Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

When we think about prospects who can’t or won’t say no, and we think about people who tend not to respond to us, prospects who don’t reply back after they’ve gotten all the information, it’s basically two pieces of the same puzzle. When we run into these situations, our goal needs to be driving them to the no, if we can’t drive them to the yes. Because the maybes, as we know, the maybes will kill us all the time. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing prospects who can’t or won’t say no. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. Great to be with you again. You know, there’s so much to cover about how to deal with prospects. You really have to be thinking in depth about, who are these clients who can’t or won’t say no? Do you even recognize that? Because that’s going to affect how you spend your time. Will you be working with them? Are they worth the time? Things like that. David: Yeah. And it ties back exactly to our last podcast where we were talking about prospects who don’t respond to you. We’re actually talking about clients who don’t respond to you. And then we got carried away with clients. We said, okay, we’ll talk about prospects in the next episode. And this really ties together nicely because in many cases, the people who can’t or won’t say no to us are the very same people who end up going radio silent and just ghosting us. When we’re trying to get a sale closed. Jay: Yeah, and I think it’s, again, we need to track and keep records. We need to be able to know, like, I have a system where I get a reminder. Hey you know, it’s my CRM. The last time I spoke with a potential client, I made a note. Remind me about this client in five days, if you’re running through a lot of potential prospects, you’re not going to remember your last conversation. You’re not going to remember, are they one of these clients that we’re talking about? So tracking and, searching for this particular concept, are they saying no? Can they say no? A very important part of the process. David: Yeah, and that’s where I think the notes that we keep for ourselves inside our CRMs or wherever we document that stuff are so important, because if we’re just saying follow up, follow up, follow up in our notes, that tells us nothing. So a lot of times it’s really good in our next set of notes to say, spoke with Joe yesterday, he indicated he’d have a decision by such and such a date, so that when you contact him on that day, you say, hey, listen, when we last spoke, you said you have a decision today at 1230. What are you thinking? Right. And you can move forward from there. But when we talk about people who can’t or won’t say no, I think this is where I’ve had several epiphanies along the way, because I think in sales, our desire is always to get them to say yes. But, in reality, sometimes we are better off getting them to say no. Because these non decisions are just killers. And sometimes people, they just can’t bring themselves to say they don’t want to do it. Whether it’s fear of missing out, or they don’t want to hurt our feelings. I don’t know what it is, but I know that whenever I run into it, I find it extremely frustrating, because I’m a pretty direct communicator. If you and I are having a conversation, I will tell you exactly what I think. I mean, I won’t be rude about it. I won’t be obnoxious, in most cases, right? But I’ll be very direct because I feel like I owe that to every person I talk to. If we’re talking about working together, I want to make sure that people are extremely clear on what we’ll be able to do and what we won’t be able to do. And we can’t do anything until we get to that agreement. I mean, I say this all the time, whenever two parties to an agreement want to put something together, they’ll figure out a way to do it. If one of them doesn’t, they won’t. And very often the one who doesn’t is the prospect. And when they’re too afraid or timid or shy to say no, it is a huge time waster. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And you can’t be wasting time, right, on people. You just can’t be doing it. So, we’ve identified progress points, right? So I’ve had an initial discussion with them. I’ve followed up. Have they responded to my follow up or are they ignoring me? First follow up is an email. Second follow up is a text. If I’m not getting any communication on those first two methods, they’re going into my drip program, right? I mean, instantly. I’m not going to waste my time with those people. I can’t waste my time with those people. David: Yeah. And there are multiple steps to this as you indicated. If we haven’t e

When dealing with unresponsive clients and prospects, we have to make sure that we’re doing everything on our end to be as responsive as possible. If somebody takes a week to get back to me, that doesn’t mean I’m going to take a week to get back to them. Because if I start to fall into the trap that they’ve laid out, then that’s not good for anybody. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing unresponsive clients and prospects. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. Once again, great topic here. I think all of us are guilty — anyone who’s involved in sales — of thinking, this client is going to turn into something, but really, if we looked at it, should we be spending time on somebody else instead of trying to push people through who are not ready or not able to do so. David: Yeah. And I think, as you said, everyone in sales deals with this, and that’s when you’re dealing with prospects, right? That’s when you’re dealing with people who have not yet spent money with you. This is even harder for some people when you’re dealing with clients, people who have spent money with you and who are not getting back to you with the information that you need in order to do the job that they paid you to do. Jay: Yeah, I actually have a client right now that is driving me crazy, because we’re in the tax business and they were like “we need to get this done because we have an extension.” And so at some moments they’re like pressing me like this is so important. And then they’ll ghost me for like three or four days. So right now I’m in the ghost period. I’ve emailed them, I’ve called them and I’m like, where did they go? And I just know like tomorrow they’re going to be, “Hey, we need to get this done.” It’s driving me crazy, David. David: Yeah. And again, you are not alone. I think everyone in business deals with this, and every time it happens, we’re like, why is this happening? I don’t get it. And that’s why I think it’s important for us to take the time and sort of examine this and try to determine, okay, what are the reasons behind it? If it’s a client, why are they not getting back to me with the information? So in a situation that you just described, maybe they don’t have access to it as quickly as they thought. Obviously, they’re just probably distracted with other things. They’re working on other projects. They know it needs to be done, but they’re not able to do it as quickly as they’d like. Every excuse in the book, some of them valid, some of them not. But when we are tasked with getting things done on somebody else’s behalf, and then they refuse to live up to their side of the bargain. That’s when we start to run into trouble. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that I’m guilty of as we talk about this, is feeling like if I put any pressure on the client, it’s going to like affect our relationship or something like that. So I treat people with kid gloves. And I really kind of find out, no, if I’m, I don’t know if stern is the right word, but at least, David: Maybe firm? Jay: Yeah, firm maybe is a better term. David: Yeah, because I think there is a difference between stern and firm. Firm is basically like… Jay: They sound the same. David: Yeah, exactly. Listen, I’m trying to help you here and I need this in order to move forward. And in most businesses, when you’re interacting with someone, particularly in a service business, it comes up a lot. So the rapport obviously is key. We have to be able to have the rapport with people to be able to say, “listen, this is what I need. Otherwise I can’t move forward on it,” and have them be able to come back and say, “yes, listen, I understand. I’ll get this taken care of for you.” But it doesn’t always flow like that. And that’s why I think if we start to look at what are the reasons for it, we may be able to have better ammunition in terms of dealing with it. For some people, and I think this goes more to the prospecting aspect of it than for clients, there’s a fear aspect. I’m afraid of doing this. I’m afraid of taking the next step. I’m afraid of moving forward. And it could be with a client as well. I’m afraid that once I do this, then there’s going to be something else you’re going to need that I’m not going to have. And I’m afraid I don’t have the time or I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to pull it off. So there’s a fear element that enters it into sometimes. Is that what you’ve noticed as well? Jay: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And in one of the other things that I’m experiencing right now, tal

Knowing vs. Doing in sales is all about implementation. Implementation connects the knowledge you have to the results that you’re going to get. And without that key element being implemented again and again and again, you’re never going to get to the results, the sales, the possibility that you have in your entire career. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing knowing versus doing in sales. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. I love this topic because I think so many of us are just doing what we think we should do, but we’re like, squeaky wheel gets the grease. And so, are we really focusing and fine tuning and honing our sales. David: Right. And doing what we know. Jay: Yeah. David: Because a lot of us can get trapped in input, rather than output. And I know I am guilty of this myself because I am a chronic learner. I am always reading books and studying stuff, watching videos, learning from courses, I spend a whole lot of money educating myself every year. What’s the newest, the latest, the greatest, the things that I should be paying attention to? And sometimes when we get too focused on input, we don’t engage in the output necessary to get the results we’re looking for. Jay: Yeah, I’m exactly the same. Like I have all this technology. I’m always trying to hone my systems, but like we hear garbage in, garbage out, right? I spend so much time on that, maybe I should be spending time on actually closing sales, meeting with clients, you know, those types of things. David: Yeah, and keeping track of what we’re doing, keeping track of our output, I think is really important, and a lot of us lose sight of this. I’ve actually created tools in my training programs that allow people to start to capture that. Because when you boil it down, the things that we need to be doing on an ongoing basis involve bringing new prospects through the door, getting them qualified in or out as quickly as possible. Engaging in presentations with the people who are worthy of presentations, making offers, closing sales, all those things are key. And a lot of that is just about engaging in conversations with people. So simply by tracking what we’re actually doing on a day to day or week to week basis, we can have a crystal clear idea of where things are going wrong in our business. But if we just sort of think in the back of our mind, “Oh, well, yeah, I know that, or I’m doing all that,” we can really be misleading ourselves more often than we think. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And when you talk about tracking, I’m looking for the perfect software to track or things like that. And often a notebook, you know, start simple and work your way up. A spreadsheet, something and just reviewing your daily activities can be a very powerful thing. David: Yeah, whatever you’ll actually use is your best contact management system, whether that’s a full blown CRM software system, or whether you’re just good at being able to keep track of your appointments and notes on a calendar or in some sort of notebook. As long as you have it all in one place and you know what’s next, that’s huge. Knowing what’s next for each prospect and client. When do I have to reach out to them and what am I going to be reaching out to them about? If I know that somebody has an event coming up in November and I need to be in touch with them by early October, I want to make sure that I’ve got a note for early October that says, be in touch with this client, early October, about their event mid November. So that when I reach out to them, I’m not just calling and saying, “I’m just calling to check in” or “how’s everything going?” No, I’m calling, “Hey, listen, I wanted to give you a call. We were talking about this event you have coming up in mid November, wanted to see where we are with that,” so that we’re able to continue the conversation where the last one left off, which is also pretty critical. Jay: Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I tell you about an experience we’ve just had, the past few weeks, because we upped our game in tracking and kind of identifying the different categories and the conversations. We’ve identified two new products that our customers absolutely need. And we’re excited to offer that. And we would have never caught it, if we weren’t tracking the calls and taking notes and those types of things. David: Yeah, it’s so important to be able to listen to clients, but a lot of that doesn’t happen when we’re not taking the daily or weekly actions necessary to make sure that that’s going forward. Years ago, I put together what I referred to as a continuum of knowing versus doing. And in the lower left corner of the grid, people who know nothing and do nothing

