Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

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 antidote comes from 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. Righ

When we talk about capturing leads online, we’re referring to lures and lead magazines. It could be a free report. It could be a cheat sheet. It could be some sort of checklist, something that they request, they download. It would be offered on your website. And ideally, you would have some sort of sequential autoresponder connected to the back end. So that the minute they enter their information, it’s processed by the system, and the thing they requested is sent out to the email address they provided. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of capturing leads online. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. It’s great to be here. And I think this is such an important topic especially when people just have a website that just talks about what their services are, but it’s not designed to capture any information. And I think that’s a huge, missed opportunity. David: I think so, too. And there are so many businesses who know they need to have a website and they generally do have websites. Very often they’re brochure sites where it’ll just have some information about the company. In some cases, they’ll have catalog sites. If they have actual images of products that people can look at. Sometimes they’ll have a full e-commerce site where people can actually buy products online. So lots of those types of things are generally thought of as being what’s required in a website. But one of the things that seems to be missing from a lot of small business websites, is just some sort of engaging lead capture system. So that’s really what I thought would be worthwhile discussing today. Capturing Leads Online Starts with a Goal Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I think that each website should have a goal, at least if you’re selling online, and that is to get them through the funnel, into a purchase. Or to get them to sign up and give you their email. Because an email list today is one of the most powerful tools that you have to market your products. David: Yeah, it definitely is. And I think a lot of times, business people and salespeople can forget that in typical sales scenarios, you have to meet someone before you can sell to them. So the idea of having your website set up in a way where you can actually attract and get people to provide their information so that they will eventually interact with you is really key to that process. I think a lot of people still approach their website as something that when they’re talking to someone, they can say, “oh, visit my website.” Or they can put it at the bottom of their email signature and maybe people will go there. But the truth of the matter is that if a website is not set up properly, then people are going to bounce off it the way that a bug bounces off a windshield. You’ll never even know who was there. And that’s why I think this idea is so important. If you look at the fact that there are going to be people hitting your site. Now, that’s not always the case. Sometimes people have websites, and nobody knows about them. Nobody’s hitting the site. However, if you’ve been in business for any length of time, if you’ve been promoting your web address, then people are going to go there. And if they don’t have something to do that will allow themselves to be made known to you like to say, “I’m here. This is who I am,” then you’re just never going to know about that business. Jay: Yeah, exactly. and I think that how you harvest that email is also very important. I get frustrated sometimes with this process. Because somebody will say “get a free estimate, instant estimate” and I’ll go, “okay!” And I’ll enter some information and then they’re like, “give us your email and we’ll send you the estimate.” And I’m like, “I don’t want to sign up for your email list.” And so I know a lot of people that will use a separate email, you know, for those types of things. So they’re not spammed like crazy. I think there is a danger of upsetting your potential clients. If you do this wrong. There are Right and Wrong Ways of Capturing Leads Online David: I agree. And you don’t want it to come across as any sort of bait and switch. Because if you do that, yeah, your credibility is totally shot. I do think that the way that I’ve seen a lot of people approach this, in terms of “lead generation,” I’ll put that in air quotes. Is that what they’ll do is put some sort of contact form on their website and it’ll say, enter your first name, your last name, your email, address, your phone number. What is it you want to talk about? Your next of kin? Your social security number? I’m exaggerating, but they put a lot of information on there and s

Technology can either help customer service a whole lot, or it can harm it a whole lot, depending on how it’s used. It’s like a weapon. You can use a knife to cut a steak, or you can use a knife to hurt somebody. And I think the technology is being used the same ways, where they’re trying to save themselves time and energy and effort. And they’re forgetting the fact that there are other human beings on the other end of that technology. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of customer service. Is it well and truly dead? Welcome Jay. Jay: Well, I think it depends upon the industry, but I’m going to say it’s more dead than not as far as I can tell. David: Yeah, it’s sad. And I feel like in some businesses, in the best businesses, it’s not dead. And it creates a tremendous advantage for those who are still keeping it alive, whether on life support or just because it’s the way they do business. But wow. I have had so many experiences recently where it seems like not only is the customer service unresponsive, uncooperative, unpleasant… Jay: Mm-hmm David: And there’s just this level of apathy that seems to go with it, which when you combine those things, really does seem pretty deadly. Jay: Yeah. And I think there is a temptation — because there’s such great technology out there — there is a temptation to say, “look, we can cut our costs if we just implement this new technology that maybe answers questions online” or “press one for this or for that.” I can see the temptation, but I don’t know if they clearly understand the frustration. I’ll tell you one of my pet peeves right now are the chatbots. I’ll go online and they’ll say, “Hey, if you don’t want to sit on hold,” which is an admission already that you don’t have enough people, ” go ahead, just chat with us.” And I’m thinking I’m going to get a live person. And no, I get a chatbot and I type in my question and it sends me to a predefined link that doesn’t answer my question. And I’m like, “I’ve just wasted 15 minutes and I could have been on hold the whole time.” So, very cool tech, but on the customer end, I think it’s frustrating a lot of people. Does Technology Help or Hurt Customer Service? David: It really can, particularly because technology can either help customer service a whole lot, or it can harm it a whole lot, depending on how it’s used. It’s just like any other weapon, right? It’s like a weapon. You can use a knife to cut a steak, or you can use a knife to hurt somebody. And I think the technology is being used the same ways, where they’re trying to save themselves time and energy and effort. And they’re forgetting that there are other human beings on the other end of that technology. But even beyond that, tech aside, there are now situations where you leave a message for somebody, or you send them an email. I mean, that is obviously tech as well, but if the human being behind the email does not respond to the email or they don’t return the phone call or they don’t return the voicemail or they don’t return the text. Now it’s actually more human error than tech error. And that’s where I think customer service is really struggling right now. Because if you’ve got well-meaning well-intentioned people who are determined to use the technology to make customer service better, then those companies are not just going to survive, they’re going to thrive. But the problem is there are people in organizations who just don’t care enough about the customers to even do the basic minimum things like returning phone calls, returning voicemails, and that sort of thing. Jay: Yeah. And then there’s the question of, you know, how do you know if you’re a business? How do you know if those calls are being returned? How do you gauge your customer service? Do you have a system to follow up with customers to see what their experience was like? If you don’t have a system to gauge that, you may be in real trouble because of your customer service and not even know it. David: We were talking in a previous episode about the idea of when costs are increased and you have to look for places to cut back. When there are situations where a company is employing people who are not taking care of the customer, if you’ve got to cut back personnel, that’s the best place to start. If there are people who will not be educated, and who are unwilling to learn what it takes to continue conversations with clients, that is really problematic. And so for the people who are serious about growing and expanding their business, who are serious about maintaining the type of customers that make you w

Being profitable is important, even with higher costs. Generally small and medium-sized businesses want to hang onto their 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. 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&#8217

If you don’t think increasing order size and frequency is important, consider the alternative. Small orders and one-time clients can kill a business. You can spend an enormous amount of time tracking down one small order. And if you do a lot of that with a lot of different people, you can be busy, busy, busy, all day long, but not generating the revenue you need to sustain, let alone grow your business. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing increasing the size and frequency of your client orders. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much. And I have to tell you, I really love this topic. Because I think people get in a rut where they think the only way to increase profit is to add more customers, instead of looking at your current client base and saying, well, how can we expand on what they’re doing and using them as a lead source? David: Right. Yeah. And there are lots of different ways that people can engage in this. And the reason that I raised the topic is that Chris Ruvo from ASI recently published an article about a survey they did at the ASI Show in Chicago recently. And they talked about the biggest concerns that promotional product distributors have. And the one that came up as number one in the options that they were given was increasing the size and the frequency of client orders. So I thought, okay, this is a really good topic to discuss. Because it has such a tremendous impact on people’s businesses and it’s hardly ever considered. Right? A lot of times, as salespeople, we go out there, we get an order and we bring it back and you know, it’s just like hunting. You go out. You hunt it down. You kill it. You drag it back. You cook it and eat it. A lot of people take the same sort of approach in sales. And we don’t recognize the fact that different clients are going to behave differently. Different orders are going to be different. When we combine small orders and one-time clients, that combination — small orders, and one-time clients — can really be a business killer. Because you can spend an enormous amount of time just tracking down that one order. It’s a small order and you spend a lot of time on it. And if you do a lot of that with a lot of different people, you can be busy, busy, busy, all day long, but not generating the revenue you need to sustain, let alone grow your business. Jay: Yeah, such a good point. And I think for a lot of companies, their biggest expense is that customer acquisition cost. Right? And if you can lower that or make it so once you’ve experienced that cost, you don’t have to experience it over and over again. Because you’re increasing sales with your clients and increasing their orders. That’s just a really smart way to go, I think. David: Yeah, exactly. And so when we have clients who are able to spend more, place larger orders and are willing to do so more frequently, then that’s a real winning situation. But for people who don’t have that, it becomes a real struggle. Because they say, “okay, well I’ve got all these different customers, and they buy from me once a year and they place small orders. Where do you go with that? And the reality of the situation is that if you don’t have clients like that and you want to create a better, more sustainable business, you’re going to have to actually go out and hunt them down. As you talked about, it’s better when we can do it with our own internal customer base. Unfortunately, that’s just not always possible. Jay: Yeah. Not always possible. But I’m sure there are some tricks to the trade. I’m wondering, do you do this by offering or adding different product lines so you can offer something new to these clients? What’s the smart way to go about this? David: Yeah, it’s a great question. And again, a lot of the work that we do is in the promotional products industry. So there’s no shortage of different ideas and different products. There are literally hundreds of thousands of products that can be represented by a promotional product distributor. So to some extent, that’s already baked into the equation. You can recommend different things, new ideas, all that sort of thing. But particularly when the economy is a little more challenging, I think ego advertising goes out the window. When the economy is good, if I’m feeling good about things, yeah, I might think nothing of slapping my company logo on some mugs, shirts or tote bags and just get it out there because I think it’s cool to have my name on a tote bag. But as things get tougher for people, as expenses go up and people are looking for ways to cut back, one of the first things that’s going to go is essentially ego advertising. To get people to place larger orders and order more frequently, tie the products to the results the

