be an ad on social media. It can be lots of different things. So I think if you recognize that there are different things that you can do, and you can find out something that is more comfortable for you, that will certainly help. If you also think about the concept that we’ve talked about in the past about creating value in your communication, that is certainly something that will keep you from being a pest, because if what you’re saying to them is going to help them to accomplish a result. They’re going to be a lot more likely to pay attention to it, but ultimately it’s required. You can’t just skip it. So I think it’s a matter of asking yourself, what do I have to do? And how do I have to present myself in a way that is going to allow me to feel good about what it is that I’m saying to this person? Bianca: Wow. And at the end of the day, it’s all related to the mindset. Love it. And please tell us, David, what’s the best way for people to reach out to us? David: Well, the best way to go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with us to find out. Okay. If you need to be able to reach out to people on an ongoing basis, and you’re either not comfortable doing it, or you’d like to maybe automate some of that, or you’d like to be able to do it in different ways so that you’re not coming across like a pest, we would be happy to have that discussion wi

There are steps involved with making prospects and clients comfortable with you. You can’t go from, “I have no idea who you are,” to “I’m completely comfortable with you and I trust you implicitly” without steps. It just doesn’t happen. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of making prospects and clients comfortable with you. Welcome back, Bianca. Bianca: Thank you so much, David. Definitely one of my favorite topics. And please tell us, what does it take to make prospects comfortable with us? David: Yeah, that’s sort of a magic key, isn’t it? What does it take? Well, I think it takes desire, certainly starts with the desire to want to do it, because a lot of times we’re just so focused on selling what it is that we want to sell that we don’t really think about that too much. We just think in terms of introducing ourselves and letting them know what we do and hoping that they’re going to want to buy it. But so much of that, can never really happen until and unless we get to the point where they’re comfortable enough to even want to hear what it is that we have to offer. Bianca: Well, that’s absolutely great. And yeah, I definitely agree with you. So who do we need to do this with? David: Pretty much everyone, pretty much every prospect, every client we ever interact with, we need to create a level of comfort. In some of my early training, I talked about sort of four levels, if you picture a target with archery practice it’s a series of rings and outside the rings, there’s this area outside the target. That I think of as total obscurity. They don’t know who you are. They don’t know what you do. They have no idea why they should do business with you at all. So that’s sort of outside the target. And then the first level inside the target is recognition. They recognize that you’re alive. They recognize that you’re taking in air on the planet, but they don’t know exactly what you do or how you do it, or if they should use you at all. They just recognize you. Okay, I recognize you. So you move from obscurity to recognition. That’s sort of the first step. And then after they recognize you, then you can start to move to comfort. Because until I even know who you are, there’s no way I’m going to feel comfortable with you. So there’s that next level. So you move from obscurity to recognition, and then recognition to comfort. And then from Comfort, you can eventually, if you do your job well and consistently, you can get to loyalty, right? We didn’t even talk about loyalty in the topic today, but ultimately that’s kind of the goal. And Comfort is one of the steps we need to get through in order to get to any sort of level of customer loyalty. But when we talk about making prospects and clients feel comfortable with us, it really is a process. And in our total market domination training, we talk about different methods of interaction. In other words, we have entry level awareness. So entry level awareness is designed to make someone aware of the fact that we exist and we do what we do. From there, we can then move on to that comfort level awareness, which is designed to expand the relationship a little more. Okay, I know who you are, I know what you do, and now I feel comfortable enough with you to place that first time order with you. And then once that happens, if I deliver well and consistently, and then you order again, and I deliver well and consistently, then eventually that can lead to loyalty. But I think a lot of it goes to recognizing that there are steps involved here. You can’t go from, I have no idea who you are, to I’m completely comfortable with you and I trust you implicitly. It just doesn’t happen. Bianca: Wow. And that’s a great answer, but I know for some people it may be like a lot. So how do we really do it? David: How do we create that level of comfort? Bianca: Yes. David: A lot of it comes from our interactions and asking ourselves, how can we create value in our communications with people? If all we’re talking about is what we do and how we do it and why people should buy from us, we’re going to lose them. It’s like, you’ve lost me at hello. So creating that level of comfort is about finding out about them, finding out what they need, what they like, what they’re looking to accomplish, and then not even trying to sell them anything until we’ve determined that they have some sort of a need. I That gets into a whole qualification procedure and things like that, which is the subject of another podcast. But that level of comfort, it requires interaction, requires having conversations with people that let them know that you’re a human being and you’re there to help. And if you can

Once you outperform your competitors in terms of the way that you do things, the way that you make your presentations, the way that you interact with your clients, the way that you follow up and service them — when you’re already outperforming your other competitors in that area, then the only thing you can really do is focus on how can I outperform my previous performance? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of outperforming your top competitor. Welcome back, Bianca. Bianca: Thanks so much, David. So happy to be here with you. And what are we talking about? And what does that mean to outperform your top competitor? David: Yeah, great question. For a lot of people, we kind of feel like we need to do it. We want to do it, but we’re not quite sure how or what or even who they are. So, what it means to me is that we are doing a better job at the things that need to be done to be able to deliver a positive result for our clients. So outperforming a top competitor means that we’re doing it better. We’re doing it differently. And we’re able to convey that to people in a way where they understand it. They understand that there’s a difference between the way that we deliver things and the way that other people deliver things. Bianca: Wow, that’s absolutely fantastic. And, you know, thanks for bringing so much awareness because yeah, it’s a lot of confusion around this topic. And you mentioned something about who our competitor is. So how do you even determine who that is? David: For a lot of people, when you’re out there in the market and you’re talking to people about buying your products and services, they’ll say, Oh, well, I deal with this person or I deal with that person. So that’s a good way to find out who your top competitors are. Because if you keep hearing the same names over and over again, that’s a pretty good indication that they’re a top competitor. Also, very often when we’re starting out in a market, we may be aware of sort of the big dog in the market, the person who is already recognized as a leader. So, you may just know when you’re going in the person who does the most advertising or who seems to be the best known in the marketplace. That’s also a good way to determine, okay, this might be one of my top competitors. Ultimately, we need to decide who we see as our top competitors. But that’s really just the starting point. Because I think that people make a big mistake when they focus on outperforming other people as their top competitors versus getting to the point where they ultimately have to outperform themselves, right? So I think ultimately we want to get to a point where we are our own top competitor that we’re trying to outperform. Because once you’ve outperformed your other competitors in terms of the way that you do things, the way that you make your presentations, the way that you interact with your clients, the way that you follow up and service them. When you’re already outperforming your other competitors in that area, then the only thing you can really do is focus on how can I outperform my previous performance? Bianca: Wow, that’s absolutely a great answer. And I heard there a lot of hows. So how do you really outperform your top competitor? David: Well, a lot of it has to do with determining what is it that we’re saying to people. How are we saying it? How often are we saying it? So it really boils down to a lot of our interactions with our clients. How often we’re communicating with them, the very specific things that we’re saying. The way that we’re performing. Are we able to deliver what they’re looking for in a timely manner? Can we provide better quality products than our competitors? So a lot of it is really looking at the specifics of the job itself that needs to get done, and the way that we do those things. So, I think when most people think in terms of outperforming their top competitor, they might think in terms of, I want to be able to make more money than they do, or I want to be able to have more clients than they do. And while that’s true, the how of it is really what’s most important. It comes from the things that you’re going to be doing with them in order to create the better results so that they go to you instead of to your competitor. Bianca: Wow, that’s such great information. And I think people just listening to this podcast are going to have more awareness of how to deal with this topic because, it’s definitely not an easy one. And I think it’s important to talk about what if you’re not convinced you can do it. And I know you talk a lot about this, so please, tell us something. David: Well, we touched on mindset in a previous podcast. So some of it does come down to

Brute force selling usually comes about when someone feels like they have to sell their product or service, regardless of the needs, wants, or desires of their prospect. The alternative is better understanding, relationship building, and effective qualification. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of brute force selling. Welcome, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I know we’ve talked about a lot of different issues, you know, generating leads and those types of things. I’m very anxious to talk about this brute force. When I hear it, as a customer, I’m like “brute for selling? What exactly do you mean here?” Because I might want to run away from it. The Case Against Brute Force Selling David: Yeah, well, I’m not really here today to advocate for brute force selling, okay? So, definitely not my first choice, but it seems to me like there are so many people, so many industries that tend to engage in it, that I thought we should probably have the discussion. Jay: Yeah. I mean, nothing could be worse than chasing potential clients away. I think there’s a fine line between brute force and still trying to help customers understand the importance of your products and using good sales techniques. It’s really a fine line. Isn’t it? David: It is. There’s definitely a balance. And I think there’s a big difference between persistence and brute force selling. But to get to the core of it. I think one of the biggest problems that a lot of small business owners and salespeople have today is that they think in terms of selling. I have to sell this product, or I have to sell this idea. I have to sell this concept. I have to sell this customer. “I have to sell,” being the main thing. When you’re approaching someone for the first time with the idea of, “I have to sell,” it’s easy to slip into the wrong gear about trying to push what you have onto them before you’ve even identified, whether they have a need desire, money, budget, willingness to spend, any of those things. When I think in terms of brute force selling, to me, it’s often about people who have gotten into sales. They’ve been given maybe a lead sheet or in the old days, it was a phone book by their manager who said, “Go make sales. Knock yourself out.” And when you don’t know how to do that well, then trying to sort of push or bully or cajole people into buying from you becomes the default. So when the focus is just on sales as the first, middle, and end of the process, it’s kind of a lose/lose for both the salesperson and the prospect. Also for the company. So it’s a lose all the way around. Effective Qualification is the Key If we can train salespeople on the idea of first determining need, identifying whether or not this person is a good candidate for what we’re selling. I mean, we’re really just talking about qualifying. And a lot of salespeople and even a lot of sales managers fail to make the distinction between qualification and selling. When we’re qualifying somebody, we’re not trying to convince or persuade them to buy our stuff. We’re trying to find out if our stuff even makes sense for them. And what I’ve seen over the years is that there are a lot of salespeople who waste enormous amounts of time pushing and trying to sell to people who have absolutely no capability even to buy what it is that they’re selling. Without taking that step back and saying, okay, let’s do a little qualification first. Let’s find out what this person is dealing with, and what sort of help they need. And if I can even help them, if you do that first, then you can find out pretty quickly if somebody is a good prospect for you or not. And if they’re not, then rather than trying to push them into buying something that they don’t want or can’t afford you can thank them for their time. And you can actually move on and get in front of somebody who has a much better likelihood of doing business with you. Jay: Yeah. So you’re not wasting your time. I love this idea. I also think that qualifying them in advance will help you with the sales process because you’re going to be able to identify pain points. You’re going to build a relationship with them while you’re trying to qualify them. And so that can help you potentially close the sale later on. If you just dive in and try and close instantly, you’re probably lessening the chances that you’re going to accomplish that goal. David: No question. And I think there’s also in a lot of businesses, the element of preparation. Laying the groundwork ahead of time. Marketing. Creating an environment in which the people you’re approaching may be aware of you even before you meet them. Right? A

Just the idea of initiating first contact versus cold calling is a lot more exciting. It’s a lot less intimidating in most cases. I started using that phrase after I saw an old Star Trek movie where they referred to first contact as being your first contact with an alien species. And I just thought, wow, that has a lot of correlations with sales. Where you’re approaching somebody and you really don’t know what you’re getting into. Strange new worlds and all that sort of thing…. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of initiating first contact with a new prospect. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: I’m so glad to be here, David, and I’m excited to talk about this issue because to me, personally, this is one of the hardest things to do. I’m fine once that first contact has been made. I feel like I’m really good at building relationships and closing. David: Mm-hmm. Jay: But I’m terrified about making that first contact and I’m not really sure how to do it. So I find myself shooting in the dark all the time trying to figure it out. David: Yeah, well, you’re certainly not alone. I’ve certainly felt that way myself, and nearly everybody I’ve ever met in sales has had issues with it. And we talked about this in a previous podcast. We were talking about cold calling and the idea that cold calling is really just one form of first contact. And so the reason I thought it would be good to have a discussion on the topic of First Contact itself is to first of all, recognize that, yeah, it’s more than just cold calling. There are lots of different aspects to it. And if you realize that, then you also realize that you can get comfortable with first contact, generally by engaging in a first contact method that is more comfortable for you. So if cold calling is not your primary thing, you have other alternatives and that should maybe give you a little bit of hope. Jay: Yeah, that does give me hope and I think the key is to know what the possibilities are. Because like I said, sometimes I’m like, okay, my only option is to cold call, and that’s not working. So really understanding what are the other options available. And the other thing I found is, lately I’m better at cold calling because you force yourself to do it enough and you can build a skill and you can get over the hump at least I’m finding that. David: Yeah, absolutely. And when you are good at cold calling, and there are a lot of people who are very good at it, there are a lot of people who actually really like it. They don’t even struggle with the call reluctance and that sort of thing, but for those who do struggle with it, I think just discussing this idea of first contact is going to be helpful. And if we think about why first contact is really so important, in my mind at least, it’s because it really helps to set the stage for the entire relationship. Whatever it is that they’re going to learn about us or think about us down the road, it’s all going to come from what that first contact is. If it’s a great experience, they’re going to have good feelings about us. If it’s less than a great experience, then they’re not going to feel as great about it. Since it sets the tone, it’s really important that people become comfortable with it, or at least come up with a form of first contact that they can be reasonably comfortable with. Jay: Yeah. It’s such a great line of thinking. I hadn’t really thought about it that, that first moment, maybe the first five minutes, David: Right. Jay: That could determine the whole lifespan of the relationship. How they view you. How they respond to your sales pitch. Everything. It’s kind of like we do it in life. First impressions, we know, are everything. Right? David: Exactly. And now there are so many different forms of first contact. For somebody you’ve never met, their first contact with you could be something they saw that you posted on social media. They may be scrolling on Facebook and they come across something that you posted, and that’s their first contact with you. You may not even realize this stuff is happening. But when you recognize that it could be happening, and it very likely is happening, then you can start to really think through the communications that you’re engaged in, and how you want to utilize them so that you can create a good, solid first contact, even when you don’t even know for sure that that’s what you’re doing. Jay: Mm, it’s really great. I think that you can do this on social media now. I always thought of first contact as a phone call, but what if first contact is, they’re watching that video I posted on YouTube. Or they’re watching this podcast that we’re doing right now. They form a fr

Most marketing messages and business communications are bland, directionless, and dull as dishwater. They lack a clear marketing voice. If you’re sending out emails that don’t get a response or leaving voicemail messages that are largely ignored, take a look at what you’re putting out. I can virtually guarantee it’s missing one or more of the Five Elements of a Compelling Marketing Voice. If you’ve ever wondered what’s missing from your marketing — what causes it to be ignored rather than acted upon, It may very well be one of the 5 things we’re about to discuss. First is a clear target: Knowing exactly who you’re reaching out to and why. Every communication you put out should be written as if it’s to one person, even if it’s going out to dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people. Think of one particular prospect or client you know well. Pick someone you communicate with most authentically, who could be representative of this group, and then write as if you’re writing to that person. Go back over it before you send it, of course, and make sure it applies to the entire group, but if you write as if you’re writing to just one person, it will be far more effective. This leads right into the second thing which may be missing, which is “you” centered communication. Have a look at the messages you’re putting out — the emails and texts you’re sending. Listen to yourself as you’re leaving a voicemail message and see how many of your sentences start with or contain the the word “I” vs. the word “you.” “Hi, I was just calling because I’d like to set up a time to get together and go over some ideas I had for you.” You may not realize it, but that simple sentence had 3 I’s before it ever got to a “you.” That ratio, 3:1, is completely off. Whenever possible, your communication should lead with them, be centered around them, and refer to them… a lot. That means using the word “you,” more than “I” or “me.” A third thing that might be missing is good, old fashioned, conversational English. Many marketers and salespeople, for some reason, slip into formal “corporate speak” the moment they start writing a letter or email. Dear Mr. Phillips, pursuant to our conversation of Thursday, March 1st, I herewith enclose a detailed proposal incorporating my primary, secondary and tertiary suggestions, recommendations and guidance for your impending client promotion of April 15th. That’s one side of the coin. The other is those who are too informal. If you’ve ever received an email with no punctuation, no sentence structure or capitalization — either all lower case or even worse, all upper case (which is seen by most as shouting) — you know what I’m talking about. In both cases, the solution is the same: conversational English. While some clients prefer a more formal approach and some a less formal approach, you can always adapt your conversational English to their preferences without taking it to either of the two extremes we just discussed. Fourth is a personality or point of view. Each of us is unique, so whenever possible, it’s good to convey the most positive aspects of our personality in our communication. This further humanizes our message and creates a better bond with the person who’s receiving it. The Fifth element which may be missing is interest or passion. How can you make what you’re saying as interesting as possible to the recipient? Are you excited or passionate about your ability to help your client? If so, be sure to allow some of that excitement to show through in your choice of words in a written communication and your tone of voice in spoken communication. This element is very compatible with the previous points, because when you infuse interest or passion, conveying your own personality, into a “you” centered communication, in conversational English to a clear target, it makes all of your communication more clear, compelling and authentically your own. Ready to Put the 5 Elements of a Compelling Marketing Voice to Work for You? If so, go to TopSecrets.com/call or check out some of the other ways we can help: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry. Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about cr