A lot of people just think broadly in terms of expanding their market, without asking themselves a really important question, which is why? Why do you need to expand your market? Am I not doing things well enough in my existing market that I haven’t been able to mine that as effectively as I could? David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing Expanding Your Market. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you, David. Once again, I’m excited for this conversation. I know we always kind of learn from each other. We’re in a process in our business where we’re trying to expand from the inside, from our current customer base. Like right now we have a great Google Ads program, but we don’t have an organic program, right? So that’s one area that we’re looking at right now. How do we get those organic leads? So we’re right in this process right now. David: That’s really interesting because there are so many different ways we can talk about expanding. I mean, the first thing you mentioned, just expanding inside your own customer or prospect base, right? You could just look at your Excel spreadsheet of all these people say, how can I expand within the people on this sheet, right? Or you could be talking, like you mentioned about an ad campaign. How can we expand this ad campaign to reach more of the high quality prospects that I need to reach in order to have those conversations, in order to do business together. So yeah, lots of different ways to do it. I think the appeal of a topic like expanding your market is that a lot of people tend to want to do it. I want to have more customers. I want to have more clients. Not quite sure where that’s going to come from. That’s sort of the generic thought, I think, for a lot of people. I want more customers. How am I going to do that? And a lot of it boils down to this. minute stuff that we’re talking about, identifying who these people are, how we’re going to reach out to them, and how we’re going to get them on board with us. Jay: Yeah. And I think that’s something that a lot of people fall prey to, and I catch myself sometimes as well, is thinking that movement is doing something, right? I’m busy. I’m writing a check. We’re doing something and we’re just moving. But ultimately, are you getting results and are you monitoring those results and fine tuning them? If not, you’re kind of wasting your time. David: Yeah. Confusing movement with progress and they’re two different things. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, but you’re like, Oh, I should really do this, I should really do that. And we’ve also talked about the fact, in previous podcasts, that many business owners suffer from entrepreneurial ADD. Where you’re working on one thing and then the whole squirrel, squirrel, squirrel! and we’re doing that. And now we’re off on something else. I think a lot of us have to reel ourselves back in when it comes to that, because there are so many different ways to expand your market. So many different ways to get in front of different groups of people, and so many different things we can say to those people. And there are too many variables. And I think when you’re looking to expand your market, you can’t be changing all of the variables. You can’t say, okay, now I’m going to go after a totally different group of people with a totally different message and promote a totally different product or aspect of my product, right? Or a different approach to describing my product, because you will have absolutely no idea at that point of what’s working and what’s not. I mean, in some cases we can do some minor tweaking of maybe one of those variables. If we’ve got a sales presentation that has worked historically for us, for a long time, then it makes perfect sense to test out that presentation in front of a different group of people who have never heard it. Because you have something that wins and you’re matching that up with something that has not yet won, right? So you’re seeing does this work over here as well. That goes to the basic essence of what’s referred to as split testing, where you want to test approach A against approach B. And when you’re doing that, you just have to make sure that you’re only testing small aspects of one thing. Cause like I said before, if you’re testing two completely different things against each other, you’re not going to know the answer to much of anything. Jay: Yeah. And we’ve talked about movement that we go through, but there’s also a sense of, I’m generating all of these leads. Well, what if 90 percent of them are junk, right? And so we confuse that with a successful program. And it’s not. It’s actually costing you mone

When you’re able to deliver what you say you’re going to deliver, that will start to motivate buyers to want to do business with you. And particularly for repeat orders. Because the first time they’re buying from you, they don’t really know exactly what you can do. They’re basing it on what you’re telling them, the conversations you’re having. But then after they have that first experience with you, and they know what you’re like, and they’ve liked that experience, then they are going to be motivated to buy again. Because at that point, they know those things. And it’s not just based on what you’re saying. David: Hello and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing what motivates buyers. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Yeah. Hey, it’s good to be here, David. I kind of think, why would you need to know or have a discussion about what motivates buyers? I think it’s because we assume everybody’s like us. And that assumption, can be completely wrongheaded, right? David: Yeah. I know Tony Robbins, in some of his material, talked about the fact that he’s not motivational. His goal isn’t to motivate people. And I thought that was a really interesting takeaway because you look at somebody like Tony Robbins and you’re like, well, that’s what he does. He’s motivational. He motivates people. But his goal is to educate people and to encourage people and nurture them and provide services that are going to help them in their lives. Like the rest of us, most of us in business, that’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to provide products and services that help our customers. So when we talk about motivating a customer, there are a couple of different aspects to it, because one aspect of it is motivating them to buy, right? Once they have all the information, sometimes it’s difficult to get people off the fence. So there’s that aspect of motivation, but even in the earlier stages, what will motivate a customer to want to even have a conversation with you? What will motivate a customer to even go to your website to investigate what you have to offer? So my feeling is that motivation, at lots of different levels, is pretty much critical in business and in sales. Jay: Yeah, I agree. And also a recognition that people are different, right? I remember walking into one of my program director’s offices and he had a cardboard cutout and it was divided up and all the things that he felt the listeners wanted and I looked at it and this was not based on research. This was just, you know, what he felt. And I looked at it and I’m like, I