Why is it that some businesses take off like a rocket while others can languish for months or years without creating explosive growth? Why do some businesses plateau at a certain level and struggle to break through, while others are able to grow consistently? In my experience, it boils down to three things we’ll discuss in this episode. Recently, I was reminded of a story about how Chinese bamboo trees grow very slowly underground, for years, completely unseen. The people who plant these trees water and fertilize the soil every day, even though there are no signs of life. Sounds tedious, right? Watering the same patch of dirt for years? I mean, that HAS to feel pretty unfulfilling at times. But the amazing part of the story is that roughly five years after planting — when the bamboo finally breaks the surface of the ground — it can grow up to 90 feet tall in just five weeks. That is a great example of creating explosive growth! And while a typical bystander might see that and think, “wow, that grew really fast!” The people who actually do the work — those who plant, water, fertilize and cultivate these plants — know EXACTLY what it took to trigger that growth. I love this analogy because it tracks so closely to the work I’ve done with promotional product businesses over the past 20+ years. Some of the people I work with might start out feeling a bit like the bamboo gardener — tending, nurturing, and cultivating a business that seems like it might never break through the soil. In fact, some are stuck for more years than it takes for a bamboo tree to crack through the dirt and see the light of day. But the good news is that promo businesses AREN’T bamboo trees. They’re not subject to the same restrictive laws of nature. Instead, there are very specific steps we can take to prep the environment and TRIGGER explosive growth much faster. In fact, when I work with clients, we operate in two primary modes: First is Stealth Mode This is where we lay the groundwork that no one else sees. It’s what’s happening beneath the surface. In bamboo terms, it would be the equivalent of supercharging the seeds, soil, water, and fertilizer to create a better, stronger, faster-growing plant that is heartier and more resilient than the other plants. Second is Intimidation Mode I know that sounds obnoxious. But the simple fact is that when you initiate explosive growth in a business, people notice. Their prospects are excited to see something new and different. Their clients are excited to be associated with a winner, OUR clients are excited to have their businesses attracting the right people and growing the way they want… And their competitors? Well, they just get intimidated. It’s not the intention. But it’s often a side effect. So each month, we offer a small group of promotional product distributors the opportunity to work with us to plant the seeds. Our goal is to help you quickly: Lay the groundwork Plant the seeds and Trigger explosive growth And we do this using our proprietary, proven framework. It is NOT cheap, but it is EXTREMELY effective. So what does creating explosive growth actually look like in a promotional products business? Well, let’s start with what it doesn’t look like… It doesn’t look like 10 to 20% annual growth. I mean, think about it. If you start at $50,000 in sales your first year and settle for 10% annual growth, it would take you more than 32 years to hit $1,000,000 in sales. Even at 20% growth, it would take more than 17 years. So if you’re serious about growth — particularly in the early stages — 10% to 20% annual growth is not going to do it for you. Ask yourself this. Are your current year-over-year numbers getting you to where you want to be? And if so, are they getting you there fast enough? Usually, creating explosive growth requires at least doubling your revenue multiple times over. Growing from, say $50,000 to $100,000 to $250,000 to $500,000 to $1,000,000+. Of course, the larger you get, the harder it is to continue to double like that. But in that example, with year-over-year doubling, you can get from $50,000 to $1,000,000 in four years. If you can achieve those doubles in less time, you can get there even faster. Of course, not everyone in our industry is interested in achieving that sort of growth. And you don’t have to be. I know many people who are happy to generate whatever sales they can in the time they allocate to it. But that’s not who this particular message is for… Instead, this is for you if you WANT to achieve exceptional results but have been struggling to get there… It’s for you if you KNOW you are capable of reaching your goals, but you’ve been unable to blast through your current sales plateau… It’s for you if you have been in the industry for months or years, and you’re still not trigge

It’s not like, well, there’s just one method for ruling your territory. But the one thing that is critical to all of it, is identifying your area. Identifying your territory. Focusing in on it and making sure that you become a known commodity in that area. So that people have the opportunity to choose you. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast in today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of ruling your territory. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Yeah. Thank you, David. This is a really interesting topic. I’ve been excited to get to this topic, ruling your territory, being the master of your general… David: your domain Jay: …area. Yeah, of your domain. David: That was a Seinfeld episode, I think. Jay: Yeah, that’s right. However you want to say it. So many of the things that we talk about, I don’t know if they’re top of mind for business owners or for salespeople. They have so many other things going on. For them to be thinking about market share or things like that and how that can affect their business, especially over the long haul. David: Yeah. That’s why I think it’s great to discuss. Because when we are in the thick of it, we tend to forget about the fact that, whoever we are, if we’re a business owner or a salesperson, we are operating in a particular territory. And recognizing that we could be spread out, we could have a few customers. Let’s say we have two customers in one huge city, and we’ve got two customers in another huge city somewhere else. If we’re sort of spread out, but nobody else in either of those cities even know who we are, at that point we’re really not ruling our territory. And this idea sort of traces along with the idea of dominating your market, which is something that we talk about quite often. You know, what is your market? What is your territory? How do you define it? Is it defined primarily geographically that you sell primarily in your small geographic area? In your area of town? Your city? Your state? Is it nationwide? Is it with particular industries? How do you define it? Because that’s going to determine whether you are just inhabiting a territory or ruling it, dominating it. Jay: I like that question. Are you just inhabiting? Are you just there? Or are you ruling it? And I think one of the things that can be done, and I don’t see this in a lot of small businesses, is just making a list of all of your potential clients. And that should give you an idea of where you stand. And then if you know a list of who they’re using. And so, you know, your client and you know who your competitors are. I would think that that’s probably a good place to start. David: It’s a great place to start. And also thinking in terms of the other people who are like your clients who operate in a similar area, either in a similar geographic area or a similar demographic, however, you’re defining your territory. Also, when I use words like ruling and dominating, I don’t want them to sound as intimidating as some people interpret them to be. What I mean is that you’re essentially staking your claim. You’re saying, okay, look, this is an area where I want to do well. I want to excel. I want to be known. I want people to know me and I want to know other people in this particular market. They’re not all going to do business with me. I recognize that, but I want to make sure that all of the people who could potentially use my products and services at least know that I exist so that they could consider me if it makes sense for us to work together. Jay: Yeah. I think that’s really important. I think a lot of times people think about, well, I go in and I get the sale and if I don’t get the sale, well, then I’m done with that customer. But if you make it more of I’m going to go in and get a relationship, instead of a sale. If you get the sale, that’s great. But if you don’t, what happens when the customer they’re using falls down? David: Right. Jay: When the customer they’re using makes a mistake or goes out of business. If you already have that relationship, well now you are going to be the first call, right? So that relationship, I think, is so important. David: Yeah, I agree. And I think for most salespeople, the idea of relationship, it’s always a great talking point. Not always as well practiced as it should be. But it’s absolutely true. If we’re establishing relationships, that’s going to be great. And as many relationships as possible and as makes sense in a particular area. So let’s say somebody’s focused on selling to a niche industry, a niche industry, however you want to pronounce it. And you’re selling to the tech industry. You want to make sure that you’re interacting with as many tech people as possible within the market or t

Anybody who’s been in sales has probably been in a situation where you’ve been in a room with someone and you’re looking at them and you’re having a conversation with them. And they’re looking around the room. They’re looking at things. People are buzzing them on the phone. They’re like, “excuse me.” They’re taking the call and you’re sitting there thinking, “why am I here? Why am I doing this?” So other people maintaining focus (or not) will give you a really good idea of where you stand with them. David: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. We are back once again. Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing, maintaining focus in your day. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: It’s so good to be here, David. And I know that focus is something that everybody’s working on. One of the reasons I know this is all of the technology companies are building focus tools into their devices. We must be wanting this because I can now tell my phone, no I’m focused on this and it gives me different screens for that particular time so that I can be focused in on this. So we must all want to be able to focus better. And the question is, how do we achieve that? David: Yeah. Especially when there are other technology companies that are trying to get you to focus on them. Right? You gave a great example. I noticed that too, on my phone, there’s the new focus button. And I like that idea, but in the meantime, nearly every social media platform is designed to steal your focus, to derail you from what it is that you wanted to do today in favor of what they would like to have you do today, which is to scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and then scroll some more. So we do have technology that is working for us, and we have technology that is working against us. But last time when we were talking about the idea of building proactively, I think these things tie together. As we’re building proactively, we recognize that it does require day-to-day focus. And so in order to do that, we have to say, okay, how are we going to make it happen? Particularly with all sorts of forces, potentially conspiring against us. Jay: Yeah. I love that point, that on the one hand tech is trying to help us focus, and then everything else in the world, I’m like, “squirrel!” You know, squirrel there’s something new and it’s not just social media who’s trying to distract you. It’s the employees who want your time, the customers who call up because they don’t know your schedule. They just know they have a question, right? So they’re calling you. So how do you go about building some semblance of focus throughout your day with all of these distractions that are coming in constantly? David: Well, from my standpoint, I think we need to decide at the beginning of the day, as early as possible, what really needs to happen today? Because that’ll help us to determine where our focus needs to be. What is it that actually has to get done? What has to happen? What do you have to do versus what do other people in your organization have to do? So if you own the organization, you’re going to have to determine what you’re doing and what they need to be focused on. And how are you going to avoid distraction? Lots of people have, or had, open door policies when people were working together. Do I have my door open? Do I have my door closed? I liked the idea of having an open-door policy. So for many years in my business, I did. But unfortunately, that sometimes programs people to think, okay, door’s open! I’m constantly available. So you really need to balance that and make determinations as far as how much of your time during a given day is going to be dedicated to focus time. The work that you have to get done in a specific timeframe, in a specific way, without distraction. And then adapt or create an environment that allows you to do that. Jay: Yeah. I have a funny story. I went to a company, it was a brand new company. They just built this beautiful building. And I went to the CEO and his desk was right out in the middle of everybody else’s. David: Wow. Jay: No cubicle walls, nothing. There’s the CEO’s desk, right? And about six months later, I went back. And instead of that desk, there was an office. And I’m like, what happened? And he is like, well, I just realized, as much as I wanted the open door feeling and that people could come to me. I just couldn’t do the things that I needed to do, because it was like a line, where people were wanting to talk to me every few minutes. David: Right. Yeah. And so everybody needs to determine how much they can take. How much they can actually get done, without completely distracting themselves. And you basically have to engineer your environment around that. But I think the idea of, professionals in particular, requiring the ability and