In today’s episode in our professional profile series, David Blaise and Bianca Istvan discuss business growth strategies designed to improve results, including sequencing your communication with Carlos Mestas, CEO of Thrivebox, which specializes in helping entrepreneurs establish business credit to access funding solutions, Alan Watts, known as the Love Engineer, who offers dating and relationship coaching services, and Paul Loubao, owner of PCL Housing Commerce, who focuses on investments, sales, and education in the real estate industry. After sharing what’s working well and what’s creating challenges, the focus turned to the importance of sequencing communication as part of your sales and marketing strategies. Reaching and impacting potential clients has evolved over the years, making it necessary to engage with prospects differently than before, using the communication channels they prefer. Some of the topics discussed include: The effectiveness of marketing strategies in connecting with the right clientele The importance of a multi-faceted approach, utilizing social media, face-to-face, and online networking to engage with clients The difficulty of gaining trust with new prospects Changing the mindset of people who may have previously been burned in other transactions We also discussed adaptation, trust-building, and proactive engagement as pivotal factors when navigating the challenges of business growth. Ready to Communicate More Effectively and Improve Your Sales Results? If so, go to TopSecrets.com/call or check out some of the other ways we can help: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry. Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

Most people I know in business want to get results. But how do you get your desired results fast? They’re always thinking about new things, focusing on new ideas, determined to get the results they’re looking for, and sometimes it takes a lot longer than they’d like. When you consider the business people you know, it’s likely that some of them might have achieved amazing results since you last spoke with them, while others seem stuck or unable to move forward. In each of these situations, their results probably have a lot less to do with their goals, mindset, plans, or ever their determination than you might think. Instead, it’s largely about their speed of implementation. How quickly are they making things happen? Speed of implementation is about how quickly we can iterate, reiterate, try things, fail and then try more things so we can get to the actions that work. How fast can you get from an idea to an action to a result that can be measured? The faster we do these things, the faster we find out what works and what doesn’t. In a previous podcast, we talked about the three primary stages of this. Starting with the idea, moving to the action which then generates the result. Each time we generate a new idea, we either go through that process to take an action and get a result, or we kill it off in the idea stage. We fail to take action on it, and then our results are determined by the actions we didn’t take. The FTDs. The things we failed to do. Of course our speed of implementation applies to our activities, but it’s also dependent on outside factors, like the response of others. In sales, we can provide someone with a quote today, but we can’t control when or even if they’ll respond. But even in these cases, we’re far better off doing our part now, rather than later, because we’re getting the wheels of action in motion. And the sooner we take action on our ideas, the sooner we see the results of that action, so we can determine our next steps. Also, when I talk about speed of implementation, I’m not talking about rushing through things. Instead, I’m just talking about tightening up the time between the idea and the action. Reducing the gaps between ideas and implementation. And even with this, we have to be careful. I’m not suggesting we should be impulsive and just act on every idea that pops into our heads. Of course, we need time to evaluate those ideas, determine which are worthy of action and which aren’t, and prioritize them, so we’re acting on what we believe are the best ideas first. But very often, this can happen a lot faster than we think. We each have a certain tempo, a speed at which we do things. I grew up on the east coast of the United States. We have a bit of a reputation for speaking fast and acting fast. When I’m excited about an idea, I tend to speak even faster. It’s not always an advantage. So once again, I’m not suggesting we rush through things. We still need to take time to listen, think, and deliberate. But once we’ve made that decision to move forward on something, our speed of implementation will be a huge determining factor in our results. Sometimes procrastination plays a role, sometimes it’s fear, or dread, or indecision, and each of these things can significantly delay the amount of time it takes to get to the things we want. Have you ever put off doing something for a week or a month that literally ended up taking maybe 45 minutes to an hour to complete? Sometimes we spend more time dreading something than it takes to complete it. Of course, just taking action doesn’t mean we’ll get the desired result. But if we don’t, we’ll know that sooner, so we can evaluate our options and take a different action. When we start to get good at this – at reducing the time between our ideas and our action – we can literally get results from four, five, or even ten or more different actions, while our competitors are still trying to figure out what they should do first. Speed of implementation is a powerful accelerant for intelligent, thoughtful action. If you need to make things happen better and faster in your business, go to topsecrets.com/call to schedule a call with myself or our team. If you’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, then this is the perfect time to put speed of implementation to work for you! Reduce the time between the idea and the action by going to topsecrets.com/call right now. Schedule the soonest opening we have, and start getting better results in your business right away. Again, that’s topsecret.com/call. Ready to Get Your Desired Results Fast? If so, go to TopSecrets.com/call or check out some of the other ways we can help: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry v

Today I’d like to talk to you about the three most likely points of failure in a sales process. First is Almost Always Targeting. This means trying to go too big, or too wide, or too deep, too fast. If you think the world is your market, okay, but the problem is it’s very unlikely that you have enough money to market to everyone. For that reason, you have to get your targeting dialed in. It’s like what Benjamin Martin said in the movie The Patriot. Aim small, miss small, because when you think you’re targeting everyone, it’s really more likely that you’re not targeting anyone. Like the old proverb said, he who chases two rabbits catches none. Another issue with targeting everyone is that not everyone is a good prospect for you. Many people have no need, no desire, no money, no budget, no willingness to spend. So if you’re targeting everyone, or you’re targeting poorly, you’ll have to kiss a lot of frogs, as the saying goes, to find your prince or princess. But that’s qualification. We’ll discuss that another time. The Second Most Likely Point of Failure in Your Sales Process is Your First Contact with a Prospect. And a lot of people confuse their first contact with their actual sales process. For example, in live seminars, I’ll often ask an audience, What’s your sales process? How do you get new customers through the door like clockwork? They’ll often shout out things like, Networking, Cold Calling, Facebook, LinkedIn. But the ones who are almost always more proud of their answers than anyone else are those who shout out the word, Referrals. They often look with disdain on those who offer other answers. And yes, referrals are fantastic, but referrals, just like all the others, are just a method of lead generation for your first contact with a prospect. Like networking, cold calling, social media, and all the other forms of first contact, none of them are a sales process. At best, they’re all just the first step in a sales process. Now, since your first contact will very likely set the stage as the basis of your relationship with the prospect going forward, you have to make it count. You only get one chance to make a first impression, right? Because so little time, effort, and training are ever focused on it, first contact remains one of the biggest points of failure in the sales process. The Third Point of Failure in the Sales Process is The Path. What happens after you initiate first contact with a new prospect? What’s step two? What’s step three? What’s step four? Do you just wing it? Because many salespeople just wing it. They refer to their winging it as following up, and it’s usually about as rudderless and nondescript as it sounds. Often, it just means staying in touch. Naturally, staying in touch is necessary in business. But how much more effective is it when you have a plan, when you actually have a path, when you have objectives, benchmarks, or a process to follow along the way? Of course, every prospect is different. Every single conversation you have is different. So it’s not like you’re going to be able to control every aspect of the sales process. But if you have a path, at least you know what you need to accomplish and you have something to return to if and when your prospects start wandering off in another direction — which they inevitably will. Without a clear path, without those benchmarks that you know you need to hit to complete the sale, you can end up lost and walking in circles for a really long time. That’s why a clear path is so critical to your success. And it’s why not having one is often a critical point of failure. These are just the first three, but they’re big. So if you need help fixing any or all of these in your business, or anything that might be causing you trouble, go to TopSecrets.com/help to see how we can help. That’s TopSecrets.com/help. Ready to Eliminate the Primary Points of Failure in Your Business? If so, go to TopSecrets.com/call or check out some of the other ways we can help: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry. Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

Ready to get and qualify leads in your business? If so, be sure to check out this episode in the Professional Profile series. In today’s episode, David Blaise and co-host Bianca Istvan discuss business growth and qualification strategies with real estate developer Daniel Wick, financial services provider Joseph Lombardi, and content creator Sufian Malik. Topics include effective strategies for building a personal brand, nurturing client relationships, and streamlining the qualification process in sales. The panel also make the following recommendations: Utilize short-length content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels to effectively build a personal brand and connect with audiences. Implement a strong qualification process in sales to quickly identify qualified leads and avoid wasting time with unqualified prospects. Leverage CRM systems and nurturing processes to expedite sales processes and build long-term client relationships. Focus on creating value-driven communication and automating follow-up sequences to maintain persistence without being perceived as overly aggressive. Prioritize building personal connections with clients in order to foster trust and loyalty, especially in industries like real estate where relationships are paramount. Embrace technology and automation tools such as AI chatbots to streamline business operations and enhance customer engagement. In addition, the panelists shared valuable insights and practical tips for managing client relationships, handling difficult clients, and maintaining persistence without being perceived as overly aggressive. They underscored the importance of creating value-driven communication, automating follow-up sequences, and focusing on long-term client relationships. Need to Get and Qualify More Leads in Your Business? If so, go to TopSecrets.com/call or check out some of the other ways we can help: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry. Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

Over the years, I have met and talked to many broke experts. People who are exceptional at what they do, but struggling to pay bills because they can’t get enough customers. This is not a function of who they are as people. It’s not a reflection of their work. It’s also not a mindset issue. Instead, it’s entirely about the fact that being exceptionally good at what you do, and being able to get enough of the customers or clients you need are two completely different skill sets. I can’t tell you how many business owners I’ve talked to over the years who are exceptional at what they do, but they can’t get enough customers. I’ve met: Chefs who make amazing food, but can’t get enough people into their restaurants to keep the lights on. Real estate agents who know their markets in and out, they’re great with people, can handle all the details, but can’t get enough clients to pay their bills. Artists who have amazing skills, but who never mastered the art of customer acquisition, so their actual art remains largely unseen. Printers who have taken out loans to invest enormous amounts of money in equipment that just sits there, because they don’t know how to get enough of the customers and clients they need to feed the machines. This week, I heard from a life coach, whose story really touched me, because she knows she could really help people, but she’s struggling to get the clients she needs. Here’s what she said, “I am a good coach but there are no clients for me. I feel profoundly sad for not being financially independent. I am a good person, I do personal growth, I am a really good coach and yet I can not pay the bills and have a lovely and happy life. Why does it have to be so hard?” In each of these situations, the most important thing to recognize is that there is a huge difference between being exceptionally good at the technical aspects of a job — like cooking, selling homes, creating art, printing stationary or coaching people who need help — and being able to get enough of the customers or clients who need those products and services. They are two completely different skill sets. There are many exceptional writers in the world, but as Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad once said, “On the top of my books it’s written *Best-Selling Author* & not *Best-Writing Author*”. Two different things. So today I’d like to share with you, what I shared with this coach. And it applies to any business that is great at what they do, but that struggles to get enough of the customers or clients it needs to thrive. If you’re great at what you do, then you’re halfway there, but this is not a mindset issue. It is a focus issue. So if you want to make the money you need to make, then 100% of your focus and learning now need to be on 3 things. It’s what I call the MVPs of Marketing & Sales. If you’ve heard this from me before, but you’re not yet earning what you think you’re worth, then please, listen again. In sports, MVP stands for Most Valuable Player. In Marketing and Sales, MVP stands for Message, Vehicles and People. Specifically: What is the marketing (M)essage you need to convey about your product or service? Which combination of marketing (V)ehicles will you use to communicate your message? And Who are the (P)eople or prospects you need to reach? This begins with having a crystal-clear idea of exactly WHO you want to benefit from what you do. Those are your People. When you know who your people are, then you have to consider exactly what you’ll need to SAY to engage those people. To invite them in. To take advantage of everything you have to offer. That’s your Message. Finally, you need to determine HOW you’ll reach them, in other words, what combination of marketing Vehicles will you use to reach them? This means things like social media posts and comments, direct messaging, phone calls, email, direct mail, networking, door knocking, broadcast ads, billboards, there are thousands of options when it comes to marketing vehicles. The list is endless. But you don’t need an endless list. You just need to decide on a few that you can use to deliver your message. Ultimately, everything you do to get customers or clients from this point forward will only ever be a combination of those three things. Your Message, Your Vehicles and Your People. Get all 3 of those right and you will make the money you need. But if you get just one of them wrong. You’ll continue to struggle. And here’s why… If you have a fantastic marketing message. A message that would make anyone in need of your products and services desperate to do business with you, but you either fail to reach those people with your marketing vehicle — like you post a message that they never see — or, if you get that message in front of people who have no ne

In today’s episode, we discuss the idea of moving from stealth mode to intimidation mode in business. In this episode of the Professional Profile series, David Blaise and co-host Bianca Istvan are joined by a panel of growth-minded business professionals, including David Boyd from Down to Earth Cuisine, author and speaker Oksana Tsimpoaka, Jeff Mount, business development officer from Tactive Wealth, certified brain health coach Stanley Dietrich, and Jaime McCormick, founder & CEO of Skate Angry. The panel discuss the importance of topics including SEO marketing and website optimization, clear targeting, the use of conversational AI and automation, and time management. Throughout the episode, David and Bianca facilitate engaging discussions with the guests, exploring their successes, challenges, and growth strategies. Be sure to check out this episode to see how many of the recommendations you can apply in your business. Ready to Move from Stealth Mode to Intimidation Mode in Your Business? If so, check out the five primary ways we can help: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry. Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

If you’re ready to grow sales and profits, it’s time to take a look at your DKYA Prospects. ?? If you are struggling to reach the level of sales and profit that you need to grow and scale your business, I want to urge you to start thinking about and keeping track of an important metric that you have probably either not considered, or have not focused on addressing on a consistent basis. It’s a number that directly impacts every business in business, and this number either works in your favor, or it works against you. For brand new businesses, this number always starts out high, and much of your early success in any new business venture will come from your ability to reduce this number as quickly as possible. But some businesses, particularly those who are bad at what they do — those who have a terrible reputation — are actually better off making sure this number remains high until you get your internal issues squared away. So what am I talking about here? I’m talking about the very specific number of DKYA Prospects who current exist in your market. Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, I’d like to introduce you to the very important topics of DKYA Prospects. If this topic is brand new to you, then I encourage you to pay very close attention. Even if you’re already somewhat familiar with this concept, I want you to consider the direct impact it will have on your own success and the success of your business. In either event, I will say this, ignore this number at your own peril. First of all, this number is important and relevant whether you’re selling B2B, B2C, B2G, online, offline, some combination thereof, if you’re selling anything to anyone, you need to be aware of this number. Second, this number is a direct reflection of your success or your failure at creating awareness of your business solution inside the market or markets that you have specifically selected. So whether you’re a micro-business, targeting a really small number of customers, or global powerhouse targeting every human on the planet with a pulse, this number will provide a snapshot — like a mini-report card — to tell you how well or how badly you’re doing when it comes to creating awareness of your business, brand or solution. As I indicated earlier, if you’re great at what you do, if you have an excellent reputation, then you will want to focus your efforts on reducing this number as much as possible, as quickly as possible. This means most conscientious business owners who are serious about doing a great job for their customers or clients, are going to want to approach this number like your golf score. Try to get it as close to zero as humanly possible. But if you are not yet doing a great job for your people, if you don’t yet have all of that dialed in, then you’ll want to fix that first. So what am I talking about here when we refer to DKYA Prospects? I’m referring to the very specific number of prospects in your market for the products and service you provide who do Don’t Know You’re Alive: DKYA. For a local restaurant, this would be the number of people within driving distance of that restaurant who might like to eat there, but they don’t know know the place exists. DKYA. For a real estate agent, it’s the number of people inside your target market who might consider engaging you to buy or sell a property, but they can’t because they don’t know you’re alive: DKYA. For a print shop or promotional product business, it’s the number of people inside your own self-identified market – whether you define your market by geography or industry or program specialty or product specialty or some combination thereof – however you define it – it’s the ones who can’t buy from you because they DKYA, don’t know you’re alive. In our work with clients, much of our focus is about creating awareness. It’s about letting the people who could potentially buy from you, know who you are, know what you do, and know you’re alive, so they could make a thumbs up or thumbs down decision about whether or not they’d even like to give you a try. And we do this in a number of ways. It starts with three levels of targeting, designed to get YOU to the people who have the ability to spend the most money with you right now. It continues with creating entry-levels awareness through first contact. This allows you to move people from not knowing you’re alive, to knowing you’re alive. Is that enough to get them to buy? Of course not, but it gets you into their world. It gives you a shot. It creates the possibility of business where no possibility currently exists. From there, it’s about The Path — The Strategic Follow-Up. And no, this does not mean simply badgering people into buying from you. It means building relationships with a solid foundation. Most people “wing it” when it comes to their sales process. Instead, we give you structures and frameworks you can follow so you can know, without a doubt, what your next step should b

Targeting new clients is about more than just identifying the market or markets you plan to sell to. If you want to grow sales using the three levels of targeting, it requires digging deeper to move from an overall idea of your ideal client, right down to the specific individual that you plan to initiate contact with next. In this episode of the Professional Profile series, David Blaise and co-host Bianca Istvan are joined by a panel of growth-minded business professionals, including Rosa Toribio from Power Up, Baz Porter, an entrepreneur focusing on business growth, Chris Weiher from video production company Cleaver Creative, and real estate developer Mohamed Awal Sanis. The guests share insights into their businesses and discuss their approaches to overcoming challenges and targeting the right audience. Topics include raising standards, adapting to economic changes, and personalizing approaches to connect with the right audience. Ready to Leverage Your Targeting to Sell More? If so, check out the five primary ways we can help: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry. Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here. ​