don’t think that’s accurate at all. It’s nice that you have this cardboard cutout, but I think you need to put a little bit more thought into it. David: Yeah, that’s a great point. And a lot of us go into every situation with our own preconceived notions about situations. And so it’s the same thing in sales. If we think that a customer is looking for X, Y, and Z, then that’s all we’re going to be talking about. But that’s why I think the whole consultative aspect of selling is so important. Asking questions, diagnosing, finding out what the actual need is. And when it comes to motivation, you’re going to be a lot more likely to motivate people based on what they want than what you think they want. Jay: Yeah, I think about people who create the product from the product side instead of from the customer side, right? And we just assume I like it, right? See it on Shark Tank all the time, right? These people are just so invested and they mortgage their homes and they do all these things and they don’t have any sales, but they’re just so convinced that this product is going to be something that everyone will love and they’re shocked to find out that nobody does. David: Yeah. It’s like the old adage, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. He was like, look at this. This is the greatest thing in the world. Like, I don’t want that. That’s not what I’m looking for. Right. So yes, when you take an approach that is product centered instead of client or customer centered, that’s not likely to motivate people. So if you’re thinking about how am I going to motivate a buyer to action? I think it really has to start with the diagnostic and understanding and determining what they really want. Jay: Yeah. And I also think, once you’ve done that, taking pride in what you have to offer. And this is something I see people struggle with and I’ve struggled with it. You know, I have people oftentimes will ask me for a discount now and I understand the ask, but I’ve really come to a place where I believe that we’re offering a great product. for a fair price. And I feel very confide

I mean, you have a podcast called Building Trust in Sales, you say, “yeah, be trustworthy.” That’s pretty obvious. But it’s also necessary. It’s necessary to be that, and to be able to convey that, and just to be authentic with it. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing building trust in sales. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David, it’s such a pleasure to be with you. Sales is a huge part of our business model, trusting that system. And, a lot of times it’s like crossing our fingers that it will work. I think a lot of people would like to have a little bit more surety than that. David: Yeah. And trust is absolutely critical to the whole experience. If they don’t trust you, there’s no way they’re going to buy from you. Now, there are some people who are untrustworthy and people should not buy from them, right? So if you’re untrustworthy, this is not a podcast about how to appear trustworthy. I’m assuming that everybody who’s paying attention to this is coming from a place of honesty and fact of being about who we are. Because trust is going to be built on that. The trust is going to be built on the conversations that we’re having, how those conversations are taking place. Are we being candid? Do people feel like we are providing them with honest answers to questions? And sometimes in sales, that can be hard for people. There’s a balance between wanting to put our best foot forward in sales, and being completely truthful and honest. And I feel that when we’re weighing that balance, being completely truthful and honest is absolutely the way to go. Because if you start sugarcoating things, and if you start exaggerating your abilities, and that sort of thing, that’s going to end up badly. And so I think in order to build trust, it has to start with ourselves. Are we trustworthy? And if we are, then how do we convey that to the people we’re interacting with? Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. And one of the things that, you know, looking at it from a consumer that really bothers me, and we’ve talked about this in other podcasts, is where I’m on a website, which is often the storefront now, and they’re offering me a free quote or something like that and I go through the whole process, and at the end it says enter your email and we’ll send you the free quote, and I’m like You freaking lied to me, right? And the last thing I’m going to do after that is reach out to you or give you my email address. David: Yeah, I think if people are clear about what’s going to happen up front, that’s usually better. I’ve been in situations like that myself. Now, if I see that somebody’s asking questions and I start going through that series of questions, I’m kind of expecting it at the end. But, There are a lot of sites like that, where it’ll start out and it’ll just ask for your zip code, right? If you’re trying to find a professional in a particular area, you enter your zip code, and then they ask what you’re looking for, and when you’re looking for it, and how soon, and, all that sort of thing, and they do exactly the same thing. You get there and then they want your information, and then some of these sites will pass it on to a hundred different people, and now instead of finding the one solution, now you’ve got a hundred people annoying you. To me, that’s a business model problem. Which creates a trust problem because now, we don’t trust anybody who’s asking us for any information. So a lot of times the worst players in the market set the tone, set the stage for what we have to go through. And when you’re having an honest conversation with someone, talking to them about working with them, they’re viewing us through the lens of someone who is not trustworthy. And then we all have to jump through additional hoops just to get back to zero, essentially. Jay: I love this point, but I also think there’s another way to look at it, and that is that it’s easier to stand out when you don’t do that stuff, right? So we, in our business, we offer a free consultation. And I can’t tell you, like eight times a day, customers will say, wow, I’m surprised that you actually gave us a consultation instead of a sales call. And so I’m instantly building trust. Because we have all been programmed. “Oh, I got a free consultation. I know what this is going to mean,” right? But I’ll take a chance. So I think in a lot of ways, it’s easier to stand out today. David: Absolutely. as long as you’re doing exactly what you described and we do the same thing. If somebody schedules a call with us, the whole purpose of the call is to find out, does it make sense for us to work together? Can we help you? And if