All of the things that we’re talking about, go to the idea of building your business proactively. From the standpoint of a business owner, how am I going to do this in a way that will actually work? From the standpoint of an employee, how can I get that stuff done? It requires coordination. But more than anything else, I think it requires this proactivity that we’re talking about. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of building your business proactively. Jay, great to see you. Jay: Thank you so much. So glad to be here as always, David. And I love this word, proactive. I know a lot of small business owners and I wouldn’t say they’re proactive. I would use the word haphazard. David: Ooh. Jay: Things just kind of happen. They’re lucky because they get referrals or things like that. But there’s not really any structure or proactivity to how they grow their business. David: Yeah. And I would love to say, “well, I started out being proactive.” But I really didn’t. And that’s why I particularly enjoy this topic. So often when I’m doing presentations for live groups, this comes up. Because so many people feel like they’re constantly having to react and deal with the day-to-day, I’ve got clients calling. I’ve got employees knocking on my door. And when you are reacting all day, it really leaves you in a difficult situation when you are actually trying to build a business proactively. So that’s why I think it’s a great topic to discuss. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. When you’re in your reactive mind you’re, just not in a good place. You’re going to be responding quickly, not giving time to actually think about what you’re doing. If you’re doing sales, it’s going to put your sales at risk. If you’re working with your coworkers, it might turn out to be something you’re apologizing for later. Reacting is just not the way to go. I’ve always been taught you can act or you can react. And you want to focus on acting, because that’s purposeful, and that’s more the person that you want to be. David: Yeah, I think it was Steven Covey in one of the Seven Habits materials that he put out where he was talking about the difference between responding and reacting. Subtle nuance there as well. But I think when we talk about proactive, it’s a completely different discussion. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. So here I am. I’ve got this business, like you said, phone calls coming in. I got employees knocking on the door. I’m trying to have meetings. How do I go about this? What are some of the first steps to get to where I’m acting instead of reacting? David: Well, I think one of the first things is allocating time, creating time setting aside time. I’m not going to say finding time because no one ever finds time to do things. But creating the time, allocating the time to really think about what you want to have happen in your business. What type of clients you want to attract. What size customers you’re looking for. How many you’re looking for. What industries? All those types of things. Because, when we are being reactive, none of that comes into play. It’s basically whoever stumbles through the door, whoever can fog a mirror. And if you want to build a business like we’re describing, you can no longer just settle for that. Jay: Yeah. Are you a fan of time blocking? Like looking at your calendar the next day and blocking out like this hour is going to be for sales calls. This hour is going to be for training or whatever. David: I think it can be very helpful, but I wouldn’t say that it’s always completely effective. I think it’s a great idea when you can pull it off, recognizing that life interferes sometimes. And so, yeah, I think it’s good to have parameters in place to say, “this is the time I have allocated to this.” And of course, if something comes along to disrupt it you’ve got to have a backup. “Okay, what am I going to do in the event that happens?” But yeah, I think it’s great, particularly for the most important aspects of what we do. To allocate the time for that. So whether it’s just blocking out specific times a day or a couple days, a week. As long as you know that you’re going to get those big rocks as the old analogy goes, you know, putting the big rocks in first and then you put the smaller rocks and then you put the sand and then you put the water. If you’re filling it up, you can’t do it backwards or you won’t get everything in. So I think the idea of allocating time for those big rocks is really important. Jay: Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense. I’m more like the squirrel. You know, I’ve got 10 screens going an

Particularly in the early stages, you can do more of what you’re doing to get past a sales plateau. 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 overcoming 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 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 to push 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 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 technological resources or being able

Reactivating your client base is easier when you create a community. This is overlooked by a lot of business people. If you’re interested in keeping your clients engaged and interacting, then by creating a community where you can interact with them on an ongoing basis, and they can, in some cases, interact with each other, it creates more of a bond than they would likely have with somebody if they’re just doing more of a transactional type of thing. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing reactivating your client base. Welcome Jay. Jay: It’s good to be here. You know, it’s funny. I hear this everywhere I go now. If I watch Shark Tank or anything else, I hear this term CAC. You know, what is your CAC? And it’s your customer acquisition cost. And I have to believe that your CAC, for a customer you’ve already worked with, has got to be lower than trying to bring in a brand new customer. Am I right? David: Oh, absolutely. And I think instinctively as business people, we probably already know this. We’ve probably heard it a hundred times, but the purpose of this discussion is not to have you hear it again. The purpose of this discussion is to ask, “are you doing this?” And if so, how well are you doing this? How much better could you be doing this? Because as you pointed out, once you’ve invested that money to acquire a customer, now you want to be able to leverage that relationship as much as possible to provide them with additional help, additional solutions so that you can generate the revenue. They can get the results they’re looking for, and you’re not spending more money to attract people. You’re able to just expand the relationships that you have with the people who you’ve already acquired that first time. Jay: Yeah. And I think it’s disappointing if you spent that money for customer acquisition and then you don’t have a system to retain them or keep them online. And so now it’s almost like you’re spending the same money twice. If you’re trying to get them back again. David: Right. Yes. And so when we think about reactivation, there are a couple of aspects to it. One is just people who haven’t bought from you in a little while, to touch base with them again, to reengage those people and to see what they want, what they need. Essentially, requalifying them to find out where they are in that process. Are they ready to buy more things? Do they have a date in mind when they want to buy? Are they ready to go now? Or are they just not ready to do anything? Are they sort of disqualified for the moment? Are they unresponsive to you? Because they’ll generally fall into one of those five categories. They’re either ready to buy. They have dates in mind when they want to buy. They’re open to the idea, but not sure when. Or they’re disqualified, or they’re not responsive. When you are able to go back and sort of requalify your existing clients, you can reactivate the ones who are ready to go now. You can schedule the ones who know when they want to go next. And the ones who are generally receptive, you can just stay in touch. Jay: Yeah. Or what about the ones who were disappointed, but they didn’t take the time. Right? So many customers will never tell you that they had a bad experience. They just move on and… David: Yeah. Jay: you had no idea. So you’re not improving your customer service and your chance of reviving that customer is very low. David: Yeah. And that’s an excellent point, too. Because as you indicated, if you don’t know that, but you’re reaching out to them to see how you can help next, and you find out about that problem, then at least you have the possibility of restoring the relationship, if not doing anything about the previous order. Jay: Yeah. So what are we talking about here? Like good drip campaigns? Is that kind of where you would start? So you’re in constant contact? What do you think is the best way to go about this? David: Well, I do think it starts with engaging your people. And engaging your people can be done in a lot of different ways. It can be done via email with a drip campaign. It can be done on the phone. It can be done in person. There are lots of different ways that we can engage with people. But recognizing that there is a tendency, sometimes, after we’ve sold something, to immediately move on to the next thing. “Okay. That’s taken care of. That’s done. Now I’m onto the next thing.” And then we sort of forget about that person until we either hear back from them. Or until and unless we’ve got some sort of procedure in place, in our own businesses, to remind us to go back to those people and see where they are in the process. And see how we can help them again. So I would say it