Your First Contact with a new prospect will set the tone for the relationship, which is why it’s so important to make it count. In this first episode of our Professional Profile series, we’ll discuss business growth strategies with our panel. Need to know how to stand out when initiating your first contact with a new prospect, customer or client in sales? Cold calling, networking, and referrals are not your only options. In this episode, co-hosts David Blaise and Bianca Istvan discuss business growth strategies with insurance broker Taylor King, digital marketing expert Frank Demming, and real estate title account executive Brad Demint. The conversation kicked off with each guest sharing insights into their backgrounds and business specialties. Taylor emphasized the importance of networking, both in-person and online, showcasing her diverse approach through platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Frank shed light on the power of LinkedIn as his secret sauce for business growth, emphasizing the transition from online connections to offline relationships. Brad, with his expertise in real estate title, highlighted the significance of effective networking, showcasing his unique approach of planning and hosting events while becoming a connector in the industry. The podcast delved into the critical topic of first contact in business interactions. Taylor stressed the significance of collaboration over competition and the importance of continuous networking. Frank shared how LinkedIn became a game-changer for him, facilitating the transition from online to offline interactions. Brad, known for his effective networking strategies, discussed the value of planning events and becoming a connector to offer value to others. Throughout the episode, the hosts and guests blended insights with real-world experiences. The focus on networking as a central theme highlighted its role as a key growth strategy for the diverse businesses represented on the podcast. To get more ideas on how to increase sales, improve profit margins, and grow your business, be sure to listen or watch this episode of the Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales Professional Profile series. Ready to Multiply Your Sales? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry. Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here. ​

Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will continue our discussion about the AI Approach to Multiply Your Sales. This is part four in our series, and today we’ll be talking about learning, segmenting, and the Three Ds. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I really, really enjoyed this. I know I’ve said that in previous podcasts, but it’s true. After each one, I’ve gone into my own business and I’m like, okay, I got to apply this and apply that because these conversations are of such value. So I appreciate your time. I love this. And hopefully it’s been helpful to everybody else. David: I’m glad, I feel the same way, and I’m really looking at this almost like a mini-course. If people were to put together these four episodes and say, “How much of this stuff am I doing in my business?” You can probably implement some things very quickly that can probably help you get some great results. Jay: 100%. David: All right, so let’s do the quick review. And again, what we’re talking about here is we asked AI what will help you to multiply your business because that’s been a focus of our conversations recently. AI came back with some different responses, and then we’re talking about what AI says and how we’re able to help implement those things in business with our clients. And so let’s just recap. Number one was refine your target audience. Number two, develop a compelling value proposition. Number three, optimize your marketing channels. That was our first episode on that topic. In episode two, we covered points four, five, and six. Number four was enhance your customer experience. Number five, implement a referral program. And number six, leverage the power of content marketing. In episode three of this series, we hit utilize upselling and cross selling strategies, which was number seven. Analyze and optimize your sales funnel, which was number eight, and invest in customer relation management software, CRM, which was number nine. Now we’re going to be doing 10, 11, and 12. Eleven and 12 are really bonus because originally I asked it for 10 and then I realized that doesn’t break out well if you’re doing three in a podcast. So I went back to the AI and I said, give me two more. And it did. So we’ll be talking about numbers 11 and 12 in this podcast as well. So number 10 in the list of things that AI says will help you to multiply your sales is: 10: Continuous learning and adaptation. Stay updated with industry trends, attend relevant workshops or conferences, and be open to adapting your sales strategies to meet changing market demands. Well spoken AI! Continuous education. It’s a good call! Jay: It is, and some professions actually require it. But again, that continuous education is often on a service or a specialty or things like that. It’s not really on customer service or the technology or things like that. I feel like in that regard, so many of us are a hamster on a wheel. You know, we’re just trying to keep up with what today is giving us. We’re putting grease on the squeaky wheel and we don’t have time to really think about staying up on, you know, all the latest trends and those kind of things. David: Yeah. And a lot of people just don’t like continuing education, because they feel like so much of it is platitudes. It’s like, I already know this stuff. I already know it, right? But knowing what to do is very different than knowing how to do it. And that’s really what I’ve been trying to differentiate in this series of podcasts is that, yes, these are great statements. Continuous learning. That sounds great. But what are you learning? Are you learning things that you can implement immediately? Are you putting in place processes that will allow you to start getting results right away so you can gauge those results and then adapt, change, or tweak the process as you go to make sure that it’s working for you? So once again, we’re focusing on all the little details that make these general recommendations profitable. Jay: You know, I don’t know where I get it. I think I get it from my dad, but I am on a never ending quest to make things more efficient. I am always looking for the next software, the next device, the next system. I’ve done it since I was 15. My first job was in a burger barn at an amusement park. And I was watching how they put everything on the grill and what they would do is they’d cover the whole grill with burgers And then they would flip them all at the same time, and then they would pull them all off at the same time, and while they’re preparing them, the grill is sitting there empty. And so the line would move, and then it would stop, and I’m like, this is crazy. Put down two rows, wait a second, put down two, put dow

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will continue our discussion about the AI Approach to Multiply Your Sales. This is episode three in our series, and it’s about upselling, sales funnels, and your CRM. David: Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you, David. This has been fascinating for me as I look at what AI recommends. And even just apply some of those basics to my own business but also realizing that these are kind of general, and figuring out how to apply them to everybody’s individual circumstances is no easy feat. David: Exactly. And one of the things that I’ve really liked about this series is having the opportunity to talk about the “how” of a lot of this stuff, because as business owners, as salespeople, we’ve heard these recommendations forever. But the question is always, “well, how do you go about doing it?” And so what I’ve been trying to do in this series is to say, okay, here’s the general what you ought to do, but then there’s the, how do you go about doing it? And this is exactly what we help our clients with. So it’s been really fun for me to be able to go through these and say, okay, there are probably lots of ways to do these things, but this is how we do it. Because our goal is to simplify it for our clients. So you don’t have to say, Oh, well, should I do this? Should I do that? Should I do this? It’s like, okay. Implement this, gauge the results, see how it goes, report back, if we need to tweak it, if we need to do something different, we can, but you have an instant starting point, and that allows you to get actions taken, get results back quickly, and then be able to adapt as you go. Jay: Yeah, I love that, that you’re able to kind of cut through all of the noise out there because there’s so much noise, and help them identify for their individual situation what they need because they may have asked AI and we have some of those lists here and items from AI, but again, it’s just a starting point. David: Exactly. So let’s take a look at the things that we already discussed in the previous episodes. And once again, what we’re doing here is we asked AI, what are the things that will allow us to multiply our sales? It came back with number one, define your target audience. Number two, develop a compelling value proposition. Number three, optimize your marketing channels. We covered that in previous episodes. Number four was enhance your customer experience. Number five was implement a referral program. Number six was leverage and the power of content marketing. So now in this episode, we’re going to tackle numbers seven, eight, and nine, which is upselling, sales funnels, and your CRM. So let’s get to number seven. 7. Utilize upselling and cross selling strategies: Offer complementary products or services to increase the average transactional value and maximize customer value. What do you think? Jay: Yeah. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I will tell you this was much easier to grasp in my mind when I was in the restaurant business, right? It’s like, you want fries with that? You know, let’s make it a value meal. Let’s make it a, you know, a combo, whatever. I will tell you, we’ve spent a lot of time in my current business identifying what are the other things, other products that we can offer that our customers will want, not things that we can shove down their throat, but what other things can we add that they may be looking for because they came to us? David: Yes, exactly. And I think people hear about upselling and cross selling and they’re like, Oh yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Most people are familiar with the restaurant, the McDonald’s example, “want fries with that.” So it makes sense, but it’s like, okay, how do I apply that to my business? And one of the ways that we help our clients do that is to identify, okay, well, what does this mean? What is upselling versus cross selling and all that sort of thing? And in a nutshell, the way that I view it, upselling is when you’re selling them a better version of the thing that they’re considering buying or a more expensive version of the thing that they’re considering buying. Cross selling is the idea of “want fries with that.” It’s okay. You’re already getting this. This goes with it. Would you like to do that as well? In the promotional products industry, where I do a lot of my work, cross selling is, “ah, you’re buying t shirts, want sweatshirts with that.” Or if you’re buying sweatshirts, want sweatpants with that, right? Want caps with that. Shirts and caps go together, that type of thing. So, It’s pretty simple when we boil it down, and it’s even better and it’s even easier when we turn it into a process so that e

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be continuing our discussion on the AI approach to multiply your sales. This is part two in our series, and today we’ll be discussing service, referrals, and content marketing. David: Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. I’m really enjoying this discussion about AI because I think we’ve already established there are some great tools and resources with AI, but it’s not exactly to the point where it needs to be. But more specifically, can it really speak to your individual situation? How do you pick through that and know what’s right for you? David: Exactly, and last week we were talking about the first three recommendations it made, which were define your target audience, develop a compelling value proposition, and optimize your marketing channels. This week, we’re going to be talking about its next set of recommendations. And it starts with number four on its list is: 4. Enhance Your Customer Experience. Focus on delivering exceptional customer service and creating a positive experience at every touch point to build loyalty and encourage repeat business. That sounds nice. Jay: It sounds fantastic. Again, just do that. You know, but how do you do that? I think I mentioned in the last podcast that so often people go into business not because they’re great at customer service, but because they have a great recipe, or they have a great product. And they don’t really think about how to offer that in a great way. I’m in the accounting field now, which kind of blows my mind and is a different conversation. But I find generally, David, that accountants don’t know how to give good customer service. And they kind of feel like they have a captured audience and so they don’t even try to give good customer service. David: And a lot of accountants also really struggle with marketing because they feel like it’s Jay: Yes, yes. David: Kind of, if not beneath them, they feel uncomfortable with it. They don’t want to come across as a salesperson. They’re very good at what they do and they’re less good at finding the people they need to do that sort of thing. And that’s why a lot of them, a lot of small business accountants struggle, because they’re great at accounting and not so great at the things that we’re talking about here that will actually allow them to service more customers. Jay: Yeah, you’re exactly right. Where I’ve come from, the retail side, the customer service side, that’s been my whole background. So, we’re kind of owning our little space in the marketplace, because we’re focusing on that up front, and people recognize a difference immediately. David: Yeah, exactly. So, one of the things we talked about in the previous podcast related to AI telling us how to multiply sales is that some of these recommendations come across as rather general. Okay, so enhance your customer experience is not really the kind of thing you would think of as “okay, this will allow me to multiply sales.” It’s a necessity. You have to have exceptional customer service in your business if you want to survive, let alone thrive, let alone multiply business. But it doesn’t seem to me to be a multiplier in and of itself. However, when we think about this idea, what can we do to make the experience better, what can we do to expedite the experience, make these things happen better and more consistently, that will allow us to get the velocity we need, in my opinion, to be able to then Multiply your sales. In other words, it’s not enough to just do a great job with customer service. We need to be able to do it with a cadence of accountability. We need to be able to do it in a way where it’s happening consistently. People are able to move through our process, get what they need, feel like they’ve been extremely well taken care of, and then we can move on to the next person. Jay: Yeah, when I hear enhance their customer experience, for some reason, I think of Disneyland, like better rides or better signage or, you know, things like that. It’s very ethereal, like, how do I apply that to my individual experience? I think a key here is that our attention span with TikTok and all of these things is so low. And so when somebody lands on your website or when they’ve picked up a phone to call you, if they’re not moving through that process fast enough, you’re going to lose them. And that’s just the reality of the world that we live in. David: Absolutely. And I think this general idea of enhancing your customer experience is good. And again, some of the words they use are delivering exceptional customer service and creating a positive experience at every touch point to build loyalty and encourage repeat business. So those are all great rec

Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the AI Approach to Multiply Your Sales. This is part one in a multiple part series, and we’re going to start off with targeting, communication, and reach. David: Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David, it’s great to be with you. I’m really excited about this series because I think a lot of people shy away from AI. Or they’re getting into it and they’re hearing a lot of the things that it can do, but they’re not sure how to approach it or even if it’s the right thing to do for their business. David: Yes. Agreed. And the way this actually came about is that we’ve been talking for a while over the course of the past several weeks in particular about multiplying your sales. And some people really struggle with this concept. And I thought, well, what does AI have to say on the topic, and how does what AI says about it relate to what we do, and how we help our clients, and do these things line up? So I thought what I’d do is I’d take the answer to the question when we asked AI, “What are your best recommendations in terms of multiplying sales,” to see what AI says and then compare that with what we’re doing. And so the first three recommendations that it had were based on targeting, communication, and reach. Those are my words, not AI words in particular. But that’s pretty much what it broke down to, so I figured that’s what we’d start with. Jay: I love it. We’re going to do a podcast on AI, and we’ve asked AI what it thinks first, and now we’re going to psychoanalyze AI to see if it’s in line. David: Well, to see how it lines up. Because one of the things that I found interesting was that when I asked it about multiplying sales, it was coming back with responses that talked about increasing sales. And so I asked it specifically to come up with recommendations based on multiplying sales. And at first it seemed resistant to that. So it talked about growing sales and multiplying sales. But this is where it landed. So I figured we’d start with this. Now, I had asked it to prioritize these things. I’m not quite sure if it did. But this is what it came back with. So the very first recommendation that it had in terms of multiplying sales. I’ll tell you specifically what it said first and then we can discuss it. So the first thing that it recommended is it said: 1. Define Your Target Audience. Clearly identify your ideal customers and understand their needs, preferences, and pain points. So, that’s how it started. What do you think of that take? Jay: It sounds very, very traditional, very typical, common knowledge. The first thing that I learned in a sales class years ago, identifying your target audience. But I feel like that’s so basic, and when you talk about multiplying sales, I tend to think that’s more about taking the existing clientele and getting them to spend more. That’s what I think about. David: I tend to think that way as well, but I thought it’s a pretty good jumping off point because whether your target audience means your existing clients and the new clients that you want to go after, I think it makes a whole lot of sense to lead with, determining who it is that you’re going to be going after. I relate a lot of this to what we do in our Total Market Domination course. One of the very first things we do in our course is we have a three level system of targeting. So what AI is recommending here in sort of a general sense, in terms of defining your target market, is something that we really dive into pretty heavily with our clients. Because without that targeting up front, if you don’t know exactly who it is that you’re going after, who your ideal client is, the likelihood of bringing an ideal client through the door is Is generally slim to none. Jay: Yeah. And you know, we’ve talked a lot about this in the past that knowing who your target audience is, is so important because you may spend a lot of time spinning your wheels, going after a really large base of customers and getting leads for people who are not going to turn into customers. So you’re going to save time and money and effort if you can really hone that in. David: Yes, I completely agree. So I thought the first thing that it came back with is pretty good. A little general. It seemed to me to be the kind of thing that one might get at a Chamber of Commerce session on growing your sales, to find your target audience. Yes. Makes perfect sense. For me, with a lot of these, the devil is in the details, right? It’s going to be, well, how do we do these things? This is essentially the what to do, but it’s really the how to do it where the money comes from. So, the second thing that it recommended is to: 2. Develop a Compelling Value Proposition:

Don’t expect to grow your business if you can’t multiply sales. Most people love the idea of multiplying their sales. But many don’t know how to do it, and some just have a really difficult time getting their heads around the whole concept. So today, I’d like to show you how everyone who’s starting out, DOES multiply their sales. And I’d like to share a clip from one of our training programs that explains a key concept that is critical if you ever want to grow, or yes, multiply your sales. And that concept is Your Next Desired Benchmark. Recently, I released a video talking about how one of my clients grew her sales from $250,000 a year to over a million. People love her story. They think it’s great. But quite a few said that they didn’t think it applied to them, because the numbers were too big. So instead of her story, let’s talk about yours. Unless you buy or inherit an existing business, you start out at zero. If you stick with it, you’ll go through a series of stages, or benchmarks. For example, your first benchmark might be to get your first sale. That’s a good one! Congratulations! Well done! Your second benchmark might be to get your second sale. And if your second sale is the same amount of money as the your first sale, then guess what? You just multiplied your sales by two. Easy math, right? So you go from two sales to four sales, and you’ve doubled again! Four to eight? Same thing! In business, everyone multiplies! We just forget that we already know how to do it. This is nothing new. It’s been true forever. And to prove it, here’s a clip from one of the lessons in my $100K coaching program, which is all about getting to a hundred thousand dollars a month in promotional product sales. And while this was made specifically for promo people, this lesson applies to every business in business that needs to grow. Now, if these numbers seem too big to you, or too small to you — just substitute your own! This is about YOU setting YOUR OWN next desired benchmark. So now, here’s Baby Dave, a younger version of myself explaining this concept a long time ago… Hi, I’m David Blaise. In this video, I’d like you to set your next desired benchmark on your personal path to $100,000 a month. Your next desired benchmark should be a significant stretch from wherever it is you are right now. So this is generally not going to be the place for 3 percent to 9 percent increases. You definitely want to amp it up. You want to think in terms of at least double digit increases, and depending on where you are right now, triple digit increases. Naturally, the larger you grow your business, the more difficult it becomes to double, and double, and double again. But, for most businesses in our industry, particularly those doing less than a million dollars a year in gross sales, targeting at least a double is probably a good idea. In fact, most of the people I’ve worked with who have hit a million dollars a year or more, started out doubling year over year, over year for their first few years in business. So, if you’re currently doing $100,000 a year, you might start by targeting $250,000. If you’re doing $250,000, you may target $500,000. If you’re doing $500,000, maybe target a million. Or at least $750,000 to $800,000. In nearly every case, you’re much better off targeting higher, and potentially not hitting it, than targeting lower and hitting it. Small goals don’t do a lot in terms of motivation. They also don’t do much in terms of convincing you that you’ll need to take significantly different action in order to achieve them. So set your goals high. If you’re already doing more than a million dollars in annual sales, I would encourage you to still make your next desired benchmark a significant stretch from wherever you are now. If you’re doing a million dollars a year, maybe target at least 1.5 million. Go with your gut, and don’t drive yourself crazy with this exercise. Your next desired benchmark is your goal or your objective. It’s not a prediction that you have to get right like The Amazing Kreskin. This is what you’re deciding you want to do. So pick a number that feels like a good stretch for yourself, and we’ll help you with “how to get there” throughout this program. So, write it down and put it somewhere that you will see it every day. That’s your assignment. You want to look at this number, so you can constantly ask yourself “what am I doing better and differently today to get me closer to this benchmark?” This program will give you lots of different and better things to do, but start with this: Pick your benchmark, write it down, put it somewhere you’ll see it, and add a note below, letting me know that you did this. This program is all about implementation, so pick your benchmark, wri