What do we want the overall customer experience to be like? How do we want this person to be welcomed if they happen to walk into our business? Because we want that experience to be consistent. That’s another important aspect of this. The businesses that really consider their customer experience want to make sure that it is absolutely consistent. David: Hello and welcome back in today’s podcast. Co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing crafting the customer experience. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. And I feel like here once again I’m going to learn something from our discussion because I don’t think a lot about crafting the experience. For me, it’s like, Hey, we had a sales call. Now you’re a client and we’ll just fake it until we make it, I guess. David: Right. And that is certainly a way to do it. It’s certainly valid. I believe it’s probably what many businesses do, perhaps most. The thing that actually got me thinking about this was a trip that I took to Disney World a number of years ago. And I thought about how every aspect of the experience is crafted. It is thought out in advance. It’s planned. It’s choreographed. There is very little, ideally, that happens there by accident. And at the time, I thought, “wow, as a business, if we were able to craft a similar sort of experience for our customers, what would that look like?” I’ve done presentations on this topic over the years. It’s something that a lot of businesses tend not to think about, but when I raise the issue with them, they seem to feel that it’s pretty appealing and interesting. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. It’s funny you bring up Disney World or amusement parks. I remember being a little kid and going to an amusement park, and I thought even the staff members were installed as part of the experience. I was amazed when I realized they actually went home after work. And then I ended up working at that very same amusement park on the backside, you know, where all the employees walk? It’s so disappointing! David: It’s got to be. Jay: Yeah, absolutely, and I think this is one of those topics where we’re not talking about, boom, one day you’ve got the customer experience defined. I think this is a process. It’s going to be very different from when you first open your doors, so to speak, because it is something that you should always be fine tuning, correct? David: Yeah, and we can’t even fine tune it if we’re not thinking about it. If we basically show up for work every day and do what we do, then we’re doing what we do. We’re not considering what the customer experience is. If you just take the title of this podcast to heart and say, “okay, what if I did want to craft the customer experience? What would that look like?” What happens if somebody calls our business on the phone, what happens? Is it a person who answers? Is it an auto attendant? If so, what does that auto attendant say? Is it encouraging to help people get where they need to go? Is it discouraging? Is it likely to put them off? Something as simple as that, that’s one aspect of the customer experience. This is what happens when someone calls us on the phone. This is what happens if someone visits our physical location. This is what happens when I meet someone on a Zoom call or in an in-person situation. Every single aspect of the experience, if it is considered, if it’s even thought about, is likely to be a whole lot better than if we’re just winging it. Jay: Yeah, such a great point. And I think one of the problems, David, is self-awareness. I think about this in sports. Like when all my daughters played sports and there were players and parents of players who didn’t really understand their individual skill set and they thought they were much better than they were. Because of that, they didn’t ever progress because they thought they had reached whatever marker that needed to be. They’re kind of prideful about it. I think that can be really true in business. If you don’t have a feedback system, if you’re not constantly analyzing, you may think you’re much better than you are. David: Yeah. And sports is a great analogy because, in so many cases, it’s all about the athlete. It’s all about the person on the field. Am I performing my best? Am I doing what I need to be doing? It’s all about me. And in business, it can’t be all about us. It has to be all about our clients and our customers, if we want to be successful in it. We can’t just think about ourselves. We have to think about what the customer needs and how can I provide it? If I can, I need to tell them how I can provide it. And if I can’t, I need to tell them that too, right? I don’t want to tell them I can do something that I can’t do an

Over the years, I have met some exceptional performers who still struggle to get enough customers. It’s not a function of who they are as people. It’s also not a reflection of their work. It’s not even a mindset issue. It’s about the fact that being exceptionally good at what you do, and being able to get enough customers or clients 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. Recently, 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 need for your products and services — then the promotion is a failure. If you have a fantastic marketin

Everybody has to make those determinations about their business when making sales and building brands. How am I going to do it? Is it going to be about me? Is it going to be about the customer? And how do I convey that in terms of my company name, my logo, my brand, and any slogans or taglines that you use, in order to communicate all that. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing making sales and building brands. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. And again, just a great topic. I don’t know if everybody feels like they’re a brand. Like, I’m a company, I offer a service, but am I a brand? When I think of brands, I think of like Kellogg’s or Tesla or things like that. I don’t know if I think about my own business that way. David: Yeah. And a lot of small businesses don’t. But even though they don’t, very often, if they don’t know what to do from a marketing and sales standpoint, they will copy the big brands because that’s what they’re seeing. You’re watching TV, you see a commercial for Kellogg’s or you see a commercial for McDonald’s or some retail brand and you say, “Oh, okay, that’s what I need to do. I just need to get my name out there.” Right? When I think of branding, particularly for small business, that’s what I think of. Somebody who’s like, “Oh, I just have to get my name out there.” And when you’ve spent as much money on marketing as Kellogg’s has, or as McDonald’s has, or any of the big companies have, they already know what those companies are all about. They already know what they do. So they can just basically say, come in and buy from us. And they’re like, okay, I already know what it’s all about. For small businesses to do that, to just put out the name of their company and expect people to want to wander in, it just doesn’t happen. And that’s why I think this topic, you know, the idea of making sales and building brands, I could have said making sales versus building brands, because I think sometimes people view it as two different things, but ideally we have to do both. And even if it’s not a matter of seeing yourself as a brand