Protecting yourself from recession isn’t always easy. You’ve probably been through a recession or two in your time. And so for people who haven’t done this, it’s not fun. It’s not an exciting time. But I think the first thing that leap to mind for me is not to panic because for a lot of people, that’s the go-to strategy, and not necessarily the best one. And you recognize that, okay, things might be different here. Just as they were during the pandemic. They’re different, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t succeed, even while others are struggling. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of protecting yourself from recession. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Yeah, thank you for letting me be here. This is a big word that I’m hearing a lot now. The potential for recession, you know, we have a lot of inflation. We’ve got supply chain issues. You’ve got real estate issues. And so it’s something I think every company should be saying, “okay, what are we going to do if things start to turn south?” Because we really have enjoyed a pretty aggressive economy even through the pandemic. David: Yes we did. I feel a little bad even really talking about this topic. Because I feel like, for some people, they are just getting past pandemic stuff and quarantine and all that kind of thing. Jay: Mm-hmm David: And things seem to be going reasonably well with a lot of businesses at the moment. Sales are up in a lot of businesses compared to last year. But everything we hear in the news is very concerning. And so I thought, okay, well we should at least discuss this. Not from the standpoint of how bad things are, but what can we do about it? Because that’s really the big thing. Jay: Yeah, you know, I work with a lot of restaurants and I watched them pivot during the recession. And a lot did very well, but they had to be very smart. Like let’s shut down our dining room. Let’s go delivery only. Let’s go drive-through only. David: Mm-hmm Jay: And it’s something they were kind of deciding on the fly. It made me realize that every company should have a plan, not just like “let’s hope this doesn’t happen. And if it does, we’ll figure it out when it does.” David: Yeah, it’s really amazing. Because some restaurants did really badly and others, who were able to make that switch, have now not only done well during a difficult time, but they’ve also created a secondary revenue stream for themselves. Whereas before they might not have done takeout, they might not have done a lot of that sort of thing. And those restaurants are doing great now because they still have all the people who are picking stuff up, but then they also have people coming in. But when we look at this, I think, you know, the idea of a recession and thinking in terms of, okay, well, what are some things we can do? And I’ve been through them before. You’ve probably been through a recession or two in your time. And so for people who haven’t done this, it’s not fun. It’s not an exciting time. But I think the first thing that leap to mind for me is not to panic because for a lot of people, that’s the go-to strategy, and not necessarily the best one. And you recognize that, okay, things might be different here. Just as they were during the pandemic. They’re different, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t succeed, even while others are struggling. Jay: Yeah, and for me, it’s always an issue of, okay, we know we’re going to have to have cuts. We don’t have the revenue coming in. And so where do we start? And oftentimes I see the cuts in what I consider to be the wrong places. Like, okay, the first thing to go, it seems like always to me is marketing, right? David: Marketing, right. Jay: And that’s the number one off the top. And that’s the one that could potentially keep you alive. David: Yeah, it’s a great point because when you think about what people do during difficult times, whether it’s a recession or something else, you’re right. That’s a go-to thing. And that’s what really creates opportunity for the people who think it through and recognize that while everyone else is cutting back, now’s the time to be moving forward. So the fact that other people might be cutting back actually creates more opportunity for you if you’re not taking that similar action. Jay: I like that. So they’re kind of giving up market share to just, you know, preserve the bottom line. And that opens up a whole new world for you, of brand new customers to bring in the door during a difficult time. David: Yeah. I remember years ago hearing, I believe it was Earl Nightingale, talking back in the day about the idea of, if you look at what the majority of people are

If outperforming your competition is an issue for you, you want to look at who is the primary competition and what are their advantages? In what areas are they outperforming me? Are they outperforming me in terms of just price? If that’s what it is. And a lot of times that’s what people are up against in the online market. The online sellers are able to sell for less. And at that point you have to say, “okay, is that something I even want to try to compete with?” Or am I more interested in finding the types of clients who understand and appreciate the value that I bring to the table. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the importance of outperforming your competition. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: So good to be here again, David and this topic is very interesting to me. You know, I’ve been in small business. I know a lot of business owners and I got to tell you, oftentimes you’re so caught up in, just generating sales that what the competition is doing, how much they’re doing. Are you competing with the competition? A lot of times, those thoughts don’t come up because there’s just no time for that. And so I’m wondering what the consequences are if I’m not even thinking about my competition. David: Well, if you’re doing great and you’re making the money you need to make, maybe you don’t have to think about your competition at all. Maybe you’re the one that everybody is trying to come after. And when we think about that, it’s not just about the fact that, okay, well, maybe somebody else is outperforming me. But a lot of people, if they’ve been in a market for a particularly long time and they’ve been selling to people who have other options, they’ll find out who their competitors are. Because they’ll say, “oh, I’m already doing business with somebody.” And you ask who it is and they give you a name or they give you a company name. And you’re like, okay, I’ve heard that name once now. And then you talk to somebody else and now I’ve heard another name and now I’ve heard another name. So you have three different names. Then you go to somebody else. And now you hear two for this one. Then you hear three for this one. And then four for this one. You say, “okay, this person has a lot of traction in this market.” So you start to recognize them as competition. Also, as things have evolved online, there are now online competitors that compete with local businesses left and right. And so there are a lot of people who think in terms of the online competition. How can I compete with that? So, when we talk about the importance of outperforming your competition, it’s not because, “well, I’ve got to win at all costs,” and all that sort of thing. But if you are in business for yourself and you are counting on your sales and your salary to be able to put food on your table. And if your competition is sometimes interfering with that, then the necessity of outperforming your competition becomes very clear. You don’t want to run into a situation where somebody says, “yes, I’m already dealing with this person.” You want that person to go in there and they say, “no, I’m already dealing with you,” right? Jay: Mm-hmm David: You want to be the person who already has that sort of foothold, that sort of traction in a market. So outperforming the competition starts with saying, “okay, who’s doing a pretty good job in this market?” And is there somebody that I think is actually doing a better job in this market? Or is there somebody who is doing a job that the marketplace thinks is better? Right? Because you may know that you are already better than this competitor they mentioned. And nothing can be more frustrating sometimes for people, when you go into a situation, they say, “oh, I’m doing business with that person.” And you want to say, “oh, they’re awful. I can’t believe you’re doing that!” But of course you don’t say that. But when you recognize that you’re already better, but other people don’t have that same perception, you say, “okay, well, how am I going to fix that? How am I going to change that?” Because it’s not just about outperforming the competition, it’s about letting the market know and understand and talk about how you outperform the competition. Jay: Well, it’s interesting. So first I have to assess kind of where they’re at and where I compare to them and then create kind of a battle plan to be able to go up against them and demonstrate to my potential customers that when we talk about outperform, we’re talking about quality, we’re talking maybe about cost, customer service. I mean, there’s all kinds of different ways tha

When we’re looking for alternatives to cold calling, we don’t want to turn the alternatives into something as clumsy and uncomfortable as a typical cold call. Right? Because a lot of times they are. They’re clumsy and they’re awkward and they’re not comfortable. We don’t want to just come up with another way to be that. The idea of looking for these alternatives is to say, “okay, how can I make this experience better for the person that I am trying to initiate contact with?” David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing alternatives to cold calling. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: I am so glad to be here. Thank you. Even the word sometimes, “cold calling.” I get the shivers, not just cause it’s cold, because I think that this is probably one of the most dreaded parts of the sales process, but in many industries, Absolutely necessary. And so how can you make it easier? How can you make it better? And what happens if you don’t? David: Yeah, definitely gives a lot of people the chills. And the reason that I thought it would be good for us even to talk about alternatives is that there are a lot of people who have been trained that prospecting equals cold calling. Or cold calling equals prospecting. I need to do prospecting. I need to pick up the phone. I need to call people. And some people are actually trained that way. And some sales managers will evaluate people on how many cold calls they’ve made in a day. That’s part of people’s jobs description. If that’s part of your job description I’m not saying don’t do that, right? If that’s your job description, you have to do it. However, for people who have a little more flexibility in terms of the way that they initiate contact with a new prospect, there are alternatives to cold calling. You don’t necessarily have to pick up the phone. And so, there are two aspects of this. One is the first question that you just asked about, okay, now what can we do to make cold calling better? Considering the Alternatives And there are certainly things that we can do there in terms of thinking about how we’re going to approach them, what we’re going to say, how we’re going to lead into the conversation, and all that sort of thing. But for a lot of people, a better question might be what could I do to sort of grease the shoot or grease the wheels so that when I pick up the phone and call someone, the results are a lot better. Yeah, and I think that’s so important because you know, you would regret or not want to do cold calling less if you’re getting a better result. And if, when people pick up the phone, they’re not hostile towards you, or they’re not indifferent to you, because you’ve done some things in advance. So that it’s not so cold that I don’t know what you would call it. Jay: Would you call it warm calling or something like that? Warmer Alternatives to Cold Calling David: It’s certainly a lot warmer if you’ve had contact with them in advance. Like if you met somebody at a networking function, you exchange business cards or whatever, and then you picked up the phone and called that person. I wouldn’t view that as a cold call because you’ve already met them. If you’ve got prospects that you’ve interacted with previously, then if you call them, yeah, that’s not really a cold call. So I don’t know, you can certainly call it a warm call. You can just call it a call. If I were to pick up the phone and call you, I’m going to give Jay a call. It’s not cold, because we know each other. So, the question becomes, how can we get to know people better, get them to know us better, so that when we do have contact with them, it doesn’t feel as cold. And so, even now, things like social media, if you and I connected on social media, if you commented on a post of mine, or I commented on a post of yours, if we exchanged messages back and forth through Facebook or through LinkedIn, we’ve had communications that way. At that point, if we had a telephone conversation, it will be a lot less cold. Jay: Yeah, I can certainly understand. And I see this a lot. Like I will be interested in looking around at something and I will see a social media post. I’m much more inclined to ask a question. You know, via social media or via a chat or something else before I pick up the call as a customer. And that’s going to open up those doors, right? For you to be able to now, when we do finally talk face to face or voice to voice, it’s going to be a totally different experience, right? A Different Experience David: it really should be. Yes. And this kind of goes back to what we were talking about in a previous podcast, when people are not comfortable with these other methods of reaching out to people, it really limits their ability to communicat