If you’re not generating the level of sales you’re capable of in your business, the real cost of inadequate sales is a lot more than you think. And it’s not just the cost of the sales you’re missing out on. When you operate a business that consistently generates inadequate sales, revenue, and income, you’re effectively starving your business of the oxygen it needs to survive. Inadequate sales chokes a business, stifles its growth and can threaten its survival. So today, let’s take a look at some of the real costs of inadequate sales in your business. Generating significant sales in your business, or at the very least “adequate” sales is critical for many reasons. First and foremost is the financial stability necessary for survival. When you generate significant sales, it gives you the stability necessary to cover all your operational expenses, pay your vendors, pay your people, invest in growth, and make sure the business remains sustainable in the long term. Your sales growth directly impacts your overall business growth, which allows for reinvestment, product development, expansion into new markets, and hiring additional talent. It also gives you an edge that many competitors find hard to overcome. In previous podcasts, we discussed the concept of moving from Stealth Mode to Intimidation Mode, and this depends on your ability to attract, qualify and convert more clients than your competitors. Inadequate sales makes it nearly impossible to build infrastructure or even attract investors who could help you make it happen. When you’re generating adequate sales and stable revenue, you can build effective processes, improve productivity, and negotiate better terms with everyone from your suppliers and vendors, to your lenders and potential partners. It contributes to a stable work environment by giving you the ability to hire, motivate and retain the right people. And whether you’re a small business or even a solo entrepreneur with no desire to add a lot of people or build infrastructure, having adequate sales, along with the processes necessary to be able to generate them consistently, will ultimate determine how much your business is worth. …because no one wants to buy a business that’s unable to generate adequate sales and revenue. And most solo entrepreneurs don’t really want to run that kind of business themselves. So regardless of your growth plans, adequate sales are key. With all that said, some small business owners figure that even if they’re not generating adequate sales right now, it’s no big deal. They’ll figure it out eventually, or get around to it at some point. As a result, they can plod along for weeks, months or even years bringing in just enough revenue to make themselves either mildly comfortable or not quite uncomfortable enough to do what it takes to generate the sales they need to run a fun, exciting, sustainable business. And shouldn’t that be the goal? If it’s not fun, lucrative, or ideally both, then what’s the point? If you just want to earn a steady paycheck, you can do that with a regular job. So if you’re still with me, let’s take a look at just Three of the Real costs of inadequate sales: Real cost #1. Lost revenue. This is the obvious one. If you’re not generating adequate sales, then you are losing out on revenue every business day. Some people don’t think of money that they didn’t make as being lost. But isn’t it, though? If there are sales you could have made today, but you didn’t make them. Didn’t you lose out on that revenue? Especially if they ended up buying it from someone else? Sure, you may sell something else tomorrow, but that doesn’t make the sales you lost today any less real. Now if you think that mindset is too negative. If you believe in an abundance mindset and you feel like there’s plenty of business to go around for everyone. Then we’re on the same page. I totally agree. There is plenty of business to go around for those who are willing… to do what it takes… to bring it in. So if that’s you, congratulations. Keep up the great work. But if you’re not generating adequate sales, then it’s likely some changes are necessary. Real cost #2. Lost opportunity. Every sale you fail to make today, means there’s one less reorder, one less referral, one less happy customer, positive review, success story or testimonial in the pipeline. Inadequate sales are a pipeline killer. This results in opportunity and future sales that are either lost completely or delayed indefinitely. Life is full of opportunity. But it requires being present. You have to get in front of it. So when you’re generating inadequate sales, you are missing out on all the related opportunities you could have had. Real cost #3. Lost credibility. When you don’t care enough to do everything you can do every day to help as many potential clients as possible, it kills your credibility. What would you think of a doctor who could have helped someone today but who just didn’t. How about a lawyer who could ha

David: If you want to multiply money, it means you have to figure out the very specific steps that you need to take in order to make that happen. Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the topic, Can You Multiply Money? Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey David, of course you can. I have a tree in my backyard. Money grows on it and I just have to water it every year. What else do I need? David: Nice. No, that’s great. You got a money tree. You’re in great shape. When I think about the abilty to multiply money, I know that in the early stages of some of my businesses, and in the early stages of trying to figure out how to make them work, I was able to multiply money. But I was multiplying it by fractions, you know. So… If you multiply money by 0. 5, you now have half the money you started out with. So I think we’re all able to multiply money. But, ideally, we want to multiply by whole numbers. Jay: Yeah, I agree, but we also subtract money. I’m not sure what the terminology is. Bbut a lot of times in an attempt to multiply money, if you’re not careful, you’re actually losing money. David: Yeah. And you will have to invest. You’ll have to make investments up front. I think a lot of times people go into business, particularly small business owners, will go in with the idea of, “well, I’ll just bootstrap it.” And it’s certainly what I’ve done, I did that a number of times and when it works, it’s fantastic. And when it doesn’t, it’s disastrous. So as long as you recognize that going in, it’s all okay. But having that focus, what will it take to get this going? How much will it cost? How long will I have to work for nothing, if I bootstrap entirely? A lot of those questions come into play. Jay: Yeah, otherwise it’s kind of gambling. You know, starting a business is kind of a form of gambling, but the better the idea is, the more help you have along the way, the more financially stable you can be in the process, the more you increase the odds that your gamble will pay off. David: Yeah, and it really is a gamble in the truest sense of the word. Because you don’t know if it’s going to work. It might work and it might not. You may have a really good feel for it. You may have done it before and say, okay, I feel really good about this. I think this is really going to work, but it’s still a bet. You’re still guessing and betting that it’s going to work based on what you know. You think you can multiply money, but you can’t be sure until you try. I’ve never really been a gambler in terms of casinos and things like that, but I guess people who do that well and know how to do it, they can go into a situation and say, “okay, I have a pretty good feel for the fact that I’m going to make back a multiple of what I lay down on the table. And sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong. And it’s exactly the same in business. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. Only in business, you may put a lot of things on the line, your family’s future. You may quit your job. You really put yourself out there in many ways. I found success in making sure my family is supported with a day job and then I pursued other things on the side. Meanwhile, I had other family members who have said, “no, I’m going all in” and they put everything at risk. And that didn’t turn out so well, but you know, it depends on the individual and the idea, I think. David: Yeah, absolutely. And I know in the early stages I tried doing sort of a sideline thing for a while and I could never personally make that work. Jay: Yeah, yeah. David: Because it was hard for me when somebody else was paying me money to do a job, I didn’t feel like I could walk away to do my thing, so I was torn in that way. When I was working on my side project, I felt like I should either be working on the work that was paying me or when I was at real work, I felt like I should be working on my business. I remember quitting a job that I had because I knew I was going to start a business. And it was really like flying without a safety net. You know, the big trapeze with no safety net. Because I literally quit a job. It’s like, okay, I’m no longer going to get that money and hopefully it’ll work out. Eventually it did, but it wasn’t fast and it wasn’t a straight line and it took some real time and some real effort and a lot of scares. We talked about scares in our podcast at Halloween. It took a lot of that stuff in order to get to the point where eventually things started to work. And I don’t know many entrepreneurs who don’t go through some version of that. Jay: Oh, I totally agree. It’s a hallmark of entrepreneurship. Can you take that step into the darkness, right? Are you willing, and I th

Ready to multiply your sales in the simplest way possible? In a recent podcast, I was talking about a client of ours who multiplied her gross sales from $250,000 to over a million dollars. And while many people are impressed with that sort of growth, others are, quite rightly, skeptical. How do you literally multiply your sales revenue in a relatively short period of time? The truth is, there are a LOT ot ways to do it. But let’s focus on the simplest approach. The one that seems to work best for the majority of people in general, and certainly the majority of our clients. And it starts with maximizing revenue from your existing client base, while supplementing with new business. Simple right? In fact, it’s the simplest! Easier to say, a little more challenging to do. But in a nutshell, here’s how it works: Let’s say you sold $250,000 to your existing client base over the course of the last year, but you feel confident that you could get those same people to spend $300,000, or maybe $350,000 or maybe even $400,000 with you, with the right approach of course, over the next year. Cool! So now you go from $250,000 to maybe $300,000 or $350,000 or $400,000. That’s great! But if your goal is to be at a million, that still leaves a shortfall of $600,000 to $700,000. Which is a big number if you’re currently doing $250,000. So if you want to hit your goal, you’re going to need to focus on maximizing revenue from your existing client base, to get them to the $350 to $400,000 mark that you estimated, while also adding or layering in another $600 to $650 thousand in gross sales from new business to get you to your million dollar number. Now, can you do that in a year? Well, if you use the same approach that got you to $250, then probably not. Especially if you’ve been using that $250,000 approach and languishing in that sales range for a long period of time. But what if you were using a different approach? A better approach? Even better than that, what if you were using different and better approaches in Four Key Areas? First: Client Reactivation: Having a system to get your former and lapsed clients to reengage with you, reorder, and spend more money. Because when you multiply the number of returning customers, it helps you to multiply your sales. Second: Account Penetration: Getting more of the people inside the organizations you’re already working with to place more of their business with you. Because when you multiply the number of people you’re dealing with inside an organization, it becomes a lot easier to multiply your sales revenue with that company. Third: Customer Acquisition: This is the most obvious one… getting more of the prospects, essentially meaning all the people you interact with, to choose you over your competitors and place more orders with you. Because when you multiply the number of prospects convering into clients, it also allows you to multiply your sales revenue. And… Fourth: Market Multiplication: This is where it really gets fun. This allows you to pull more business from people, industries and markets that have never spent a single dime with you. Think of it this way. If you’re currently pulling most of your business from one primary market, whether that’s a geographic market, or an industrial market, or even just a program or product specialty, what’s likely to happen if you start pulling business from two markets? Or four markets? Or eight markets? You get the idea. When you multiply the number of markets you’re selling to, it’s easier to multiply your sales. Of course, some of those markets might spend a lot less than the ones you’re used to working with. But… some of them might spend a whole lot more. Especially, when you’re proactive about who you’re targeting. And most businesses are not. So obviously, when you’re focused on the right things, it becomes a whole lot easier to multiply your sales. It’s also a lot more likely! Of course, the big variable here is almost ENTIRELY about what you’re doing, and how you’re doing it. What you’re saying, and how you’re saying it. Who you’re approaching and how you are approaching them. If you’re looking for the simplest way to improve your results dramatically, you don’t have to change everything you’re doing. However, you will very likely have to change how you’re doing some of those things. Specifically, in the four key areas that we just discussed. OK, so right now, at this point, after this ramble, you have three primay choices. You can: A.) Completely disregard everything I just told you, and continue on with business as usual. B.) Use the four key areas I mentioned as a guidepost, and take a do-it-yourself appoach to figuring out all the steps, the details, the processes and procedures to make it happen or C.) If you’re even remotely open to t

Million dollar ideas are just the beginning. I remember the day that I got a phone call from her and she said, “Hey, we hit a million dollars in sales for this year. I’m really excited.” it’s a huge thing because when you’re looking to grow like that — when you’re talking about multiplying your revenue in a relatively short period of time — there are very specific things that have to happen. Most people don’t know what those things are, and even if they do know what those things are, they don’t take action on them consistently enough to make it happen. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing million dollar ideas. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you, David. I have to tell you, this is a running joke in my home that I constantly have million dollar ideas. But I never do anything about it. And so I’ll have them.And then years later, my wife’s like, you told me about that, you know, five years ago, why don’t you do something about it? And I’m like, I don’t know. David: Yeah. And you’re not alone. I do the same thing. I think pretty much anyone I know who’s been involved in business in any capacity has had ideas. And then they see that somebody else did it later. And they’re like, “Oh man, I thought of that years ago.” And it’s like, yeah, well, unfortunately, as you indicated, thinking about it does not actually get it done. But it’s a fun topic because since we all pretty much have had them, we all have million dollar ideas, the question becomes. What are you doing with it? Or are you doing anything with it? And as I was thinking back on this in preparation for this podcast, it occurred to me that of the million dollar ideas that I might’ve had, and who knows, the ones that you don’t pursue, you have no idea what they’re worth, especially if nobody else then comes along and turns it into a billion dollar idea, but it occurred to me that I only took action on a few of them, and the ones that I took action on actually yielded some really good results. And the thing about a million dollar idea is… There’s a time component that really plays an important part in that, right? You could say, all right, my million dollar idea is to make $25,000 a year from the time I’m 25 until the time I’m 65. So if you multiply $25,000 by 40 years, it’s a million bucks, right? But if you’re earning $25,000 a year and it costs you $35,000 a year to live, then that plan is not going to work for you. But it is a plan. It’s an idea. It’s a million dollar idea. And so as we’re thinking about things that can actually get us from where we are to where we want to be. It’s a good idea to consider that. All right. Well, what’s the likelihood of generating revenue from this and how much on an ongoing basis so I can have an idea of where it’s going to take me? Jay: Yeah, it’s such a great point. I think for me, the fear of putting myself out there is one of the reasons why I haven’t pursued. And I’ve taken, some of them were good enough. I’ve taken a little stabs at them and I want to be successful by just stabbing at them and not really diving in a hundred percent. And it’s not until I said, “okay, I’m all in.” It wasn’t the idea that was bad. It was my desire to actually put any work and effort. I’ve just, I’ve always said, I want to have a company where all I do is come up with ideas and sell them. I don’t want to have to actually put the effort into, working on them. Why can’t I just earn the money from the idea? David: Right. Yeah. It’d be great if it worked that way, but somebody has to do the work that actually generates the revenue. But when I think about million dollar ideas, particularly as it relates to business. If somebody’s doing $250,000 a year in their business in four years, that became a million dollar idea. Now, again, if that’s your gross sales, it doesn’t mean that you’re making that much, right? It doesn’t mean that you’re pocketing that much, but it counts. It’s a million dollar idea, and then the question really becomes. Is my million dollar idea a million dollars in a lifetime? Is it a million dollars over 10 years? Over five years? Over a year? Is it a million dollars a month? Is it a million dollars a week? A million dollars a day? Because different businesses generate different amounts of money. I don’t know what Amazon is generating, how quickly it generates a million bucks, but it’s probably a lot faster than a million a day. It could be down to the minutes and seconds, probably is. Jay: Yeah, I really think a lot of what you’re talking about is your expectation, right? you’re

Scary issues for business owners and salespeople often boil down to what you’re trying to do versus what you’re actually able to do. Those gaps are really the things that are going to make the biggest difference. And a lot of what we do with our clients is help them to identify, “all right, how can we help you plug these holes, overcome these fears, so that you can generate the revenue you need and the profit you need to have the business that you want to have.” David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing scary issues for business owners and salespeople. Happy Halloween and welcome back, Jay. Jay: Yeah, Dave, it’s great to be here with you again. And I love the Halloween theme. A lot of times starting out a new business can be very scary. But also, for me the biggest thing is the unknown and how do you plan for that? David: Yeah, that is a great one. It covers a lot of territory too, doesn’t it? The unknown, because nearly everything that we think about that scares us in business is probably because we either don’t know what it is or we don’t know how to handle it when it comes along. So yeah, that’s a really nice big umbrella one to start out with. The unknown, which in business includes a whole lot of stuff. Jay: Yeah, I think part of that is having your systems in place so that you’re prepared for the unknown. I mean, we talk about the unknown, but in business, I think you can generally deal with those issues. If you’ve been in business over time, you kind of know annually where the scary times are going to be, but just starting out, it’s hard to know. David: It really is. And as I was thinking about this episode and discussing this episode, I took some time, not always a great thing to do, but I took some time to think about what were some of the biggest scares I had over the years in business and what did they generally relate to? And I didn’t actually come up with the word unknown. You came up with it, but it really does take into a lot of different things. When we think about unknown, my thinking goes back to the time when you’re a child and you’re scared of the dark, right? And the reason we’re scared of the dark is not because of the dark. It’s because we don’t know what’s in there. It really is about the unknown. It’s not our fear of the dark. It’s our fear of what could happen in the dark that could potentially be a little scary. So as I was thinking about this in terms of business, and it goes for salespeople, anyone in business, and even people who are employed and just get a salary, there are a lot of things that can come along and make life a lot scarier. A lot of them have to do with money, especially not having enough of it. If you’re a business owner, the question, can I make payroll comes up? Can I pay my tax bills? Am I able to afford the things I need to do? Can I pay my mortgage, right, for my home or rent for my business, whatever it is So I think money is a big one and the unknowns that are related to that Jay: Yeah, I agree. Money is the hardest one. And people, especially starting out, they don’t really know and understand the term cash flow. Right? So you may be making great money, but people aren’t paying you up front or they’re not paying you on a regular basis. I’ve worked for a company where you work for insurance companies and you had to harass them constantly in order to get your receivables paid. And in the meantime, how do you pay for the electricity? How do you pay for your staff? How do you pay for those kind of things? It can be a very difficult situation. David: It really can. And I think a lot of times the default is to say, okay, let’s cut costs. What can we cut? And a lot of times that comes with, whatever, it can come with manpower. It can come with overhead. And the problem with cutting overhead, or cutting costs in some cases are first of all, that it doesn’t always get the job done. And second, it also then can diminish your capabilities. Because if you’re having to let people go, then how are you going to be able to generate enough of the business going forward to be able to offset some of those things? And I know when I’m working with clients, a lot of times, if their cash flow isn’t exactly where they want it, or if their sales or their profit numbers aren’t where they need them to be, we look at a couple things. One is, you know, what do you expect your existing customers are going to generate for you over the course of the next six months to a year? And then where are you looking to be? And then how much of that needs to come from new customers? Because once you’ve identified those things, then it becomes a lot easier. To do the math and say, okay, well, I need to bring in X number of customers a