right now, once You’re established enough in your market where people recognize who you are and what you do. That’s sort of building a brand in their minds. So that when they hear the name of your business, they associate it with certain things, related to what you do and how you do it. When you think about Tesla or Elon Musk, you have a very good feel for sort of what he’s all about and how he tends to approach things. So to me, that’s an established brand. When small businesses want to establish a brand, they can spend a lot of money doing it, which is why they kind of have to be making sales along the way and focused on that first. Jay: Yeah, great point. You know, in those big companies, they have the big dollars to have focus groups and all of those things. Talking about the very beginning of your branding, again, I think we’re coming up with another podcast topic here, though. People who just throw together their logos or their slogans, It drives me crazy because it’s like the first impression when they meet you in public. David: Yeah, and again, with small businesses in particular, sometimes we can be too cute for our own good, too creative, quote unquote, for our own good. We think that something that appeals to us is going to appeal to everyone else. Personally, I think that the simpler we keep it, the more direct we keep it, the more sense it makes. Now Nike spent so much money establishing what that swoosh means that they can put a swoosh up on the screen and people go, Oh, maybe I’ll go buy some shoes, right? We can’t do that. And so. Unless you have that level of funding, unless you have access to that much money that you can teach people what your logo means, then you have to be a lot more clear and direct about your communication, your logos, your branding, all of it. Jay: Yeah, I agree. And, just so you know, you do have a focus group and it’s something that is really hard for me and that is showing your friends, your family. Getting their feedback, other people. I tend to do some things on my own because I’m afraid of feedback and that’s just not good. Everybody has a focus group, choose to use it. David: Yeah, I also think that particularly in the early stages, your messaging is very likely to be more important than your logo per se. Jay: Yes. David: I’ve talked to people who have said, well, you know, I still need to get my logo developed. I still need to get my website up. And I’m like, well, how are you paying for things until you get that done? Because the way you’re going to pay for those type of things is to

When we think in terms of creating persuasive communication, it’s really important to consider the flow. What is the flow of the communication? In what order are you asking these questions and having these conversations? Are you leading with the pitch? Because if you’re leading with the sales pitch, then that’s not going to work well at all. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing creating persuasive communication. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thanks, David. You mean all communication is not good communication? I just thought sending out emails and random texts, that’s the way to go. David: Yeah, random communication is often different than persuasive communication. I guess sometimes it can line up, but the stars have to all be in alignment for that to happen. Jay: Yeah, I see this. I get emails saying, Hey, just following up. And I’m like, Oh, you know, I don’t know that that’s really how you want to approach a potential customer. There’s no energy, there’s no urgency, there’s nothing persuasive about it. It kind of feels meh. And, I recognize that now cause I’m in that business, right? David: Exactly. And I think if we start from the premise that different prospects have different needs, that’s a really good way to start. Because I think a lot of salespeople tend to think in terms of persuasive communication, meaning saying things that will get them to buy from you. And that’s only the case if and when we’ve determined that we have a good fit with the person that we’re talking to, right? Persuasive communication doesn’t just mean getting them to buy. It’s about seeing if they buy into what it is that we do, seeing if we’ve got enough of a fit to have it make sense. What I think in terms of persuasive communication, it’s the kind of thing that’s going to get people engaged. It’s going to pull them into the conversation rather than repel them from the conversation. So while the term persuasive sort of implies that we’re trying to persuade them to do something, that is true, but it’s not just about that. It’s not just about trying to get someone to do something. It’s about seeing if what we’re talking about to begin with even makes sense. Jay: Yeah, and I think we talked about that a lot in our last episode, getting to know that customer so that you can build loyalty. How do you expect to send out persuasive communication if you haven’t taken the time to get to know them? And for example, I’m in the tax business, which is hard for me to say, I can’t believe that happened. But my communication is very different right now in the summer than it is in March, right? In March, there’s a built in urgency, and so it’s a lot easier to communicate to them what they need. This time of year, very different. David: Right, and the things that you need to persuade them of now are different than the things you have to persuade them of in January, February, March, right? Because what you need to persuade them of now is perhaps thinking in advance about what they’re going to need to do rather than trying to cram it in at the last minute. So that’s going to change the languaging. If you think in terms of who do you need to appeal to, that’s going to be happening throughout the year. What type of prospect am I looking to bring in the door, and how can I help that person to make a decision based on what we’re doing as opposed to what someone else is doing? You know, what are they likely to want? And we can’t always know that. We can assume, okay, well, I think they’re going to want to pay less taxes. That’s probably a reasonable assumption. And for some people, for most of them, that’s probably going to be the case, but there might be some sort of extenuating circumstance that plays into that as well. And if you’re not touching on that, if you haven’t taken the time to understand what it is they’re actually looking for, then your ability to persuade them to choose you is going to be greatly diminished. Jay: Yeah, and in my case, a lot of times, I mean, we have other products and services we can identify or we have identified that they can use during the year. But in my case, can I be persuasive enough now so that when they’re trying to choose a tax professional, that I’m the first one that comes to their mind, that it’s already a no brainer, because I’ve been persuasive enough, or will they forget about me when the time comes? And that applies to so many businesses when, you know, they may not be ready today, but when they’re finally ready Are you the first person that comes to mind or have you just faded into oblivion? David: Yeah, that’s such a great point. And that really ties