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing reimagining the essentials. Welcome, Jay. Good to have you here. Jay: It’s so good to be here once again. I’m very excited about today’s topic. What’s the Point of Reimagining the Essentials? David: Yeah. I mean the whole idea of the essentials to some people it’s like, “oh, essentials, that’s boring.” Right? But it seems to me that in current times we really need to look at the essentials and say, “okay, how can we tweak them or fine tune them or change them around so that they’re going to be more effective in a 21st century post-COVID economy?” Jay: Yeah. When I think about essentials, I think about foundational type things. And once you take away the foundation, other things that you have in play don’t work as well. So what type of essentials specifically are we talking about that we want to, that we might look at in one when everybody looks at it that way, but we’re going to reimagine or rethink about them in a different way? David: Well, I guess when I think of the fundamentals or the essentials, I tend to think of the real basics, prospecting, presenting, following up when it comes to sales. And sometimes you start talking about those things and people’s eyes glaze over like, “oh, I know all that stuff.” And yeah, we all know we need to do it. Knowing and Doing are Two Different Things We all know we need to do prospecting. We need to make presentations. We need to follow up with prospects and clients. But knowing it, knowing what to do, is really not the issue at all. It’s how are we doing it? How well are we doing it? How much better are we doing it than our competitors? How frequently are we doing it? How consistently are we doing it? There are all these different nuanced aspects of it that completely change the results. And when we look at things like prospecting now versus five years ago, 10 years ago, it’s completely different. Same thing with presenting, same thing with following up. In the past, it was basically phone and in person. Well now phone and in person are a lot less popular than other methods of communication. So that’s really what I’m talking about here. Jay: Yeah, I think again, it’s so important, you know, it’s so easy to just fall into that trap of I’ve, you know, we’ve done it this way forever and it’s always worked. I think it’s hard for people to break free from those things, because it’s hard to know what type of impact you really can have. And I think part of that is even understanding what your baseline is before you can make changes to understand if you’re making any progress, right? What Happens When Everything Changes? David: Yeah, absolutely. And I hear both sides of that from people. I hear people who are like, ” oh yeah, you know, I’ve been doing this forever. I know exactly what I’m doing and all that sort of thing.” And then I have people on the other side who are like, “Hey, I’m doing all the things that I’ve done before. I’m doing it more aggressively. I’m doing much more of it. I’m doing it with more people and it’s not working.” And so for the people who are struggling with that… again, it’s not really a matter of saying, “well, now instead of prospecting, we need to do something different.” No, you’re still going to need to do prospecting. The question is, “can we now do it in a way that is going to reach the people that you need to reach, communicate the things that we need to communicate and allow us to advance our communications and close the sales?” Reimagining the Essentials Post-COVID Jay: Yeah, I have to think that COVID has had a huge impact on reimagining the essentials. Before, in-person experiences were the norm. That was the expectation in so many ways. Now people are standoffish about that. We’ve become much more interested in doing something online or over the phone. That’s not nearly as personal. It’s hard to connect and build those relationships. David: Yeah, that’s absolutely the case. And so I think for a lot of people, the idea of becoming comfortable with other methods of communication, just like what we’re doing now… some people are like, “Hey, Zoom is great. I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have to get in my car and I can be face-to-face with someone. It’s awesome.” Other people are like, “oh, I can’t stand that. I don’t like looking at myself on camera. I don’t like hearing what my voice sounds like when I’m on a speaker.” And you either need to get over some of that, or you need to figure out ways to engage only with prospects who are still willing to do business, ju

There’s things we forget. And it’s good to have a plan. It’s good to be reminded of very key things that are specific, even to this industry, and just knowing the way to spot people who are actually capable of purchasing. Versus those who may love you and just aren’t capable. Or those who will just string you along. Or those who use you, just so they always have another price to show, to use the person they’re using already and that sort of thing. So I think finding clients, developing clients, all of that, everyone could use a reminder there. And if you’re not from a sales background then you absolutely… this is like the most direct sales class you could possibly take for this industry. And just be able to really get your business moving quicker. David: Hi. Welcome to the podcast. I am here today with Tracie Domino from Event Outfitters in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tracy, it’s so good to have you with me. Tracie: Thank you so much, David. It’s a pleasure to be here with you. David: You know, you and I met through the promotional products industry, but you do a lot besides just promotional products. So let’s start, just fill us in on what you do and how you do it. Tracie: Well, I actually spent years and years, almost 20 years in the events industry. And started a promotional products business because of my need for so many promotional products for our own events. And my OCD personality took over and I wanted total control of the operation. So that’s how we got started. David: Ok. And so now you’re doing both? Tracie: Yes, still for a little while. But mostly promotional products at this point. Years ago, I worked for Tiffany and Company, the one with the blue box that everyone is very familiar with. And I did their events, but I also did corporate sales for them. And when I worked for Tiffany, it was promotional product sales. It was putting your logo on a Tiffany ice bucket or engraving it on a piece of silver jewelry and commemorating events. So those two things together kind of transitioned into all of this. David: Right. Okay. And so what type of clients do you like to work with? What type of people do you like to target? I mean, some people will take anyone who can fog a mirror, anyone with a pulse. But you’ve been a little more selective in terms of your clientele, is that correct? Tracie: For sure. And I mean, I’ll work with anyone who wants to work with us, of course. But we have really been very lucky or fortunate, I guess I could say. Since I did work in events for so long, there are a ton of event people who we just know, across the country, who do all sorts of jobs in this industry. And by doing that, we’ve been able to branch out into all sorts of different events. Events that we never used to even work on. But work with our clients who plan them which has been great. And a lot of them are sports franchise owners, people doing all sorts of really kind of fun, different, interesting things. So we’re really just blessed by our friends. In a lot of cases who would become our clients. David: Right. So, just a couple of niche industries. in addition to just sort of a wide variety? Tracie: Right, the people who work in the events business, are our clients, but our end clients are everywhere, and in all sorts of different industries. And yeah, it’s really, it’s just kind of everything now. David: Okay. So where do most of your clients initially hear from you? Tracie: Most clients now, thank goodness, are coming word of mouth, in most cases. And I think that’s because we were picky at the beginning and really try to focus on customer service. You can’t work for Tiffany and Company and not put a big value on customer service. And to me, whether someone’s buying a high-end luxury executive gift or a trade show giveaway, the service is the same. And it’s really important that our clients think they’re one of our only clients and they get their issues accommodated and see proposals just as quickly as they could. You know, if they were trying to do some stuff themselves online. David: Right. Okay. And so if someone is not a referral, what’s the first contact that they’re likely to have with you. Tracie: It’s funny. I was actually training for a hike. I did this crazy big hike a couple of weeks ago. And some of the training for that, since Florida is so flat, I went up to Atlanta to do a 12 hour training hike. David: Wow. Tracie: And there was a group of us about 10 of us who did that. And on 12 hours you talk about a lot of things and it came up that I’m in this industry. And four different people from that hike reached out to me and were like, “oh, I need shirts.” Or, “oh, I really need…” You know, something that they needed which was kind of fun and crazy. But what’s so great about our industry is that almost everyone needs what we provide. David: Righ

If you’re recommending bad products at high prices, and you’re trying to gouge people? Well, that’s evil. Right? So don’t do that. But other than that, if you are providing actual solutions that clients need, at a price that makes sense for you and make sense for them, there is absolutely nothing evil about that. I would say that’s what integrity is all about. Building relationships includes providing prospects with a solution that is worth more to them than the money they’re paying you to get that solution. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, I am joined by Matt Eysoldt. He’s a multiline rep in the promotional products industry. And Matt and I were talking last week, and it turns out that we both like to work with smart, focused, motivated industry professionals. So I thought I’d invite him on the podcast to discuss that. Welcome, Matt. Good to have you here. Matt: Thank you so much, David, I’m excited to be here and excited to talk to you about motivation, education and how to grow your business. David: Awesome. Now, for those who don’t know what a multiline rep is or what a multiline rep does, give us a quick overview. Matt: Yeah, so really what I like to say is the beauty of being a multiline is we offer value to the suppliers we represent. You know, maybe our better-known lines open the door for our lesser-known lines. So it’s a definite win in that situation. But it’s an awesome win for the customers that I call on. And that’s because, maybe you’re looking for a red t-shirt and I’ve got that. But I’ve also got other things that may be the answer to your client’s needs. So it’s really kind of the opportunity to open the door to more diverse products in a short meeting. You know, maybe we sit down and we talk 30, 45 minutes and we’ve really raised awareness to a lot of different items. David: Right. Okay. And so I imagine, in order to be successful with this, it’s a choosing game to some extent. You’ve got to choose the right suppliers to represent. And you’ve got to choose the right distributors who are actually going to be able to do something with your recommendations, and with the suppliers that you’re recommending to them. Matt: Absolutely. As we both know, time is our most precious resource. So we have to be extremely selective while we’re on the road, to say, “who are we going to see?” Who is going to take this information and use it to the best of their ability to promote my brand and to grow their business as well?” So I think that’s a very, very crucial point. I’m always looking for that rising star, that motivated person out there. And what I find is, that motivated sales rep that is looking to help their client find the right solution for their promotion. That rep is also always willing to invest their time and energy into their own personal education. So it’s really kind of a self-fulfilling cycle that, just continues to grow things. David: Yeah, that’s what we’ve found as well. Obviously, we’ve been doing training in the promotional products industry for a long, long time. And, it doesn’t surprise me anymore, but in the early stages, when I would go to an industry trade show and find out that really maybe five to seven to 10% max of the people who go to a trade show actually participate in any of the education. In the early stages, I found it surprising. Now, I think it explains a lot about why a certain percentage of people in the industry do extremely well and a lot are just either struggling or just sort of getting by. Matt: Absolutely David. And I think, you know, I’ve run into customers that are afraid to make a profit that think that’s evil. And, you know, I find myself trying to educate them on some of these things. Whereas, it would be awesome, talking to you, that I might be able to refer people to you a little bit to, you know, how can you increase that margin? Why is that margin important for your business? You know, it’s one order that goes south on a person that’s running on a hair-thin margin that could put them out of business. So it’s things like that allow them to invest and be there for the long haul to continue to fulfill what the client needs. David: Yeah. It’s really funny you should say that. Because when I think in terms of people in the industry who have said similar things to me, that, they’re sort of hesitant about the idea of making a profit. You used the term evil. They think it’s evil if they’re making a profit. What I would say is that if what you’re doing is unethical, if you’re recommending bad products at high prices, and you’re trying to gouge people? Well, that’s evil. Right? So don’t do that. But other than that, if you are providing actual solutions that client