Beating Inflation means you have to maintain profits, despite higher costs. In this area where I live in Pennsylvania, the cost of electricity has gone up probably 10 to 12%, just from one billing cycle to the next, because they said “we need more money. We’re jacking up the price.” It’s like death by a thousand paper cuts. It’s the situation where you’ve got this little increase here and this little increase here and this little increase here. And you don’t realize it until you go to pay the bills and you look at the numbers at the end of the month. Wow. We’re generating the same sales or even more, but we’re not making as much money. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of being profitable even with higher costs. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. What an important topic. So many businesses are experiencing this right now. Their costs have gone up. Inflation is affecting everybody right now. So I love that you’re taking some time to talk about this topic. David: Yeah. I saw an article recently where they were discussing the fact that in the promotional products industry, in particular, what a lot of businesses are noticing is that even when their sales are even or potentially higher than they were last year, they’re not as profitable because their costs have increased. So keeping at the same sales volume is not going to cut it anymore. Jay: Yeah. And, we all hope that this is a temporary problem, but in the meantime, people have got to learn how to pivot. And I think that is one of the hardest things for businesses to do, especially quickly. The quick pivot. Like, okay, what are we going to do in the short term while our costs have gone up? David: Yeah, and I think that word, “pivot,” has probably gotten more use in the past 18 months to two years than it probably got in all of human history before that. Because everybody realized we have to do things differently. And what are we going to do and how are we going to do it? And when it comes to increased costs, the options are relatively limited. I mean, basically, you either have to be able to increase your overall sales and make up for it with the profit that you’re already getting, or a reduced profit. Or you’ve got to be able to reduce your cost so that you can get that spread back. You’ve got a cost to do things. And you’ve got a cost associated with what you’re going to sell it for. And the gap is where all the money is made. Without the gap, we’re out of business. And so keeping your sales at a certain level is not going to do it if your costs are approaching that same level. So a lot of it is really about identifying the primary costs in my business. And unfortunately, it’s really a matter of also being rather relentless about the idea of cutting back on the things that are not currently working. And that can be really difficult because one of the biggest expenses in a business is very often personnel. And so what that means is looking at the people that you’re working with and saying, okay, who’s pulling their weight? Who is more than pulling their weight? And those who aren’t, what can we do to help them to pull their weight or more than pull their weight so that we can continue to grow to be able to simply offset the costs that have increased so much? Jay: Yeah. I think the knee-jerk response from most businesses is let’s find a way to increase sales. But you know, they have to understand that depending upon their profit margin, if you increase your sales by $10, that may be $1 to the bottom line. But if you save a dollar in costs, that’s a dollar to your bottom line. If you save $10 in cost, that’s $10 to your bottom line. And so increasing efficiency, like you said. Maybe help train or implement better systems. I think all of those things go a long way to saving. You know, a dollar saved is a dollar earned, right? David: Yeah, exactly. I think you’re right, particularly when it comes to small and medium-sized businesses. Generally small and medium-sized businesses, we want to hang onto our staff. We want to keep our people. We recognize that we’ve got responsibilities to people other than ourselves. What I’ve been seeing though in the news lately, is that a lot of larger companies see this stuff coming and they’re like, okay, we’re cutting costs. We’re laying off 10% of our workforce, that sort of thing. So it’s different, depending on the size of your business and depending on your mindset, what you are willing to do and how much pain you’re willing to take when it comes to absorbing some of these extra costs. Jay: Yeah, I’ve seen several industries that have decided, well, in the short term, like in the pandemic, we’re going to look at the services we offer and maybe we&#821

The truth about the law of attraction is different from the book and movie. If you’re feeling frustrated in your business, ask yourself, you know, am I really clear on exactly what it is that I’m building here or the thing that I want to build here? And to the extent that it’s not coming together, how’s your vision? Are you very clear on what that means? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the truth about the Law of Attraction. Now, this applies to business, it applies to life. If you’re familiar with the movie The Secret and the book The Secret, there’s been a lot of talk about this concept, the Law of Attraction. It basically says that we attract into our lives the people and circumstances we need, based on essentially the vibes that we’re putting out. Jay: Well, and I was just sitting here thinking, I must not be putting out very good vibes. David: I’m sure it’s not that. But… I think sometimes when people get into this mindset, they can get frustrated, because if you think that all you have to do is really want it and it’s going to come to you, it’s not quite the whole story. And I think the movie and the book called The Secret probably caused some people some problems with this. And part of it is because that movie, a lot of it was based on a book called The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. And if you read that book, you recognize that there’s a whole lot more to it than just trying to attract it with your mind. I mean, you actually have to follow up. You have to do some things afterwards if you want to try to get the results that you’re actually looking for. So I feel like what they did in the book and the movie was kind of a disservice to the whole concept, which I think can be valid, if you follow up with it. Jay: Yeah, I’ve always kind of felt, you know, talking about this, that it’s more about a change in mentality than it is that you’ll speak into the universe and the universe will grant you this wonderful thing out of the kindness of its heart. That because you’ve said these things, it’s just like setting a goal. Right? And so, when you hear things spoken, when your mind hears them, when you speak them with your mouth, it’s different than just thinking about them. And so, over time, I think it changes your behavior, which leads you to that thing that you, quote, spoke into the universe. David: Yeah, I believe that entirely as well. I think that when you are focused on a goal, when you’re focused on trying to accomplish something in your life, when your mind is going in that direction, it is a lot more likely to get you enthused about it, get you thinking about it more and get you taking action on it, which ultimately is what is going to lead to the success. Now one aspect of it that I think is really important, on the front end of that, is that you have enough belief in what it is that you want to accomplish, that you continue to look for the ways to make it happen. Because if you don’t believe you can do it, obviously you’re not going to do it. I think that’s pretty much a given. If you don’t think you can do something, if you don’t think you can accomplish something, then you will very likely not take the actions necessary to make it happen. So in those circumstances, it’s kind of a given that you won’t succeed. But if you’ve got the consummate belief in what it is that you want to do and what you’re pursuing, then in a lot of cases, it will allow you to start to see the things that will make it possible. So when people talk about the idea of attracting the people and circumstances into your life, I definitely believe there is truth to that, but I also think a lot of that might’ve been there to begin with. But when you’re aware of it, you’re going to be more likely to see it, you’re looking for it, you’re going to be more likely to find it, you’ll take action on it, and that’s when it actually starts to pay off. Jay: Yeah, I really like that you’re building awareness because you’ve spoken these things and you’ve kind of made these mental goals. Whereas before, if you hadn’t taken the time to even assess what you want and talk to yourself about what you want, kind of make these mental goals, then when that person enters your life or that opportunity arises, you’re not going to see it for what it is. ‘Because you haven’t planned ahead, you haven’t made a mental note that that’s specifically something that you wanted or needed. David: Right, you’re not tuned into it. And, you know, the mind has this particular activating system that many people are aware of. It’s the part of your brain that notices the things that you’re i

One of the real benefits of ChatGPT to grow sales for our clients is being able to utilize that technology to create something that will get you to be able to attract clients rather than having to chase them down yourself. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing using ChatGPT to grow your sales. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey David, I’m really excited about this topic today. You know, I figured ChatGPT and AI is either going to help with your sales or it’s going to become self aware and try to destroy us all. Hopefully it’s Just the first one. David: Yeah, I agree. I don’t know if we talked about this in a previous podcast, but whenever I’m using ChatGPT, I always make sure to say please and thank you. And the reason for that is I figure when the AI comes to take over and destroy all the humans, maybe they’ll kill me last. I don’t know if that’ll work like that, but that’s my thinking. Jay: Well, very important, but I’m blown away by this technology. We’ve talked before about not having to reinvent the wheel. I think that that’s what is available here. When you can ask a computer to do something and it recognizes what you’re asking it to do and then it goes out and it, accesses all of this information that has been downloaded over time. It’s a mind boggling tool, but once again, if you don’t know how to use it, if you don’t know what its potential is, then it’s not going to be of any value to you. David: Agreed. And one of the things that I noticed in the early stages, if you just start playing around with it, you type things in and you’re like, wow, this is like magic. And then as you start to use it and ask it questions, particularly when you’re looking to maybe flesh out an idea or something like that, you’ve got a basic concept and you want to use it to help flesh out an idea. For me, that’s when I really started to see its limitations in the sense that it can only provide you information that it has. It can only provide you with information that it’s either seen somewhere before or that it’s found on the web. However, it identified that information. And so what I’ve noticed is that when you’re trying to dive into something, if you’ve got an idea, that’s relatively unique, something that you’re thinking about that you’d like to flesh out, you can go to ChatGPT and start asking it questions about that. And it’ll give you some stuff that’s helpful, but. I’ve never found it able to give an actual breakthrough. I still think a lot at this particular point in time. It seems to me that the breakthroughs still have to come from us. And then if we talk to ChatGPT about some sort of concept that we’re developing, I’m sure it’ll start picking up on it and then it may start disseminating it again. But I think that’s one of the limitations. And so when we think in terms of using it to grow sales, My view is that it’s a great starting point when you’re just looking at a blank screen and a blinking cursor and saying, okay, where do I get started with this? I think that it’s a great starting point. And even when you start asking it questions and it comes back with responses, a lot of the responses that it comes back with, you might have to dig deep until you find something else that’s worth asking it about. So in the early stages, I think we tend to view it like we’re going to ask it a question, it’s going to give us the answer and we’re all set. In reality, I have not found it to work that way, unless you really don’t have a clear idea of what you were looking to begin with. Because basically I believe that if you think that ChatGPT is doing a better job of creating content than you do, then you probably want to work on your own skills in terms of coming up with ideas, because I have found that some of it is sort of recycled content. Jay: Yeah, I’ve had that very same experience. I think it’s a great tool. Like if you have an idea and you want to see how prevalent it is, you can ask, an artificial intelligence like ChatGPT and see what’s already out there. Cause like you said, it’s aggregated all of this information. And I love it for writer’s block and writer’s block isn’t just for writers, it’s for you and your advertising and your marketing. If you don’t know where to start, oftentimes that’s a perfect way to start because it will fill in some blanks, even if it provides you something that you don’t like, that oftentimes is enough. You know, I had a boss that, I knew that all I had to do was put something in his hands and then he would know immediately if he liked it or not and be able to fill in those blanks. But if you as

Your process for goal achievement is key, because you’re doing a lot behind the scenes before anyone even knows that you’re alive. And so we’re essentially moving from that — being invisible and working hard behind the scenes — to ideally, at some point, bursting on the scene and being recognized as a force in your marketplace. But none of that happens by accident and it doesn’t just come from setting goals. It requires having those processes in place. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing your process for goal achievement. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. Thank you. It’s always a pleasure to be with you. I’m going to be brutally honest here. I’m really good at setting goals, but I’m not very good at mapping out how I’m going to accomplish those goals. I think it’s good that I’ve taken that first step, and I kind of have a mental idea, but I never really go back and say, “yeah, I accomplished that thing.” So I think I’m missing some of the motivation to set more goals because I think that’s one of the key things about goals is once you’ve checked ’em off, you should feel good about yourself and then do more goals. And I don’t know if I ever reached that point. David: Interesting. And I think a lot of people feel the same way. I know I’ve certainly had that situation over the years and still do to some extent. And we had actually talked about goals several weeks ago, but what I really wanted to get into this time around is the idea that it’s great to have the goal, but it’s like looking at the top of a ladder and you say, okay, that’s where I want to go. Or it’s like looking at the sky, that’s where I want to go. But ultimately, the goal isn’t what’s going to get you there. The goal may motivate you, but the goal is not going to get you there. Ultimately, it’s the process that’s going to get you there. Assuming you have a process. So if the goal is to generate a certain amount of revenue in your business, or have a certain amount of money in your personal bank account, or start a business, whatever your goal is, the next step is to say, okay, what are the specific steps? What are the combinations of tasks and projects that are going to be necessary to help me achieve that goal? Because the tasks, the individual things I have to do, and the projects, essentially the things that are composed of a bunch of tasks, are what’s going to get us there. And the combination of these things is essentially the process. If my goal is to generate a certain amount of sales revenue, and I’m not there yet. A process that I generally want to start with is to say, Okay, let’s take a look at exactly how much your existing clients are worth to you. What did they spend with you last year? Okay? And then, do I think they’re going to spend more than that, less than that, or about the same this year? And generally, you’ll have a reasonable idea of that. Whether it’s going to be about the same, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. You won’t know for sure, but it’s a great place to start. So then you say, “Okay, if I figure I can count on my existing Customers for this level of revenue, and I’m looking to get to this level of revenue. Then how do I fill that gap? Because if this is the goal and this is where I am now, then we have to look at the process that’s going to get us there. What’s the combination of tasks and projects that will allow us to reach that revenue goal? And when we focus on that, everything we do, during any given day is now leading toward the goal, as opposed to just having scattered focus, just doing a bunch of different things, kind of thinking about our goal, but not exactly sure how we’re going to get there. But when you start to think of it in terms of these types of steps: tasks, projects, and ultimately your process, that’s what’s really going to make the biggest difference. Jay: Yeah, I think if you don’t do that, it can be really demotivating, right? I think I’ve told you in the past, when I was in the restaurant business just starting out, I would have an area manager come into the store and we would set goals, and the first one is always what you’re talking about. How are you going to increase sales? And he would just increase our sales on the goal by ten percent, right from the previous year and never tell me what I can do to, you know, I’m new, “okay, how am I going to do that? What are the steps?” And it was just this arbitrary number that he came up with and never trained me or told me how I could accomplish those things. So then the follow up is like, “oh, you didn’t achieve your goal.” And I’m

When we talk about the idea of effective follow-up in sales, what does that mean? It’s effective in terms of making sure that we’re on the same page with the person, making sure that our conversations are moving forward, making sure that their questions are being answered, and ultimately getting to a decision. Are we going forward with this? Are we not? And if so, when is that going to happen? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing effective follow-up. How much is too much? Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you, David. Such an important question. And again, something that I struggle with. You know, I have a customer management system, and it shows me I talked to them three days ago. And it comes up on my tasks and it says it’s time to talk to them. And I find every time I go through this emotional thing. Are they going to think I’m bugging them too soon? And a lot of times I’ll say, let’s give them three more days or let’s give them two more days because I guess I’m not ready to talk to them or I’m afraid I’ll be a bother. David: Yes, and you’re not alone. Because it’s pretty much impossible to know exactly how often to call any one given prospect, let alone all of them. It’s not like there’s one rule where you say you must call every other day or you must call every three days or every week or whatever your thing is. I mean, there are rules that have been put in place for salespeople to do that, and maybe it’s not a terrible thing, but a system like that pretty much guarantees that you’re going to be wrong as often as you’re right. And so, if you understand that going in, one of the things that I think it’s important to recognize is that people are going to sort of telegraph how annoying you’re being, or how often they want to be in touch, want to have you in touch. And if you ask them more directly, they’ll be a lot more inclined to give you an honest answer. If we make up our minds that we’re going to contact this person every so many days, and that person doesn’t want to hear from us that often, then obviously we’re setting ourselves up for failure. So a lot of times, if we can find out from the prospect roughly how often they would like for us to be in touch with them, and it’s easier to do with established clients, where you know them, they know you. With prospects, it’s not as easy. But in the early stages with a prospect, we need to be in touch more frequently in order to get to decisions about qualification levels. Are they actually qualified to buy from us? Do they have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend, the interest? Do they have any of those things? And if we can’t determine that in the first conversation, we need to have a second conversation. But of course, their level of interest in that first conversation will also help us to determine, well, how much time should I give this person? And when I think about how much is too much, one of the things that I’ve seen a lot, and I saw it myself, in my own behaviors in the earlier stages of my sales career, and then in a lot of other people along the way, is that since we can’t know how much is too much, many of us in sales tend to err on the side of too little contact rather than too much. And we talked about being a pest in a previous podcast. I don’t want to be a pest. Therefore, I’m not going to pick up the phone and call. And the problem with that is that if we’re not in touch with them, when they’re ready to move forward, then someone else is going to get that business. So we have to find this balance of, yes, I don’t want to be a pest, but also I’m not going to abandon this person so that somebody else can get in there and get that business while I’ve been working to cultivate it over a long period of time. Jay: Yeah, and it could be that depending on what type of product, there’s a time limit as well. So if they don’t get their order in within three weeks, you’re not going to make their deadline. So that could affect how often that you’re going to talk to them. One of the things that I’ve found in my business is to just flat out, ask them to schedule a follow-up appointment. You know, we’ve just had a discussion. I’m going to send you the information. Would you mind if I reach out to you on Friday at this time? And I find that that works very well. I’ve got that relationship going. You know, we’re friends now after 20 minutes. And they’re more than happy to set a follow-up appointment. If you’re in a situation where you can do that, that’s ideal. Because once I lose that scheduled appointment, now we’re playing phone tag or text tag or something else. So that’s al