When I think in terms of turning leads into loyal customers, what is that first contact? And I know we’ve talked about that in a number of podcasts. And then from there, what is the desired path that we want them to take with us, that we want to take with them, right? Without some sort of basic path to get from here to there, the likelihood of making that happen is pretty much slim to none. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing turning leads into loyal customers. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you, David. Such a great topic again. I love our conversations cause I learn so much and I feel like there’s a tendency to say, okay, I got the lead. I closed them. Now I’m going to move on to the next lead. And I think we would save ourselves a lot of time and money, if we were able to turn that customer into a returning loyal customer. David: Yeah, absolutely. And you raised a great point because I was thinking in terms of just new leads that come in, turning them into loyal customers. But I think what you pointed out is probably even more important, that we already got someone and we’ve already turned them into a customer. And now how do we make that customer more loyal to us? I know in a lot of presentations that I’ve done over the years, I’ve talked about these sort of different layers of recognition in terms of what do people think about us? And I’ve often drawn it out like a target for archery practice. And outside the target is the area where it’s total obscurity. They have absolutely no idea who we are or why they should do business with us. And at the center of the target, it’s complete customer loyalty. And you don’t get from, “I don’t know who you are,” to “I’m completely loyal to you” in one step. It’s got to happen in a series of actions. So what you’re talking about there, you make that first sale. That doesn’t even happen very often in the first contact. A lot of times it requires intelligent repetition of contact to even get to that. We go from obscurity. I don’t know who you are, to recognition, I recognize you, but I’m not sure if I love you yet, right? I don’t know enough about you. To comfort, and then once we get to comfort, once they’re comfortable enough with us to place that first time order, like what you were talking about, then they’re going to see how we do. And if we did well, they might give us another chance and come back again. And if we do well on that second one, they might come back and give us a third chance. And then As long as that continues to play out, that’s going to lead to that level of loyalty, but it sure isn’t likely to happen in one conversation or one transaction. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. But I kind of like where you started off, too, before we dive into that a little bit more. And that is thinking about making the loyal customer out of the lead . Where do you start? Because a lot of people are like, I can’t make them loyal until they’ve purchased a product. That’s not true, is it? David: Well, I think if you recognize that when I attract a lead into my organization or when I’m even just trying to attract a lead into my organization, the goal is to turn that person into a loyal, longtime customer or client. So when you start with that perspective, you become a lot more discerning about even the people that you’re approaching. You have more skin in the game, because it’s not just about, “hey, can I make a sale to pay my bills for today?” It’s about, “do I want this person as a loyal customer?” And this goes back to a lot of what we’ve talked about in previous episodes about qualification and that sort of thing. But if we start out with the idea that we want to turn our leads into loyal customers, I think it positions us better, because it makes it more relational and less transactional. Makes it more about creating the kind of relationship that will result in a loyal customer, as opposed to just making that sale. Jay: Yeah, and I think first impressions are everything. When I first started out and I wasn’t the best at returning calls, because I didn’t have a good priority system, I had somebody say to me, “well, if this is how you treat potential customers, then that tells me a lot about how you treat existing customers. And so I’m going to find somebody else.” And I’m like, “okay, wait a minute, I’m doing something wrong here!” David: Ouch. Yeah. That’s tough when that happens and it can happen to us, even when we think we’re doing our best and when we’re trying our hardest and we just miss something. That’s a tough one when that happens. So. It’s another reason that being very conscious o

With strategic networking, you can make some initial decisions about who you think you’d like to target. Then it’s a matter of saying, “okay, where do these people congregate?” Identifying exactly where they are. Are they online? Are they offline? Most likely they’re doing both. But if they are online, where’s the best place to find them? And a lot of times, particularly with social media, we just end up interacting with whoever we happen to be connected with. But if that part of it isn’t strategic, if we’re not connected with the people that we could actually potentially do business with, then we’re wasting our ammunition. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the power of strategic networking. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I’m really glad we’re talking about this because I think, you know, sometimes I think I’m great at networking, but there’s not really any plan. There’s not really any, like even down to storing information and how I’m going to follow up on it. I would not use the strategic word in what I’m doing. David: Okay. And I think you’re not alone. I know that I have struggled with exactly the same thing. And even when we were thinking in terms of topics for today’s podcast, The Power of Strategic Networking. What does it even mean? Right? What does strategic networking even mean? And the way that I’m looking at it is basically that strategic networking means, not just anyone, right? You’re not just looking for anyone who can fog a mirror. You’re looking for the people who are going to be best suited to you and what you have to offer. I think a lot of us tend to stumble into networking situations, whether it’s with a chamber of commerce or BNI group or online in different situations, we’re online, we’re interacting with people. We consider it networking. But is it networking or is it just schmoozing? Is it just interacting with other people, or is it designed to get a positive result from a business standpoint? So I think if we start with that, the idea of strategic networking being that we’re doing it for a specific result, which is to meet and interact with the type of people that we can ultimately do business with, then it becomes a whole different thing than just talking to people. Jay: Yeah. Again, this is so important because