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

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

Today I’d like to share with you the recording of a live interview I did yesterday with Brandon Pecharich from Promo Corner, in which we discussed The Four Levels of Content. If you need to get clients on social media, this will explain how to do it. It’s available below as video, audio or text. I hope you find it helpful. Brandon: Hey everybody, Happy Tuesday! I hope you’re having a super productive week out there. You are watching Express Training Bites here at Promo Corner. You’re probably watching it on Promo Corner’s Facebook Page, Promo Show’s Facebook page or maybe Promo Corner’s LinkedIn or YouTube. So we are on all types of different social media. And we have today on Express Training Bites an industry icon. Somebody who I have looked up to as a sales professional in the industry. And it is Mr. David Blaise. Thank you so much for being here today. And you’re actually going to be speaking about something that you spoke about in January at Expo. Is that correct? David: Yeah, it was part of what we covered at Expo. At Expo, we were talking about just this whole idea of migrating people from social media into your sales funnel, essentially, and how that happens. Because it’s not like throwing spaghetti against a wall and hoping it sticks. There’s actually some strategy to it, methodology to it. If you choose to go in that direction. Brandon: That is awesome. That is such a huge and valuable piece of content that we’ve got here today on Express Training Bites. So for people that don’t know who you are — because this industry is constantly evolving and there’s new people almost every day — why don’t you take a couple of minutes and kind of introduce yourself, David? David: Sure. David Blaise from TopSecrets.com, also SmartEQP.com. I’ve been in the promotional products industry since 1988. I feel like I should be sitting down instead of sanding up , but, I’ve just been in the industry for a long time. Love the industry. Started speaking at some of the major industry trade shows back in 2001. I’ve spoken at nearly every one of them since. I was at Expo in January. And that’s what led to this discussion. You know, in the early days of the training that I did, a lot of it was related to people who were just getting started in the industry. And we created a training program called Getting Started: How to Launch a Wildly Successful Career in Promotional Products Sales. And to this day we have new people who are coming in and they go through that training. And within about six or seven hours, they’re pretty much grounded and up to speed, so that you wouldn’t be embarrassed to have them stand in front of a prospect and represent your company. But over the years, what I’ve found is that a lot of the training that I do, particularly for private groups, I love interacting with people who have been doing it for a long time, who may be running into different struggles that they hadn’t encountered before. And to say, “okay, where do we go from here?” One of my favorite trainings that I did, of all time, was I was hired to speak in front of a group of people who’ve been in the industry for 25 plus years. And this was easily 10 years ago. I was quite a bit younger myself. The people that I was speaking to were older, and we were trying to figure out what am I going to talk about to these people? And, we finally decided I was just going to bring a flip chart and go around the room and say, “okay, what’s the biggest issue you’re dealing with?” And we just did that. We went around the room and it was fantastic. Because when you’re able to interact with people who understand the industry and who know the ins and outs, but who perhaps have gotten stuck in a tunnel or funnel or somewhere it’s, “I’m so used to doing things a certain way.” You lose sight of the fact that there are a lot of different things that are going on. The industry has changed. And the things we do to interact with people have to change as well. Brandon: That is so true. And we learned it the past two years, right? Everything kind of switched. David: Right. Brandon: We weren’t able to see people face to face, so we had to figure out another way to communicate to people. And one of the things that came out was a ton of new content creators, right? A bunch of people out there creating podcast, videos, all of that stuff, to help their distributorship kind of keep going. To help their supplier company keep going. The Four Levels of Content Brandon: So you talked about four. There are four different types of content and how you can take those viewers and make them customers. So let’s kind of go through those four different types of content. David: Sure. Brandon: And kind of break them down, and how each one can help you get new customer

When I think in terms of building a client base proactively, to me, that means deciding in advance, what type of clients do I want? What types of clients do I not want? And then really going about putting together the processes and strategies that are necessary to attract exactly that type of customer. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of growing your client base proactively. Welcome, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you for having me on. I’m super excited about today’s topic. David: It’s great to have you here. Jay: Yeah. And I know this is a big question for businesses. I’ve heard the phrase. “If you’re not growing, you’re dying” So growth is a constant thing that you have to be thinking about. How do you do that proactively? Overcoming the Day to Day David: It’s a great question because so often we get caught up in the day-to-day of what’s going on. Particularly in the early stages of a business, when you don’t have as much business as you need, it can be really scary. What a lot of people tend to do is they just sort of default to whatever it is that they think is going to bring in business. And they lose sight of the fact that if they aren’t proactive about it, you can really fall into bad patterns that can create problems and perpetuate a cycle where you’re not generating the revenue that you need to grow and scale. Jay: Yeah, this is such important information because I think most people don’t start a business because they know how to grow a business. They start a business because I have a great recipe and I’m going to put it in a food truck. Or I’m an attorney even, and I’ve learned the law or a dentist or a doctor. Those people are not trained or taught how to grow their business. They’re taught how to do their craft. So this is outside of anything they’ve been taught. David: It’s really funny because there was an electrician here earlier today at our house. He was taking care of some things. And we were having exactly this conversation. Because he used to work for another electrical firm. He decided to start his own business. And we started talking about “what they don’t teach you in electrical school” essentially. Right? There’s More to Growing Your Client Base Proactively I know how to do electrical work, but do I know how to find customers? Do I know how to find the right customers? Do I know how to handle the billing and do collections and hire and fire and do all the other things that become necessary when you have a business. It’s a whole different set of skills. But you’re right. And from the standpoint of our topic today, in terms of growing proactively, a lot of business owners really don’t know how to go about that. They don’t know how to do it, which is the reason we’re having this conversation today. Jay: Yeah. It can be so daunting. So where do you start? I mean, you know, so many ideas, you got social media, you’ve got all of these different tools available to you. Where do you begin? David: Well, I think for a lot of people, if you want to take a strategic approach, you want to think in terms of the types of clients, you actually want to have. The types of customers that you enjoy interacting with. By and large, these are going to be people who are pleasant to deal with. They’re people who have money and aren’t afraid to spend it. They’re people who appreciate the value you bring to the table. And a lot of times we don’t even think of that. Taking Just Anybody Again, particularly in the early stages, if somebody is willing to pay us for what we do, we’re like, “okay, great, I’ll take it!” And I think that can really be a mistake. Because it can lead us to establishing the type of client base that we might not want to interact with on an ongoing basis. So when I think in terms of building a client base proactively to me, that means deciding in advance, what types of clients do I want? What types of clients do I not want? And then really going about putting together the processes and strategies that are necessary to attract exactly that type of customer. Jay: Yeah. I love that. So defining who your customer is. And how do you do that? I’m guessing some brainstorming? Taking a look at your current clientele, the customers that you really like working with compared to the ones that you really don’t like working with? Is that kind of the process? David: Yeah. When you’ve got the benefit of having a customer base and you know which customers you like, and which ones you don’t. You know which ones are great to deal with and which ones aren’t. Then it does become a lot easier to do that. You say, okay, well I’ve found that if I’m selling business-to-business, for exampl