If you want to create desire in sales, it has to be about them. Their wants, their needs. The things that they’re looking to accomplish from the relationship, because that’s where all their desire comes from. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing creating desire with your communication in sales. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. It’s great to be here, as always. read this title and I’ve been thinking about it, but I’d love to hear your perspective up front. What do you mean creating desire with your communication? David: Well, I think if we’re In the business of conveying value and providing products and ultimately selling something to someone else, the only way that happens is if there is enough desire created in the other person to make them want to move forward. Without the desire to move forward, it’s never going to happen. It’s kind of a funny word, particularly in sales. We tend not to use words like desire a whole lot. We tend to think in terms of qualification and segmentation, and we keep it all very clinical. But without the component of wanting it, if the prospect or client does not want what we’re selling, then absolutely nothing is going to happen. And the only way that desire is either created or channeled is generally with our communication. Now, if we’re offering something that they already want, then the desire is already built in. But if not, if they don’t see all the benefits, if they don’t see what it can do for them, then they might not be feeling it enough yet to pull the trigger. And at that point, it becomes our job to say, all right what do I need to do in terms of my communication with this person to help either create some of that desire or ideally uncover the desire that’s already buried inside there? Jay: Mmm. That’s great. I think about my own sales process. One of the things we do in our company is we offer a free consultation, and that’s my job. I give the consultation. And there’s nothing I hate more than when somebody says free consultation, and what they really meant was free sales call, right? And so the minute you get them on the phone, they’re pitching you their product, and I don’t. I listen, I ask questions, I tell them about their circumstances, I tell them what steps they can take to make their life better. And I always start the call saying, “just so you know, this is not a sales call. My goal is to give you the information that you need.” It never fails. I’ve never had a call in my life, and I’ve done probably a thousand of these. At the end of the call, they say, “well, how much do you charge for these services? And I’d like to move forward with you.” I never, never tried to sell them on anything. And to me, if you can do it, you can’t do it with every situation. But to me, that’s just ideal. They’re asking me how much I charge. I’ve created that desire in them without one word that sounds like a sales pitch. David: Right. Because if you go immediately into sales mode, if you start out with that, if you lead with a sales pitch, it’s not going to create desire in anyone. Because a lot of the desire that we’re going to be able to uncover in our prospects is going to come from the answers we get to the questions that we ask them. And so, you know, the whole diagnostic approach to sales, just like the diagnostic approach in medicine. First, you have to examine the patient to find out where it hurts. Examine, and then diagnose, and then and only then can you prescribe, right? So you have to examine the patient, find out where it hurts, find out what their needs are, find out if they need what we have to offer. If they don’t have a need for what we have to offer, then yeah, there’s no need for a sales pitch, right? And once we’ve done that examination, then we make the diagnosis. Based on what you’ve told me, it sounds like you’re looking to accomplish this, and this, and this. Is that correct? And if it is, and then if we have something that can help them with that, then the prescription would be, this is how we can help you if that’s something that’s of interest to you. But you’re exactly right. That desire is not going to be created in the pitch portion of the presentation. Jay: Yeah, that’s right. And in fact, I hear from a lot of our potential customers. They’re like, “I talked to three of your competitors and all they wanted to do was sell me on product and they confused me even more.” In fact, I think their tactic is if I can confuse you enough, you’re going to feel like you have to use me ’cause there’s no way you could possibly understand what we’re talking about. Of course, I’m in the tax business, so

David: Even if we accept the idea that we’re going to interact with people who are not ideal clients, I think one of the other things that causes salespeople trouble is when they’re afraid to disqualify a prospect. To say, okay, I’m no longer going to follow up with this person. I’ve always viewed it a little like the game musical chairs that you played as a kid? You got a certain number of people going around, a certain number of chairs, and when the music stops, everybody scrambles to get a chair. And if you don’t have a chair, you’re out, right? And I view prospecting that way in some respects. Where you have to, at some point, start to prune the list. You have to start to get rid of the people who are not likely to become clients. And if you’re afraid to do that, then you will continue to leave the same number of chairs and the same number of people. Jay: Yes. David: And if none of them are buying, it’s not going to work well. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing letting ideal clients know you’re alive. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, so good to be here, David. And I think this is, again, such an interesting topic. I find that I’m so caught up in the daily, just taking the calls and squeaky wheel gets the grease, and some of those ideal clients kind of go by the wayside sometimes. David: Yeah, and a lot of times we don’t even know who they are until we first try to identify them. So, in a sense, the topic itself goes kind of deep because you can’t know they’re an ideal client until you even know that they’re alive. And then you have to let them know that you’re alive, and then you have to determine if they’re an ideal client. Jay: Yeah. David: So there are actually a few steps in this. Jay: Yeah, and I think that’s such an important thing to know, kind of have a system, like you always have, of identifying those ideal clients. It’s hard for me to really figure out if they’re ideal up front. But I’ll tell you one thing I can tell is when they’re not ideal. I was on the phone call with somebody yesterday, he’s going to become a client, but I’m regretting the relationship I know I’m going to have with him because he’s already so demanding. And I’m like, this guy’s not ideal, but he’s a customer. And so, how can I not sell him the product? David: Yeah, that’s a great question. And it’s harder for some than others, I think. You get to a certain point in your business or a certain point in your career or whatever and you weigh it. Well, I guess we all do that. We have to weigh it. How much of a pain is this person going to be? And what’s my tolerance for pain essentially, right? Jay: Yeah. Yeah. David: But you’re exactly right. You don’t really know that necessarily upfront. So a lot of times when we’re working with our clients, what we’ll do is start with the people they think are likely to be their ideal clients. And whether that means in a certain geographic area or in a particular industry or in a certain sized company, if they’re selling B2B, You can make some initial judgments based on who has been a good client for you in the past, and then say, okay, how can I get more people like that? And then when you’re introducing yourself to those people who meet those similar criteria, as you’re having those conversations, you can then start to make those determinations about whether or not they are an ideal client, or if they just sort of fall in that general ecosphere of people who could potentially be ideal clients, but maybe aren’t. Jay: Yeah, exactly. And not just finding new ideal clients, turning your existing ideal clients into more business. Because if they were ideal the first time, if you can keep that to be a generating ongoing revenue source and relationship… Man, I’d rather do that every day than deal with the other type of customer. David: Yeah, no question. And when you get to the topic we started out with, which is letting ideal clients know you’re alive, that does go for your ideal clients as well. The ones that have been buying From you for a long time, the ones that you already know are ideal. Sometimes it’s just about remaining in touch with them, staying in front of them, remaining top of mind with the people that you already know are your ideal clients. And that’s something that not everyone does. Sometimes the allure of future business is so strong that it pulls us away from the people that we know buy from us, trying to bring new people through the door. So there’s definitely a balance that comes with all that. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. So what would you say? I kind of have an idea in my mind. How would you describe in your business the ideal client? Dav

Jay: I’m not lying when I tell you that I struggle with this idea that I’m being a pest in sales. So I think it’ll help my sales, I think it’ll help my daily attitude towards what I do. David: Well, I’ll tell you something, Jay, many of the most conscientious human beings feel this way. I mean, if you’re one of those sales guys who, “Hey, everybody loves me,” you’re not even going to think of that. It’s never even going to occur to you. So the people who are most likely to struggle with this are people who just want to help. They’re there to provide a service. Jay: Yeah. David: They don’t want to be a pest. And so really, most of the people who feel this way are the ones who are least likely to be a pest because they’re not arrogant to begin with. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast in today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland, and I’ll be discussing the topic of how to avoid being a pest in sales. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Oh, thank you for having me, Dave. This is a real problem for me. I always feel like a pest in sales, whether it’s an email, whether it’s a text, I always feel like they don’t want to hear from me. And. it’s been an ongoing problem. I’ll just be honest with you when it comes time, okay? I got to sit down and reach out to people. I’m like, oh, do they really want to hear from me? Am I going to bug them? How do I get over that? David: Yeah, it’s a great question. A number of years ago, I was doing a speaking presentation and Mary Lou Retton, the gymnast, was also speaking at the same event, and she told this story. It was just so great. I don’t know if somebody asked the question, but it came up in her presentation where people were saying to her, when she was doing her routine, the person who went on before her did a really, really good routine. And so at that point, the pressure would really be on her to deliver a flawless performance if she wanted to be able to get the score that she needed. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: And so the question was how do you deal with that when this person delivers a great performance and you have to go on next? Don’t you feel nervous after that? And her response, I’ll never forget it. And this was easily 10 or 12 years ago this happened. Jay: Yeah. David: Her response was, “you know, I watched her performance and it was great. And I looked at it and I thought to myself, wait till they get a load of me!” Jay: Mmmm. David: And I was like, “wow, how much does that apply in sales?” Jay: Yeah, David: I mean, I think it applies every bit as much in sales as it does in gymnastics. If you go in with the idea of, oh, that person’s better than I am, or they’re not going to like me, or they’re going to think that I’m annoying, or I’m rude, or I’m obnoxious, or I’m a pest, or whatever. If you go in with that mindset, then what you are likely to say, the way that you’re likely to position yourself, all of those things are going to reflect that. But if you’re able to go into a situation with the idea of “wait ’til they get a load of me,” or at least “I have something valuable to offer.” Now, any salesperson who doesn’t feel like they have something valuable to offer should be either in another line of work or selling a different line of product. Right? Jay: Yeah. David: You need to be able to feel good about what it is that you’re selling. And if you know that what you’re selling is, ideally, better than the competition. If you know that you’re going to deliver better than your competition, you know that you’re going to be more responsive, you’re going to be more concerned, you’re going to be more caring. If you know all those things, then you owe it to the client to convey all that. And if you don’t convey it to them, then you’re doing them more harm than good, and you’re doing yourself and them more harm than good. So, If you look at it from the standpoint of, “I’m here to provide a solution, I’m here to help,” then it’s a lot easier to not start thinking of yourself as a pest and just recognize that if you’re there to help, it’s very difficult to be a pest. Jay: Yeah, I’m not a pest. I’m a value. And I’m trying to pass that value on. It’s really interesting because, you know, I do these initial consultations and I’m going to toot my own horn. I am incredible at building that first relationship. But in that first relationship, it’s them learning. We don’t talk about costs a lot or anything like that. And then we schedule a second follow up, and that’s where we get into the other things. And it’s the second follow-up where I’m like, oh, now we’re going to talk ab

Where are your best leads coming from? It’s an important question, because if you don’t know, then it’s impossible to know where you can go to get more. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the topic of where are your best leads coming from? Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you. And I’m just going to answer the question. I don’t know. (laughing) I’m just… David: Short podcast. Thanks for listening. Jay: Yeah, I’m just going to say it straight up. I mean, I do have some systems. We do try and use Google Analytics and things like that, and that helps a little bit. But I’ve never done a deep dive yet on this is the source, this is the well or the font of where my best leads have come from. So I’m looking forward to this discussion. David: This is really a good one to look at and to dive into a bit, because I’ve always maintained that if you don’t know where your best leads are coming from, then you don’t know where to go to get more of them, and when you are able to identify it, everything else gets a whole lot easier because now you can go fishing in the same ponds, rather than just trying to put stuff out to anyone and everyone, which is very expensive to do. You can really tune in and focus in on what people are doing, where they’re coming from, how they’re hearing about you so that you can go find more of them. In addition to… well, a number of the businesses that I’ve been involved in over the years, one of them was a retail mail order catalog business that I owned. And in a business like that, it’s absolutely critical to know where your best leads are coming from. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: We would run magazine ads and we would get people out of different magazines. We had ads running on television that were designed to get leads for our catalog business. And every single one of the ads we ran had some sort of mechanism to let us know where they were coming from. If it was calling an 800 number, we had one primary 800 number, but we would give them an extension to ask for. So we’d say, call this 800 number extension 214. Right? And 214 meant that it was coming from this particular TV station or whatever. If they were seeing something online, there would be specific links that they would click through that would tell us where it was coming from. If it was a magazine ad, it was a similar kind of thing on the back of the magazine, it would say, call this number, dial this extension, or go to this web address, and there would be a slash with a suffix on the url.. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: And that would tell us where it came from. And when people would call in, one of the first things that our people were required to ask them is, “where did you hear about us?” And there was a box there that they would fill out. Where did you hear about us? Oh, I saw your ad on such and such a magazine, or, I saw your ad on such and such a TV station. And so we would have the data that the computer said based on what they came in and said, and then we would also have the data corresponding with whatever the person said. So I was pretty pathological about it, and to this day I’m still very pathological about determining where leads come from. Even now when, you know, at the end of this podcast, when you say, how do people find out more? And I give out a link that link tracks back to the podcast, it lets me know that the people who register on that link, Came from the podcast. And if they’re coming from some other ad, then it’s going to have a different code and that sort of thing. So it’s not that hard to do when you discipline yourself to do it. And most people don’t do that until and unless they realize how much it is actually worth to you when you do that right. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And in today’s world, honestly, there is no excuse. It is so easy. There is so much data out there. If you want to target a specific group, you can target that group. And that’s kind of the process, right? You’re going to send out a link for this podcast, you’ll know who you get back. You’ll know age groups and those types of things. And then you’ll be like, well, let’s adjust it this way, or let’s adjust it that way. I mean, never in our history has there been such an easy way to say, I want this age group who’s interested in this type of thing. And then you can target that group. And then based upon that new batch of information you can target in even more. And I know we all kind of complain that we’re being tracked everywhere we go, but at the same time, we’re all asking for it. We’re subscribing to newsletters, we’re hitting the like button. We’re feeding all of that information. So it becomes this circle, right? And I think it’s incredible pers

To increase the value of your business, consider this: If your business burns down, you don’t want that to happen, right? But if your business burns down and you’ve got whatever, desks and furniture and things like that, that stuff’s all insured. You should be able to come back from that okay. But if your book of business burns down, right? If you still have all this overhead, but you don’t have that book of business anymore, you are really in trouble. Because if you’ve got desks and you’ve got furniture, and you’ve got technology and everything, and you don’t have the ability to sell to the people that you need to sell to, at that point, what’s that really worth? All of that becomes overhead. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing building the value of your business. Welcome back Jay. Jay: Hey, I’m so glad to be here, David. And once again, you hit me with another term where I’m like, do I really know what the value of my business is? And value has such a different meaning for so many, right? Value could be. Well, it gives me free time. I hate my business, but it gives me free time. So it’s of great value. Or it’s of great value because I have all these shiny toys, you know, those types of things. So I think value could be very different for different people. David: Yeah, it absolutely can. Particularly when we’re thinking about business owners versus salespeople. I mean, when I was thinking about the topic, the value of your business, meaning what would it be worth to someone else if they wanted to buy it from you? And what that means for a business owner is what someone would actually pay for the business. What it means for a salesperson is what is your book of business worth? If you’re building something up and somebody wanted to buy your book of business, what would that be worth? That’s what I was thinking of in terms of value, but you touched on a lot of other great points regarding the term. Jay: Yeah, like I said, there’s so many other things. And I’ve talked to people who have said, yeah, I’m thinking about selling my business. And I ask them, well, what’s it worth? And they look at me like I have no idea whatsoever. In fact, I was working for Kinko’s way back when, when they wanted to sell. And they wanted to go public first, and the SEC came in and said, you don’t know what you own. You don’t know what you owe. You don’t know anything about your business. You have the worst paperwork system we’ve ever seen in our lives. You’re not going public. And so they went and found a private buyer, which was FedEx, who went and bought FedEx Kinko’s. So just in how you manage your business can affect the value of that business. David: Yeah, absolutely. And for a lot of people, the value of their business isn’t going to be FedEx Kinko’s worthy, very likely. Jay: Yeah. David: But still, it’s good to know. And, for some it might be worth more than that. But for most people, particularly small to medium sized businesses, when they’re looking to sell, they really don’t have any idea of what the business is worth or what it could be worth to someone else. And in different industries, there are different metrics and multipliers that people use. They say, okay, well, we’re going to take a multiple of your net value. In other words, what is, bottom line, after owner’s compensation and things like that. They have a number of different metrics that people use. But in a lot of cases, that’s what it boils down to. What’s it likely to be worth to someone else? And Glen Holt, who was a professional in the promotional products industry for a long time, one of my mentors in the early days, I remember he was talking about that when people are looking to buy a business, really what they’re paying for is the likelihood of future business. Because the only way I’m going to want to spend a dime on a business is if I know it’s going to generate a high multiple of that over a period of time, whether it’s two years or five years, or seven years or 10 years, whatever that multiple ends up being. So that at some point I know that I’m going to be able to recoup my investment and then make more going forward. Jay: Yeah, exactly. Maybe you envision running this business forever and then you hand it off to your kids and their kids and, a lot of parents find out their kids don’t want the business, and so it’s not easy to offload it that way. But I like the idea of even if you’re never considering running your business, things happen. Right? Medical things happen. Emergencies happen. You may find yourself someday saying, “I don’t want to sell, but I have to sell because of my circumstances.&#8221