we’re always talking about maximizing your time, focusing on the things that only you should be doing. And if you’re just out there collecting business cards and now you have to follow up on each one of those. individuals, you’re going to be spinning your wheels a lot and that’s going to cost you money and time in the short term and long term. David: Yeah, especially if you’re not quite sure what to do with those business cards. In other words, if you’re just thinking, okay, I’m going to meet people, collect business cards, gather information, and then follow up with them. It’s too generic. I mean, what does that even mean in terms of follow up? What does that even mean? And so for our clients, one of the things that we stress a lot is the idea of getting them qualified in or out as quickly as possible. I know so many salespeople who have engaged in networking that was you meet someone, you exchange business cards, and then you keep contacting them. You try to schedule an appointment to meet with them, to try to find out what they need and all that sort of thing without ever bothering to try to find out whether or not they’re even a decent prospect for the products and services you offer. And it can be a huge waste of time if, in fact, they are not. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. We talk about time wasting and I think that even applies to thinking about it before you go into a situation where you want to employ marketing. Like in my particular use case, just walking into a room full of business owners doesn’t cut it because I have a very niche product. And so I have to be really careful ahead of time so that I’m not wasting time. David: Yeah. And when you have a very specific defined niche, it’s actually quite a bit easier, as long as you take that into consideration and say, okay, well, who are these people? And where do these people gather and how can I best interact with them? What do I need to say? How do I need to say it in a way that’s going to generate results? And. I think that’s what brings the strategic element to it. That’s what brings the strategy to it, is just thinking in those terms. And I know in previous podcasts, we’ve talked a lot about the MVPs of marketing and sales. What’s the message I want to communicate? Which combination of marketing vehicles will I use to communicate the message? And then who are the people

There are a lot of people who aren’t quite sure where they are with the whole business growth thing vs. just maintenance. Some people are content where they are. And if you’re okay with just maintaining, then none of this applies to you. Right? You’re not required to grow your business if that’s not where you’re going. But there are so many people that I talk to that really want to do it. They want it to grow. They want it to be more than it is. They want to be able to create better lives for themselves, for their employees, for their families, for everybody they impact. And they know they can’t do it without growing. And when they use maintenance as an excuse, that’s a tough one to overcome. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing business growth versus just maintenance. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey David, once again, it is a pleasure to be here. And it’s so funny, oftentimes we choose these topics and I’m like, “man, I am right in the middle of that!” So, again, I’m excited to discuss this with you. David: Yeah, I think the reason that I wanted to talk about it, this came to mind fairly recently because I’ve had so many conversations with people, business owners primarily, small business owners for the most part, some sales managers, who say, “listen, I really need to grow this business. I need to grow my sales. I need to grow my profits. I need to make that happen now. This is a priority for me.” And then we talk about some of the incentives and we talk about some of the things that they’re going to need to do. we talk about some of the steps they’ll need to follow and nearly all of it is designed to save them time, save them money, generate more revenue, just make everything a whole lot easier and a whole lot better. And one of the things that I find extremely frustrating is when I’m talking to someone like that, who then says, well, I really don’t feel like I have time to implement this because I have so much that I’m dealing with on a daily basis, maintaining the business, essentially. I’m busy doing this and I’m busy doing that. And I’m doing all these different things that are allowing me to stay just underwater, a little bit, where my nose is just barely peeking up and down above the water, but I don’t have time to do the things that are going to get me out of the water and make sure that things are still functioning the way that they need to function. So in most cases, I believe that growth is the solution to maintenance, but it doesn’t work the other way around. Jay: Yeah. What is it? Winning gets rid of all the stink or, you know, whatever. Winning is the best deodorant. That’s what it is. Winning is the best deodorant. David: That’s true. Jay: Yeah, you know, it’s funny, this last year, I’m kind of reliving everything that you’re talking about, because of our seasonality, we have times where we have to be all growth, all the time, we have this influx of customers. We can’t be worried about maintenance at that moment, but then all of a sudden, it practically dies instantly, so now we’re asking the question, “How do we maintain our current base?” Because we want them to be back and so what maintenance things do we need to do? But not only that, what about the people who we talk to who might be interested in the future? Can we reach out to them on a regular basis? So now that we’ve died down, we’re talking about drip programs, we’re talking about newsletters to our existing clientele. So we’re kind of in this process between maintaining, we still want to grow during this time so we can pay our bills. But we’re really kind of in this mode where we’re trying to do both, but a certain part of the year we can’t do one. We just don’t have time. David: Right. Yeah, it’s hard to grow when the business is just coming in. And in seasonal businesses like yours, that’s particularly true. We had a retail mail order catalog business and around the holiday season, that’s when a lot of the business came in. And yeah, at that point, just struggling to maintain, but it’s the growth that you accomplish in the non seasonal time of year, that is going to allow you to generate the extra revenue that will allow you to pay for the times when you are just maintaining and not growing. And once again, with small businesses, this is particularly true. Because if we’re not growing enough to accumulate extra revenue that will help us to get through the more lean times, then we’re really going to have a problem. So the growth aspect of it is necessary. And you raised a really valid point. It’s not always possible at every point during the year, particularly in a seasona

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