When people think about becoming an entrepreneur, they’re not thinking about working 24 hours a day. They’re thinking about getting to some point where there is quality of life. “Be my own boss. Decide what I want to do.” But how many entrepreneurs ever get there? And what does that have to do with breaking free? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of Breaking Free of Your Business. Welcome, Jay. Jay: Wow, it’s good to be here. Welcome. Thank you. David: So we’ve been talking about this topic now for a few weeks. And I was wondering, what are your thoughts when you think of that as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as it relates to entrepreneurs, business owners and salespeople? What’s your initial thought that comes to mind when you hear a topic like that? What Does Breaking Free Mean to You? Jay: Well, it’s funny. I think most entrepreneurs aren’t thinking of breaking free of their business. I think it’s exactly the opposite. I’m going to dive in. We always hear that if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you’ve got to give it your heart and your soul. And instead, we’re talking about doing just the opposite. I think for a lot of people, they’re going to hear that and say, “wait a minute, why would I want to do that, even in the first place?” David: Yeah. That’s a great question. And what I’ve been finding is that a lot of people, particularly solo business owners and salespeople, get to the point where they’ve got so much going on, they’re tied to so many different things that they feel stuck. They really feel like they’re tied to their business. Like it’s an anchor around them. The idea of breaking free from one’s business basically means, okay, how can I let go or delegate the things that I don’t like to do? I’m not good at. That don’t generate much money. So that I can focus my time and attention — my limited time and attention — on the things that actually move the needle for myself and my business. So that’s really what we’re talking about here. Jay: Well, I think it’s fantastic because I know when people think about becoming an entrepreneur, they’re not thinking about working 24 hours a day. I know they’re thinking about getting to some point where there’s quality of life, right? Where I can be my own boss. I can decide what I want to do. But how many entrepreneurs ever get there? Oftentimes they get exactly the opposite effect. Right? Breaking Free to Improve Quality of Life David: Exactly. And it’s true of so many people who start a business. And this whole conversation started because of a relationship I have with the guy who wrote the book, The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber. And I’ve been familiar with his work for years. We spoke at a number of the same trade shows. I had a chance to talk to him and tell him how much I loved the book, The E-Myth. I mentioned that, as a result of his advice, I was able to structure my businesses better. In addition, I was able to buy and sell businesses. I said, “it’s the best 11 bucks I ever spent” (laughs.) He got a kick out of that because obviously, it was worth a whole lot more than that. But over the years, what I’ve realized is that for many of us, the idea of creating the type of business we want to live in is really appealing. But doing it seems to be the part where people get stuck. Jay: Yeah. And how do you let go? You know, I’m sure you started out as an entrepreneur doing everything and slowly, hopefully, you’ve brought in more staff. But how do you trust and let go? Because for them, it may be a day job. For you, it’s your life! And so, just giving those little pieces of responsibility away, it’s difficult. David: It is very difficult. And for a lot of people, it seems impossible. But the biggest reason that happens is that in a lot of cases, what we try to do is to just sort of push it off on somebody and run (laughs). That never leads to good results. So the whole idea of breaking away is okay, how do I do this in a way where I can trust that the work that needs to get done is going to be getting done in a way that is consistent with, if not the way that I do it myself, at least the way that I want to have it done. And in some cases, the people that we hire to do it, ideally should be able to do a better job than we can do. Particularly when we’re talking about tasks that we may not be thrilled about doing to begin with. Delegation Should Not be Micro-Managed Jay: Yeah. I think there’s that, you know, giving it to them and then walking away. I’ve experienced just the opposite of that. Somebody who thinks they’re a great delegator. But they’re really not delegating at all because

Last week I mentioned that we’re addressing the topic of Breaking Free of Your Business in our Inner Circle group. And a question came up about how solopreneurs can start to make this happen, or even if they should. The quick answer to how sole proprietors delegate is entirely dependent upon the type of business you want to build. Hi and welcome back, in our recent discussions about how to break free of your business a question came up about how this topic applies to you if you’re a sole proprietorship or one-person business. Over the years I’ve had people tell me that as a solo practitioner, they can’t afford to hire anyone. Recently, that idea has picked up a lot of traction based on the fact that people feel that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to hire people. If you watch the news for any length of time — which I strongly recommend you do not do — you’ll hear stories about businesses struggling to find people willing to come to work. And while that may be true for many people, it is not true of everyone. How Sole Proprietors Delegate Now Take a look at what’s going on in the job market today. You’ll see that the gig economy is flourishing. That’s because there are now so many people who want to be able to call their own shots, set their own schedules, be self-employed and create value for other businesses, but do it on their own terms. This is why gig sites like Fiverr, Guru and Upwork have been thriving. It’s also the reason that even a solo practitioner can start to delegate work to others without having to hire someone full-time before they’re financially able to do so. The gig economy allows workers from all over the world to remain self-employed while taking on tasks that others want to delegate. What Can Sole Proprietors Delegate? Everything from clerical work to art services to prospecting calls and even bookkeeping can now be delegated by sole proprietors, freeing them up to do the work that will allow them to grow their businesses. So while it may be difficult and expensive for you as a sole proprietor to find someone willing to come into your office for forty hours a week and function as an employee, finding someone to take over individual tasks has never been easier. And the delegation documents we discussed last week are the key to making it happen. Take a moment to consider the way your business operates now. What are the one or two functions you’re currently performing that you would love to get off your plate? What are the tasks that gobble up too much of your time and prevent you from engaging in the real money work of your business? What’s Your Ideal Scenario? Next, picture your ideal scenario, where your business is functioning exactly the way you want it to and kicking off the cash you need to grow and scale. Does it still involve you doing everything? If so, then you’re all set. Keep up the great work! But if you want more… if you’re serous about growing your sales and profits by delegating low-dollar tasks and freeing yourself up to engage in the work that will move the needle for your business, then be sure to join us this week inside the Inner Circle for details and discussion on how to make that happen. If you’re already an Inner Circle or SmartEQP member, just log into inside.topsecrets.com. If you’re not yet a member, join us now at topsecrets.com/ic. That’s topsecrets.com/ic. Need Help in Another Area of Growing Your Business? 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.

Michael Gerber and David Blaise speaking at The ASI Show (many years ago!) One of my earliest business mentors, Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited and other business classics told me that “many people leave their jobs because they’re tired of working for a jerk. Then they start their own businesses and end up working for a maniac!” This is so true. No other person on earth could force us to put in the time, energy and effort required to build and sustain a successful business. No one else could force us to give up a steady paycheck, work unreasonably long hours, and deal with the unpredictable income associated with most small business startups. If anyone else tried to do that to us, it would be illegal! But those of us who choose it, do so willingly. And we often start at a point where we lack both the knowledge and the skills necessary to do it successfully. The scenario is similar for commission salespeople. We eat what we kill. So if we kill nothing this week, we don’t eat. And many of the people who tell us what to do may have never done it successfully themselves. This month, in the Top Secrets Inner Circle our focus is on “Breaking Free of Your Business.” This means learning to overcome some of the challenges that chain people to their businesses and prevent them from delegating low-dollar tasks. So if you’re ready to focus your efforts and free yourself from the tyranny of the urgent, it’s time to take control of your business and your life. One of the most popular live training sessions I conduct is called… Breaking Free of Your Business: The Entrepreneur’s Path to Independence I originally designed it to help move frustrated, overworked business owners from self-employed wage slaves to liberated entrepreneurs. But since then, I expanded it to include sales professionals whose incomes have also been limited by the increasing demands associated with having to perform low-dollar tasks. Breaking Free from These Scenarios Requires a Path It rarely if ever happens automatically or naturally, because most of the necessary actions are counterintuitive. We lock ourselves into endless catch-22s, telling ourselves that we can’t do it all, but we can’t afford help. Or, we want to hire people, but we can’t find anyone competent or reliable enough to perform the tasks. Or the big one: that no one else can do things as well as we can. That may or may not be true. But either way, it’s irrelevant. When the goal is to Break Free and create a business that can run without you — or even to create a sales career that can be both lucrative and manageable — things must change. And it’s never about finding people who can do things as well as we can. It’s about finding those who can be trained to do things better than we can. While first training ourselves on how to make that happen. In my Breaking Free training, I outline… The Three Primary Functions of an Entrepreneur The first step is identifying the best way to perform an important function. What’s the best way to identify the types of clients you need to grow your business? What are the best ways to initiate First Contact with them? What is the best way to get them qualified in or out as quickly as possible? These are just a few quick examples. After identifying the best way to perform an important function, the second step is to proceduralize it — break it down into easy-to-understand steps that could be followed by an employee of average skill. This point is critical, because if you count on hiring superstars only, particularly right out of the gate, you are very likely in for some serious disappointment. Many exceptional performers struggle to proceduralize things because we don’t really think about what we do. We often operate on autopilot, engaging in “unconscious competence.” We don’t even know exactly what it is we’re doing to create a result. Then we convince ourselves it’s impossible to explain, no one else would understand it, therefore we have to do it ourselves. Deadly thinking if you ever want to grow and scale. The third step is delegation. Most people struggle with this because they delegate first. They delegate without first establishing a “best way” and without a procedure for recreating that best way. For those reasons, the delegation is doomed to fail. The successful “best way” was never baked into the process. Breaking Free of Your Business is a Big Topic That’s why it’s the focus of our Inner Circle training for at least the entire month of April. If you’d like to join us, you’ll get instant access to: My Breaking Free of Your Business Online Training Our proprietary, never-before-released Breaking Free of Your Business Worksheets. These will help you to map out your growth plan, your Freedom Vision & Mindset, Ideal Day, Pri

Last week, we talked about the entry-level awareness that’s required before you can start selling to anyone. This week, we’ll kick it up a notch. Let’s discuss the type of awareness you’ll need to create if you want to make a name for yourself, become a recognized force in your market, and generate sales consistently. It’s about making prospects comfortable enough to buy from you. In our last episode, we talked about moving from total obscurity to recognition. This means going from “I don’t know who you are” to “Hey, I know you!” in the mind of the prospect. That basic level of awareness is really a prerequisite. You can’t sell anything to anyone until they know you exist as an option for them. But bare-bones recognition alone won’t make the sale. …because there’s a big difference between knowing someone exists and being willing to spend your money with them! So if the first step is moving from obscurity to recognition, then the second step would have to be moving from recognition to comfort. Because there’s no way I’m spending any money with you at all, unless I feel completely comfortable doing it. What’s interesting about these steps, is that we can often move from obscurity to recognition with just one contact with a prospect. I meet you for the first time at a networking event, we exchange business cards, we have a conversation, and the next time we see each other, we can approach each other as acquaintances rather than total strangers. We’ve moved from obscurity to recognition. And while it’s possible for total strangers to meet, have a conversation and immediately feel completely comfortable with one another, that sort of situation is normally the exception rather than the rule. Moving from recognition to comfort usually involves repetition of contact… intelligent repetition of contact. We need to see each other more than once. Have more than just a passing conversation, and find commonalities. Until I am comfortable with you, I am unlikely to place my first order. So we have to get to comfort first… Many salespeople think in terms of the old adage that “people do business with those they know, like and trust.” And while I have previously debunked the oversimplified version of that statement, the core of it (with a few qualifications) is essentially true. I need to know you as a professional, like you as a valuable resource and trust you with my business. Meet those criteria and you have a shot. So if moving from obscurity to recognition accomplishes the goal of knowing, then moving from recognition to comfort is what brings us to liking and trusting. In our last episode we talked about the advantage of being introduced by a referral from someone the prospect already knows, and how that introduction can essentially transfer some of the trust they have with that person to us, helping to accelerate the process. But regardless of how we’re introduced, if we want to get to comfort, it will very likely require us to engage in a series of communications with the prospect, in which each contact helps us to further build rapport, establish ourselves as the expert, and advance the relationship. Obviously, moving from recognition to comfort requires a style and level of communication that’s very different than when we’re moving from obscurity to recognition. In short, liking and trusting doesn’t come nearly as easily as knowing, which is why this second level of awareness — what I refer to as “comfort-level awareness” — is so important. If you want to better advance the relationship you have with your prospects and clients, ask yourself this: 1. What am I doing to create the kind of “entry-level” awareness that gets someone to know me? 2. What sort of communication systems do I have in place to create “comfort-level” awareness — the kind that gets people to feel good about our relationship and accelerate liking and trusting? 3. What level of awareness will I need next? And that’s what we’ll discuss in our next podcast. Ready to Make Your Ideal Clients Comfortable Enough to Buy From You? 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 abo