When you want to qualify your leads and you approach it from the standpoint of looking for relationships that are going to be mutually beneficial, then it does become a lot easier. Because it’s not just about me saying, okay, I’m going to disqualify this person because of A, B, and C. If part of that equation is I don’t feel like I can help them, then you’re really acting with integrity. Because you’re not wasting their time and you’re not trying to sell them something that they can’t use, don’t need, don’t want, can’t afford. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be asking the question, how do you qualify your leads? Welcome back Jay. Jay: So great to be here, David. And another great important discussion for people in sales or any type of business. You know, we had this process in our company where we had set up a situation where, man, we were getting the phone to ring like crazy. We were getting leads. We were like so excited. And then we started looking at the close rate, the conversion rates and who these leads were. And you know what, probably 10% of them were looking for the product that we had to offer. So in having what some would call a successful marketing campaign, we were actually costing ourselves a lot of time and money. David: Yeah, and in a situation like that, but also in pretty much any other sales situation, there is a process of elimination that has to happen. Now, if 90% of the leads that you’re generating are really wildly unqualified, then yeah, you definitely want to tweak your marketing to try to improve those odds. But depending on the value of the client, the value of the sale itself. The long-term value of the client. If they end up doing business with you again and again and again, then even numbers like that could potentially work. As long as the rest of the math works. Jay: Yeah. and actually what we did is we just kept tweaking, right? So we just kept changing our keywords and our searches, and we got to the point where I would say 98% of our calls are right in that zone. Now, clearly we don’t convert all of those calls, but if you can really build a funnel where you can know that you’re at least talking to people who want what you have to offer. Wow. You have jumped ahead in the game. David: Absolutely. Now, for purposes of our discussion today, when we talk about qualifying leads, ’cause actually that would be a great subject for another podcast where we talk about what we can do when we’re trying to bring in the right people. But regardless of who you’re bringing in now, there is very likely a conversion ratio, like what you mentioned, whether it’s 10% or whether it’s 20% or 40% or 60%, whatever that percentage is. If you’re dealing with similar types of leads, there is probably a reasonably consistent conversion ratio that you’re working with. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: And if you want to improve on that, without diddling with the front end, then a lot of that is going to boil down to your lead qualification procedure. What am I saying to people? What am I asking them to determine whether or not they are a good fit for us? Jay: Yeah. And are you even doing that or are you, like we talked about in the last podcast, are you just jumping right into the sales process or are you taking some time to really find out if you’re a good fit? Because that’s going to be better for them and it’s going to be better for you in the long run. David: Exactly. And it also ties back to a an earlier podcast we did where we were talking about people who are worthy of our time and attention, right? So that also gets down to this level of qualification. And each of these things that we’re talking about are sort of slices or pieces of the same thing, which is why I like these podcasts when we’re having an opportunity to talk about these different pieces of the puzzle. Because having a bunch of them right, makes a lot more things go right. And so, when we talk about qualification, that to me is a really important one because we can’t always control the quality of the leads that are coming in. And in those situations, we want to have a process in place that will allow us to disqualify the poor quality prospects as quickly as possible so we’re not wasting a lot of time with them. Jay: Yeah, and again when you talked about worthiness, we’re deciding with our business model, with the amount of profit we need for sale, with the spend that we need to have, our customers have to be worthy of our time. Figuring out all of those things before you even start talking about numbers and those types of things. Again, it’s going to be better for both sides. Both sides have a much better chance of being happy when you start off with that frame of mind, David: No question. And when you menti

Most people don’t consider the idea of creating value in their communication. So if you’re doing this, obviously, you’re not telling your customer “well, I’m here to create value in our communication,” right? You’re just doing it. You’re adding value in the conversation. You’re thinking about, “what can I say when I reach out to this person the next time to make this communication more interesting, more beneficial?” By doing that, you’re going to create that in their brains and they’re not even going to know why it’s happening. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing creating high value communications. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David, once again, great to be here with you as we talk again about a topic that I know in my business career, we probably haven’t had this conversation a lot. Communication is just something that happens. And it may depend on whether you’re old school or new school. Old school, we’re just making phone calls and picking up the phone. And that’s high value communication. And if it’s new school, we’re texting and emailing. And that’s the extent of the thought process. David: Yeah, and I think the adjective here, the high value part of it may be what we’re bringing to the discussion today. Because you’re right, communication in business is expected. It comes with the job. Mm-hmm. And we’re always going to be communicating. But the fact of the matter is that particularly now, as people are more and more likely to skip over communication, if they don’t like what you’re saying or if they don’t feel like it’s worthwhile to them, it becomes more important for us to ask ourselves “am I creating value in this conversation?” Am I creating value in this email, this text, this phone call, this podcast, right? Because if we’re not communicating value in the discussion, then we’re doing our listeners a disservice. We’re doing whoever it is that we’re calling a disservice. Whoever we’re emailing, we’re doing them all a big disservice. So, If we consider the idea that we need to be engaged in high value communication as much as possible, it will very likely change what we’re saying at any given time. Jay: Yeah, such a great point. I think that most people now are engaging these new technologies that make the communication part automatic, right? Like drip campaigns, newsletters, automatic texting or whatever. So that part of the equation is fairly easy to implement. But then the real question, as you’re bringing up, is if I’m not providing value in that communication, I am training the customer or the potential customer to block me out. Because that’s the other thing that’s so easy. It’s so easy to automatically communicate. But on the other end, it is so easy for me when I hit delete in my messages. It says, do you want to block this sender? And that’s it. It’s done. It’s over. So that’s why you want to focus on that word value. David: Yeah, and particularly now when people are using AI to help generate communications. And my belief is that’s going to cause a lot of communications to start looking like other communications. Mm-hmm. And everybody’s going to be saying pretty much the same things. But if you are operating with the intent of creating value in the communication that’s going to be a component that you might be adding that other people aren’t going to be adding into their algorithm, whether it’s with AI or whether it’s what they’re doing themselves. And you also raised a great point, which is the idea of if you’re not doing this, you are training people essentially to ignore you. And wow, that’s not what we want to train people to do. Jay: Right. my email service now, I use Mac right at the top now, they put the unsubscribe button, like that’s the first thing I see. So it is so easy, and I just think about it. There are newsletters that I keep, that I allow to keep coming, and there are those that I unsubscribe to immediately. And I kind of do this thing where I, okay, I’ll scan down quick. And I’m looking for value for me. Because I have a time to value, you know, ratio. So I’m looking, is this something, is there anything in here that this person’s sending me that I really care about? And if I get one or two and the answer is no, they’re done. That’s it. You’ll never get through to me again. David: Right. And when you think about it, particularly with something like email, but it also applies to texts or whatever, When you’re looking through your inbox, you’re going to see two things. You’re going to see who it’s from,

When you are choosing worthy clients and making decisions about whether or not a prospect is worthy of your time and attention, whether or not they’re worthy of follow up, you are bound to make some mistakes in that process. And so when you do this, you have to recognize that some of that is going to come with the territory. You may make a wrong decision that will cost you some business down the line. So you have to weigh that against quality of life issues. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing choosing worthy clients. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you, David. It’s such a pleasure to be back on again. And once again, I love this topic. I feel like, personally in my experience, there is a tendency to believe that you have to take every client. And you know what? In some businesses that is true, you’re going to take every customer who comes through the door. In other cases, you can be more selective and it could make your life a lot easier. It can make your business a lot better. David: Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I thought this would be a really good topic, because I believe that in many businesses they don’t even consider this. I think that in many businesses we feel like, okay, we’re going to serve whoever we can serve. We want to take whoever comes through the door, and we just want to serve them to the best of our ability. And while that is noble, it’s not always great from your own standpoint, from your own business standpoint. And I wish this was something that I knew from the beginning, but it was not. As most things, we learn it the hard way and this is no exception. And at some point along the way, the idea of pursuing worthy clients, choosing worthy clients, tracking down worthy clients just really started to appeal to me. And when I started using that term with some of my clients, they were like,” wow, that never even occurred to me. and what do you mean by worthy? You know, things like that. So we can dive into all of that in today’s podcast. Jay: Yeah. I think that there are some things that we hear over the years and they start to sink in. We just don’t ever challenge ’em in our mode of thinking. Like I think of the customer’s always, right. I’ve come to believe. No, no, that’s just not true. Do I want to do everything to satisfy the customer? Yes. Yes, I do. But there are customers who can never be satisfied or I can’t provide what they want. So, no, they’re not always right. So I love that we have these discussions. So let’s start off with this word worthy. What in your mind is a worthy customer? David: Well, I think we have to decide that for ourselves, what we determine to be a worthy prospect or client for ourselves. And some of that can go back to what you talked about, in the customer’s always right or the customer’s not always right. But you can have a customer that is absolutely right about things and you can have a good relationship with them, but they may not still be a worthy client if they are taking up more time than they are costing. So if they’re not really focused on buying from you to the extent that you need them to in order to be worthy of your time and attention, it may be something as simple as that. And in those situations, I’m not suggesting, okay, well you’re just going to bag all these people. If you’ve got a relationship with someone and you like the relationship you have and you’re okay with it, then you can deem that prospect or client worthy. You can say, “all right, well, I like dealing with this person, therefore they are worthy of my time and attention.” But for me, I believe that’s where it starts. We each have to decide. Is this prospect or is this client worthy of my time and attention? Because obviously our time is the most important asset we have, and when we fail to recognize that, we can invest a lot of it, we can spend a lot of our time on prospects and clients who are not worthy of our time and attention. And it could go back to what they’re buying from us or not buying from us. It can also get down to personalities. If they’re rude, obnoxious, belligerent, then they’re unworthy in a lot of cases to do business with us. And I think sometimes as salespeople or as business owners, We don’t really look at it that way. We think, well, we have to be worthy. We have to grovel and try to get their approval and all that sort of thing. And I don’t really think it’s like that. I think it certainly has to be a two-way street. Because anyone that we decide to do business with also has to decide to do business with us. They have to decide if they think that we are worthy of working with them. But that’s their job. Our job is to determine if they are worthy of working with us. And to

The idea of The Four Mores is to recognize that if you want to maximize profit but you’re just focusing on bringing in more clients — you are very likely missing out on 75% of the available profits that are going to come from these other three quadrants. Maximize Profit with The Four Mores David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be talking about The Four Mores: More clients, more money, more margin, more often. Great to see you again, Jay. Jay: Yeah, it’s good to be here. And I feel like there’s one more more, if you can get all of those. More happiness and more peace of mind, right? David: Yeah. That’s true. There are more than four mores. Jay: Yes. Quadrant #1: More Clients David: I think that what we’re thinking of here is that these four mores are designed to increase the value of our clients and increase the value of our businesses. A lot of times when people are thinking in terms of growing their sales and profits, they think in terms of the first more. They think in terms of more clients. “I need to get more clients, “I need to get more business.” And so many business owners focus their time and attention exclusively on bringing in more customers. And sometimes what ends up happening is they forget about the ones that they have. And they start to lose track of the fact that they could be drifting off. Anyone who’s been in business for any length of time has heard the old adage that it costs a whole lot more to bring in a new customer than it does to resell an existing customer or to satisfy an existing customer. Stop Missing Out But it’s easy to lose sight of. And so the idea of The Four Mores is to recognize that if you’re just focusing on one thing — bringing in more clients — you are very likely missing out on 75% of the available profits that are going to come from these other three quadrants. Jay: Wow. That’s very good. And kind of like we talked about last time, moving people into that center zone, that loyalty zone. Right? David: Yes. Jay: And then, if they’re reoccurring, I mean it just makes life so much better. If you have a loyal base and then you’re bringing in more clients, to me it’s just the perfect pattern, right? David: Yeah, it does. So now we’ve got sort of conflicting visual images, however. Because last time we were talking about a target. Now we’re talking about quadrants, but it’s all designed to accomplish the same thing. Which is to get more of our clients buying from us more often. Spending more money with us at higher profit margins so that we can continue to grow the business, service those people. And without the profit part of it, you’re dead in the water. I mean, you cannot continue to operate without that. So each of these four components is absolutely critical to being able to grow the business the way that we want to do it. What About Quality of Life? Jay: Yeah. A good, healthy business that is making money, is growing, has loyal customers. And hopefully giving you peace of mind and maybe some quality of life. Right? David: Exactly. Yeah. Quality of life is a nice bonus for some people <laugh>. It should be a requirement, but it’s not always a requirement. Sometimes we sacrifice quality of life just to reach our financial goals. Sometimes, particularly in the early stages of a business. But eventually, yeah, we learn. But one of the things about this topic that I think is so important is that when you look at each of these four elements and you focus on them and you focus on improving them, it does improve your quality of life. Because now you’re not investing a lot of time on aspects of the business that are less important. Because if you think about the idea of bringing more clients through the door, obviously that’s an important consideration. When you think of the idea of when I talk about more clients, more money, more margin, more often. More clients, we bring more clients of the door. Quadrant #2: More Money David: More money. Well, what does that mean? It means that we can potentially increase the value of each transaction with someone. If somebody spent $500 with me before, can they spend $750 with me next time? Or can they spend a thousand next time? And again, it’s not just about increasing prices. It’s about providing more advanced solutions. In some cases they that are worth more money to them so that we can charge more. So we can sort of ascend them up that ladder. Quadrant #3: More Margin More margin, the things that I’m selling. Is there sufficient or can there be more profit margin built into that sale? Sometimes our focus is so much on being competitive on price that you can cut your way to lower prices. But at some point it becomes counterproductive. Because if you are losing money on every order, then volume is just going to kill you faster. <laugh&#

The best way to get more responses from your prospects and clients is to sequence your communication. If I’ve got a sequence in place that says, all right, when I get a lead from a networking function, what I’m going to do is I’m going to initially, either same day or next morning, send out this email message, which essentially says, “it was great meeting you at the networking function. Nice having a chance to talk.” And then. you’ve got something that is said in that email that is designed to elicit a response. Some will initiate a dialogue, some of them won’t. So from that point, if you don’t hear back, you could have another one that goes out a couple of days later saying, Hey never heard back you on this, but something else occurred to me that I didn’t mention and then you add something else to the conversation that could potentially be of interest to them. So you’re not just hitting them with “call me, call me, call me, call me.” You’re actually creating value in the communication, which is also particularly key when you’re doing sequencing like that. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of sequencing your communication. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. Great to be with you again. I really love that we dive into these things that can have such an impact on your daily business. Oftentimes people will focus on the large things, not understanding that sometimes the smallest tweaks can make all the difference. David: Yeah, and things like this really are kind of diving deep. And many times I know other people in podcasts or in stuff that’s actually going out to the public, they’ll just keep it all high level and not really get into too much. I think we’ve done a reasonably good job over the years of diving a little deeper and getting into things in a little bit more detail. Because it’s important for people who watch this or listen to this to recognize that there are a lot of aspects to all of this. And we touched on this in the previous episode. We were talking about sort of the high level goals, we were talking about the high level concepts versus the nitty gritty of what do I have to do on a day-to-day basis. And this really gets more into the idea of the nitty gritty. But sequencing is something that I don’t hear many people talk about in business. And I think it’s a real game changer for people in the sense that when you get this and you start implementing it, it changes the way that you interact with your prospects and clients to make what you are doing better and more appealing than what your competition is probably doing. Jay: Yeah, such a great point. And back to the idea of focusing on the smaller stuff. I’m weird. I call myself lazy because I want to avoid steps and reduce steps, but in the name of that laziness, I will spend weeks trying to create a system, whether it’s a software system or a planning system or something, just knowing that over the long run, it’s going to have such a dramatic impact. And I can be lazy about that thing after that. And I’m focused. I mean, if I can reduce one little step, I’ll spend weeks trying to figure out how to do that. David: Yeah. But that’s smart. I don’t think that’s lazy. I think it’s far lazier to just go into each situation, not knowing what’s going to happen, not knowing how to respond to the common objections you get, not knowing how to create a system that will allow you to bring clients through the door like clockwork. And when you do that, you’re basically going into work every day with no idea of what’s going to happen. So I think that’s really lazy and really sloppy and I don’t think what you described is lazy at all. Jay: Well, I don’t, you know, I think you’re probably right, but it is something that drives my wife crazy and it’s really bad. Like when we go grocery shopping, I have a route, and that route has a very specific design. It’s based upon how the groceries are going to end up on the conveyor belt. And that’s important because that determines on how they will go into the bags, because I want the bread on top and all of those things on top. So I have this all planned and thought out from years of experience. It brings me joy, David, it’s, it’s a little, probably obsessive compulsive, but that’s the way I am. David: That’s funny and she still lets you come along. That’s amazing. But it’s a great example though, because when you think about that, and there are two schools of thought when it comes to outcomes, right? Because what you’re describing is a more outcome driven approach. And it reminds me of the expression, the road is better than the inn, if you’ve heard that one

Achieving goals is quite different than just setting them. So while the first step may be to set the goals you really want, then we have to prioritize our actions from high to low. What is the most important thing that I need to do in order to get there? Because generally, you can come up with a dozen or a hundred different things that you’re going to need to do to reach your goals. But there’s probably one to three things on there that are going to be more important than the other 97. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing achieving your goals. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, so glad to be here, David, and once again, I’m looking forward to this discussion. We hear people talk about goals all the time, and I know for me it’s something that I struggle with because what will happen is I’ll set those goals. I really haven’t defined how I’m going to get there, and then when I don’t achieve them, it becomes something that deflates me. So I think for a lot of people, goal setting can work against them. David: I think it can too, because I believe there is a lot of focus on goal setting, and it’s something that we do, particularly at the beginning of a new year. A lot of people focus on their new year resolutions, which are their goals. And while there’s been a lot written about goal setting, the importance of goal setting, writing things down, reviewing it regularly, having your affirmations and things like that. All of those things are certainly helpful, but they don’t actually, directly connect to the idea of achieving the goals. And that’s why I wanted to title this the way that I did, because setting your goals has been done to death, but how do we go about achieving it? And I think it’s interesting to explore that aspect of this topic. Jay: Well, yeah. And one of the things that frustrates me is, when people talk about goal setting, they tend to assume that everybody’s the same. Oh, just follow this and you’re great. It’s like, I read seven Habits of Highly Successful People and what was never mentioned or considered in that was, it was also seven habits for highly organized people already. You had already achieved a level where all you had to do was put these things in place and you’re good. Well, what about me? I wasn’t raised with systems and those kind of things, so what about me? I didn’t feel like there was any place that I could implement that. David: Yeah. And that is very common. I mean, I think everyone probably deals with that because unfortunately, when you’re writing a book that’s going to be on a shelf for a long period of time, you have to include things that are essentially timeless. And the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I mean, it’s such a great book. It’s a very inspirational read. But when you’ve got rules, like “Be Proactive,” that’s a big, broad rule, right? And. In many cases you can be proactive, but what does that mean? It gets down to the nitty gritty. And we’ve talked in the past about Michael Gerber, the author of the E-Myth. And I love that book. The E-Myth, The E-Myth Revisited. I read the original copy a long, long time ago, and I just loved it. I’m like, okay, because this was all about processes. And that book talked primarily about the fact that you have to have processes. But then what are those processes, right? Because that’s the part that people like you and I need. It’s like, okay, well what are the processes and how do I do that and how do I make that happen? And so, so much of my career has been focused on that. Okay, how do I turn this great recommendation, “be proactive,” you know? Jay: Yeah. David: “Work on your business, not just in your business.” How do I take broad statements like that? To some extent, they become platitudes, and how do I turn that into something that is actionable? Because that is the only way we’re going to be able to achieve our goals, is if we are able to convert those great ideas into actionable tasks. Jay: Yeah. and such a key point. I think for me, what I found is I have to break it down enough to where I can feel that feeling of success instead of failure. Right? So it’s got to be minute enough to where I can say, okay, I did, I accomplished something. And it could be something very simple. But that motivates me to the next step. I find if they’re too big, then I’m setting myself up for disappointment. David: Absolutely. But I think anyone who reads any sort of self-help material or any sort of business material, if you can take what they’re giving you and then just ask yourself right away, “how do I apply this right now to my business?” Again, Seven Habits, “begin with the end in mind.” Jay: Right

I know people who have been in business for decades and they’ve held onto clients 5, 10, 15 years longer than they should have, because they never got this simple thing down. Declare independence from poor quality clients. If you’ve got a way to generate new clients consistently, like clockwork, you don’t have to deal with that. You can become independent from poor quality clients, but you have to have that plan in place. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. It is Independence Day in the United States, and today co-host Jay McFarland and I will be declaring independence from underperforming business tactics. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you so much David, and happy 4th of July to you and everybody else, and once again, I love this topic because I think there’s a lot of things that we’re all doing that we really haven’t stood back and assessed. Is that productive? Do I just do it because I’ve always done it. A good analysis of these things could probably save you a lot of time and effort. David: Yeah, absolutely. And personally, I just love the 4th of July. I love Independence Day. I love the idea of independence. I think a lot of people do. And whether or not it’s actually achievable on a personal or a business level, because it’s probably not. I mean, we’re all dependent on other people to some extent or another. But to the extent that it is possible, I like to sort of look at what are the things that I would like to become independent of? What are the things that I’m dependent on that I’m not comfortable with? And then say, “alright, what can I do to change that?” So I feel like that’s a reasonable starting point. Understanding that, are we really going to be completely independent? Well, no, we’re going to have to get our food from somewhere. We’re going to have to have customers. There are a lot of things that we’re dependent on. In most industries, I mean, we’re going to be dependent on suppliers, prospects, customers, supply chains, availability of cash or credit. That’s not going to change. We will be dependent on some of those things, but what are the things that we can become independent of? That’s what I think starts to get interesting. Jay: Yeah. I totally agree with you and I’ve, had this experience where somebody from the outside has come in, and maybe they’re just new to the company or maybe they’re a consultant and they look at what we’re doing and they’re like, why are you doing this? And I sit back and I go, Well, I’m not really sure. And then I’ve had the same thing where people have asked me to come into their business and within seconds, sometimes I can identify things and we get in that tunnel vision, and we don’t take time to step back and say, you know, why are we doing those things? I would really like independence from this thing, but I feel like it’s necessary. And maybe it’s not. David: Yeah. And if you consider the things that you really want to sort of separate yourself from, the things that you really want to become independent of. Like when I think about that, for me, it’s like, okay, I know that I’m going to be dependent on suppliers to some extent, but can I become independent of poor quality suppliers, right? Jay: Mm-hmm. David: I know I’m going to be dependent to some extent on prospects. But can I become independent of poor quality prospects? Poor quality clients, right? If there are clients that I’m interacting with because they’re in there and I’m afraid to let go of them, what do I have to do to change that? What do I have to do to become confident enough in my ability to generate new clients that I’d be willing to let go or sacrifice some of the old ones? And that’s where I feel like this conversation has value. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And you know, it just occurs to me how many people got into business, started their own business because they wanted independence. And now the question is, did you find that independence or did you give yourself a job where you’re working twice as many hours, but you’re making the same amount of money. Did you just get yourself a job that you hate? So again, I love this idea of independence and really just, you know, like you said, it doesn’t mean you’re going to free yourself up from everything, but can you improve each of those things, whether it’s efficiency… One of the things that I’ve seen that causes a real lack of independence is cashflow problems. You know, you’re making enough money, but you’re not getting that money at the right time. And so can you adjust that? Are there things that you can do there? David: Yeah. And if you just look at the things that drive you crazy on a daily basis, chances are you’re going to see

Getting from Obscurity to Loyalty in the mind of the client is all about building relationships, and I’m all about that! Until I sell you something and then I’m off doing the next thing, and I forget about you completely, until and unless you call again. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how you get from obscurity to loyalty in the mind of a new prospect. Welcome back, Jay. Great to have you here… Jay: Thank you, David. And once again, I’m super excited about this. How Do You Move from Obscurity to Customer Loyalty? Jay: I feel like customer loyalty is the holy grail of having a business. But I’m not sure if people know how to get their customers to that point. So I’m very excited. Where do you even start with that? From obscurity to loyalty. How do you begin this process? David: Yeah, it’s a fun topic because I think again, most people don’t think of it like this. It sort of ties back to what we were talking about last week. But the idea of getting from total obscurity to blind customer loyalty for most people just seems impossible. You know, “how do you do that?” But if you think about it, one of the things that I normally do, if I’m explaining this to an audience, I’ll draw a target on a flip chart. At the center of the target, the bullseye is blind customer loyalty. This is just loyal. I would never consider doing business with anyone else, but you. And then, a couple of rings out — outside the circles — you have obscurity, total obscurity. I have no idea who you are. I have no idea that you’re taking in air on the planet. I have no idea why I should do business with you, right? Intelligent Repetition of Contact And so you’re not going to get from total obscurity to blind customer loyalty in one step. It’s going to require intelligent repetition of contact, which is something we talked about last time as well. So when you think about it, there are stages you have to go through to get there. The first step is to move from obscurity, “I don’t know who you are,” to recognition, “Oh, I recognize you.” I recognize that you’re here. I don’t love you. I don’t hate you. I don’t know you well enough to do either of those things. But I recognize that you’re alive. So recognition is that first step. Jay: Okay. Moving from Obscurity to Recognition David: And when we think in terms of communication, the type of communication that you will engage in to let somebody know you’re alive is very different than the type of communication that you’ll engage in to get them to be more loyal to you and to get them to place that first-time order. So that initial step — moving from obscurity to recognition — that’s step one. Then from recognition, the next thing we have to get it to is some level of comfort. They have to be comfortable enough with you to have additional conversations, to place that first-time order with you. And then once they’re comfortable with you, that first order happens. From there, if you perform properly, if they place that order, and if you deliver the way you’re supposed to and everything works out well, then they might say, “okay, I’ll give you another chance and we’ll do it again.” Getting from Recognition to Comfort At that point, they’re in that comfort ring. They’re in that comfort level. You can operate in the comfort level for quite some time. And if you continue to perform in the comfort level, then eventually you start to move into that bullseye area. You start to move into that area of loyalty where people essentially say “Okay. I’m going to continue to come back to you… unless you mess up.” Jay: Mm-hmm David: So now at that point, I’m pretty loyal. I’m kind of loyal. But then if you continue to deliver and you continue to maintain that relationship, then you move closer and closer to the center. And then eventually up right there in the middle where they just wouldn’t consider doing business with anyone else. Customer Loyalty is the Bullseye As a visual, I think that’s a great way to go. So they can recognize sort of where they are and where they need to move. Jay: Yeah. I think you described it perfectly. I also think that it’s maybe easier if, when they’re in the comfort zone, to bounce them out in the wrong direction than to move them into the center. David: Yeah. Particularly when you don’t realize that this is even happening, right? Because most people don’t think of this, Jay. For most people, “I’m interacting with somebody and we’re having some sort of sales experience.” However it is that you and I got together, I’m working on trying to get this order taken care of for you. I get that done.

If our storytelling allows us to build trust, build credibility, build a bond, and increase sales, then we’re telling the right stories. If it’s just designed to be manipulative, then save your breath. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the power of storytelling in sales. Jay, tell me a story. Jay: Listen, I am a storyteller. I love to tell stories and I like to build when I tell stories, right? And so this is something that I use on a regular basis when I’m talking to people and it’s not just telling a story. I think it’s putting people in a story and what character are they in that story? And I think most people want to be the hero in their own story, right? David: They do. which gets to the whole idea of the hero’s journey and all that kind of stuff for anybody who follows that sort of storyline or that Jay: mm-hmm. David: type of story arc, The Hero’s Journey by Campbell, I can’t think of his first name. But it’s a book and it describes essentially the plot of most of the most popular movies of all time. Jay: Yeah, David: Right. Star Wars, Rocky, anything where you’ve got this person who is initially kind of beaten down and not winning, and then they come in contact with a mentor and then they learn new things and they have a confrontation and it might not go well, and then they learn some more things and then eventually they come out triumphant. There’s a whole arc. And you’re right, a lot of people want to be the hero, and the challenge as a salesperson is, in our storytelling, we can’t be the hero. Mm. Right. We need to make sure that the person we’re talking to is the hero and that we are the mentor or guide. We’re not Luke Skywalker. We have to be Yoda. We have to be the one who’s helping Luke to destroy the Death Star. Jay: Yeah. This is a really hard thing, I think for a lot of people. Because we want to go in and think we’re the hero, right? I’m coming into your business. I’m going to provide something that is going to save the day, and then I’m going to walk away and you’re going to praise me and you’re going to pay me. But that’s not what really is supposed to be happening, right? It’s that I have the tools and the resources that you need to be the hero. David: Yes, and it’s easy to forget that, particularly when we’re trying to read ourselves in as the hero to each story. But one of the things that I’ve noticed in sales is that many, if not most of the very best salespeople are also the best storytellers. You can say. “Hi, do you know what time it is?” And instead of getting the time, you will get a fantastic story that might weave the time into it. Jay: Mm. David: But you’re going off in all kinds of directions, and when they do it right, it’s captivating enough that you sit there and pay attention. Jay: Yeah. But you pointed out “when you do it right.” David: Yes. Jay: Right. so let’s talk about that a little bit. Let’s talk about your feedback on doing it right. David: Well, number one, as we already touched on, it can’t just be all about you. You can’t make the story about yourself. You need to make it about them, and a lot of that upfront comes from finding out about them, which means you’re asking more questions, then you’re answering, hopefully in the early stages. Jay: Yes David: Because customers always just want to know what it’s going to cost upfront, and you don’t generally want to lead off with that. So a lot of our storytelling will actually have to come from the conversations that ensue after we’ve gathered enough information. Jay: Yeah. David: To know what those stories need to be about. If we just go in and we meet somebody for the first time and we start telling them stories, that’s probably not ideal. We need to still initially do some sort of diagnostic upfront to find out what their interests are. Now, of course, a lot of salespeople, they do the whole thing about walking into the office, looking around, oh, I see a big buck hanging up there on the, Jay: mm-hmm. David: On the wall. The person’s a hunter. You start talking to them about hunting, that type of thing. And, it’s very obvious. It works in some situations to break the ice, so you can ask the person. Because the other thing about storytelling is it doesn’t just have to be you telling stories. If you can get the prospect to be telling stories to you, then they’ll be more likely to engage in a longer conversation because most people are more interested in hearing what they have to say versus what somebody else has to say. Jay: Yeah. David: So sometimes you can just let somebody talk for a long time and they feel like they had the best conversation, even though th

When I think in terms of upselling versus cross-selling, what’s the difference? Upselling to me means selling a better or a higher priced version of the thing that they’re looking at. Whereas cross-selling is making a recommendation of something that’s compatible. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of upselling and cross-selling. Are you doing it? Welcome back, Jay Jay: Yeah, hey, thank you, David. Listen, have these bad memories when I was a kid and I was working in a fast food place and the manager was always pressing me, “ask them if they want a Coke, ask them if they want fries.” And I got to a point where it’s hard to upsell and I think this has grown into my adulthood. You know, I just barely got the sale and now I’m asking them for more. It’s not an easy thing to do for people. David: You know, it’s interesting you should mention the fast food example because it’s the perfect example. It’s the one that everyone can relate to. “You want fries with that?” Jay: Yeah. David: Or the shortened version that you hear a lot of times, “want fries with that,” as the four word upsell. And it works extremely successfully for people in that sort of industry. Because it makes sense. Somebody’s coming in, they’re ordering whatever, a burger or something, or they’re ordering a burger and a drink, “want fries with that” makes perfect sense. And some percentage of time they’re going to say yes. And whether that is 1% of the time or 80% of the time, it’s probably maybe 30 to 60% of the time, I would guess, they’re going to say yes. Because it’s like, “oh, all right, sure. Why not? I’m already here.” Jay: Yeah. David: And you hit on a great point, which is that we can feel funny about upselling, if we feel like the purpose is to simply get more money out of a person. If it feels like it’s completely one-sided, if it feels like it’s manipulative, then we’re not going to want to do it. So I personally believe that the times that we should upsell and cross-sell are the times when we truly believe that we have an additional solution that is going to be better for them. Now, in the fast food example, are french fries better for you on top of the Coke and the hamburger? Jay: Yes! David: Probably not from a, health level, but certainly from a satisfaction level, yeah, it’s better. People are likely to want that. But in business, if you’re selling something, and somebody comes to you and they have something very specific they want to buy, and you have something that would be complimentary to that, or something that would go with that really well and would increase the value to the buyer, then you kind of owe it to them to at least ask them if they’re interested in that. Jay: Mm, I love that. I love that idea that if you are feeling uncomfortable, maybe you should ask yourself why. And how do you feel about your product? Are you really providing a value to them or are you just trying to sell something and get a paycheck, right? And I think we all have to ask that question about our own careers and what we’re doing and what we’re selling. But, you know, if you can just feel great that what you’re providing them is going to improve their situation, then you’re just passionate about what you’re doing and that’s going to come through. David: Yeah. So when you are talking to somebody like that, if you’ve got something that is actually going to be a benefit to them, if it’s going to help them, then it’s a lot easier to do it. So that really just boils down to motives. What is the motive? And unfortunately, I think sometimes managers, like in the situation you described in the fast food restaurant, the manager says, “just do this. Ask them if they want this. Push it, push it, push it. Sell, sell, sell.” When instead, if the manager had said to you, Hey, listen, when people come in here, they’re hungry. They want something good. You know, they’ve ordered this, they’ve ordered that other thing, so they might want it and maybe they didn’t think of it. You might want to suggest that. Maybe they want dessert, maybe they want an apple pie at the end, right? Jay: Mm-hmm. David: Apple pie. I’m saying yes to an apple pie, right? And if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and it’s very easy for them to say no. Now, there are situations, and I’ve heard it referred to, particularly in online situations, where there are online upsells where you buy something and then it asks you if you want to buy this and you want to buy that and you want to buy this. Yeah, I’ve heard people refer to that as upsell hell. Now, if you get somebody involved in that, then