If there’s one ability necessary to begin creating an environment in which the people best suited to doing business with you have an opportunity to do so, it’s not bonding, it’s not rapport-building and it’s not schmoozing. It all starts with awareness. Simply letting people know you’re alive. One of the biggest issues that I’ve always had with so much of the common, boilerplate sales training that takes place in the world is that so much of it starts in the middle. Even people who are highly successful at sales, and those who have earned a whole lot of money training salespeople how to do things better, often skip the critical first steps that actually allow a salesperson to bond, establish rapport and begin creating value for a prospect in the first place. In my Sledgehammer Marketing training, I refer to this step as moving from obscurity to recognition, that is, moving from “I have absolutely no idea who you are” to “Oh, okay, I know you. I might not love you. I might not hate you, but I do know you exist.” Entry-Level Awareness Until you’ve created an even bare-bones level of recognition with your target market, it’s very difficult to establish rapport. And those who like to lead with a cold-call, and essentially jump the line, trying to move from total obscurity to recognition, to bonding and rapport all in one (often uncomfortable and stressful) conversation, can do themselves far more harm than good, because of the way such a first contact positions them. It essentially says, “I value your time and mine so little, that I think I’ll just call you out of the blue.” That’s not to say it doesn’t work sometimes. And it doesn’t mean a person’s intentions are bad when they take this approach. Very often cold-callers truly believe they can help the prospect. That’s why they’re calling them in the first place. But their approach can easily put off even the most highly qualified prospects right out of the gate and prevent them from ever doing business together. But my purpose today is not to talk about cold calling. It’s to talk about creating awareness among your target market. First, awareness that you’re alive, awareness that you exist, awareness that you’re even an option for them. Before any bonding and rapport can happen, some level of awareness of your existence has to have taken place. Most salespeople know that a warm referral is probably ten to one hundred times more likely to have a positive outcome than a total cold-call to a stranger. That’s because the initial awareness — that first contact — was initiated in a way that the prospect interprets as positive. Someone they trust recommended you. For that reason, you start out with a level of credibility that a cold-caller is never likely to reach. But we can’t always count on referrals alone to grow our businesses, because it’s often just too reactive. What if no one decides to refer us this week… or next? Does that mean we have no new leads? Creating awareness is not a one-time thing. It’s an “all the time” thing. This means that if you’re not doing something, today, to create awareness of yourself, your business, your capability or your ability to help someone, you’re falling behind. Social media can be great for creating awareness of yourself — in positive ways or negative, depending on what you’re posting — but like cold-calling or referrals, it’s just one method. Salespeople and business owners who are serious about creating awareness of themselves should never limit themselves to one form of awareness-creation or first contact. Because the truth is, we don’t always know how a prospect will first become aware of us. Was it a direct mailing we sent them with a promotional gift enclosed? Was it a referral from a friend or colleague? Was it a cold call? Or was it a drunken 2 am tweet? Needless to say, your first contact with a prospect can make all the difference in the world! Everything you put out into the market has the ability to create a first impression with a new prospect. So ask yourself this: 1. Am I putting out high-quality content that positions me well with people? Is it interesting enough that they might want to continue to hear what I have to say? 2. Am I putting out enough of it? Do I reach my market on regular basis, so they get used to hearing from me? 3. Am I reaching the right people? Because all my great strategy and positioning is kind of worthless if I’m not reaching people who can use and pay for the products and services I offer, or to introduce me to someone who can. Naturally, I’m talking about business here. There are many people we may want to interact with on a daily basis who have no need for our products and services — friends, family, loved ones. But even in thos

Leadership is critical. Over the past few weeks, I talked a lot about the idea of dominating your market. It’s a topic that resonates with a lot of business owners and salespeople, but it also appears to make some people uncomfortable. So today, instead of talking domination, I’d like to talk to you about leadership. Every market has leaders. They are people who are known for what they do, liked and respected for their ability to provide valuable solutions and trusted to get the job done for their clients. So let’s forget about market domination for a moment and just ask, “are you currently leading your market?” Are you seen as the primary go-to person in your market for the products and services you offer? It’s a pretty simple yes or no question. Because you are either leading your market or you’re not. And if you’re not, it’s likely that someone else is. If you look at the primary characteristics of leadership in any market, you’ll notice that they possess many of the same qualities. 1. Visibility. This is where it all starts because if people don’t know you exist, it’s impossible for them to do business with you and it’s impossible for you to lead. In fact, leadership aside, if you look at the sheer number of business failures each year, you will recognize that many companies fail to create even survival-level visibility and recognition, let alone leadership level. So if you’re not yet thriving, you probably have a visibility problem. Not enough people in your market know you exist. 2. Clear value. Even if I know you exist, it doesn’t mean I’ll want to buy from you. The benefits of doing business with a market leader are always clear and obvious. If I have to wonder why I should choose you over every other option available to me, you can’t lead. If I think that anyone else can do the same job, the same way, for the same price or less, you can’t lead. Instead, you need to create a level of awareness that makes clear to the market that the value you provide is exceptional and worth paying for. 3. A Track Record of Success. Market leaders successfully demonstrate they know what they’re doing. They serve and satisfy their clients. Very few people want to be the guinea pig. They don’t want to be the experiment. They want to work with those who have a proven track record of success, and if you’ve worked with and impressed people they know, they will be far more likely to do business with you and to view you as the leader. So if you want to lead, ask yourself, am I visible to enough of the people I want to sell to? Is the value I offer to them clear, understandable and better than what they can get elsewhere for a similar price? And, can I demonstrate to them that I do this successfully, with enough other people so they can feel totally comfortable and confident choosing me, rather than every other option available to them? Ready to Demonstrate Leadership in Your Market? 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.

There are many decisions you will need to make when building your business. But your biggest business decision is often how you plan to grow your sales and profits. Today, business growth expert David Blaise explores the options and their pros and cons. Whenever I ask, “What is the biggest business decision you need to make when getting started?” I get a lot of answers: Some say “Which customers to target.” Others say “Whether to register as a corporation, sole proprietorship or LLC.” Still others say “Where to locate my business.” All valid. All important decisions. But from my standpoint, not nearly the most important. To Me, The Biggest Business Decision We Need to Make Upfront is How We Plan to Grow Our Sales and Profits. Because without a solid answer to that, the rest of it has very little value. The decision on how to grow our sales and profits is an intensely personal one. Because we each have our own strengths, weaknesses and preferences. Some of us are great at direct, one-on-one sales: Kicking down doors, establishing relationships and selling like the wind. Others are great at structure and organization: Finding the right people, recruiting them and building a business based on the strengths of the group. When your strengths are out of sync with your business building approach, you have a mismatch. As a result, your business will never grow and scale the way you want it to. How Will You Build? For that reason, some people build a highly successful business primarily around their own personal sales efforts. While others build their organization around hiring a sales team. A quick look at the Counselor Top 40 will show you that the largest distributor companies are built around sales teams rather than the sales of one individual. In fact, it could be argued that many members of the Top 40 consist, not just of a business, but of dozens or even hundreds of small businesses. Essentially, they’re individual salespeople and organizations — operating in some cases independently, but under one umbrella. And while the individuals involved may sell at very different levels — some low volume, some high and some in the middle — they all come together to generate sales and profits for the company. Starting in Sales In smaller businesses, excellent salespeople often start out by building the business around themselves. Then, when they reach a point where they can grow no further on their own, they may decide to hire other salespeople. But the problem with that strategy is that now the excellent salesperson has to fill other roles. He or she also becomes the human resources director, hiring manager, sales manager, office manager, bookkeeper, payroll specialist, disciplinarian, and in some cases the camp counselor. Or, if he or she has to use the proceeds from their sales to hire people to fill those functions, it’s a huge shift in focus, approach and resources. And some can’t make it. So ask yourself this question: How do you plan to grow your sales and profits? Do you plan to grow your sales and profits primarily through your own personal sales efforts? Or by hiring a sales team? As you’ve probably noticed by now, this decision is critical. Because if you’re building correctly from the get-go, it should impact every other decision you make going forward. It will impact the location of your business, the appropriate corporate structure and the customers you decide to target. It will also determine whether you need to focus your time and attention primarily on your own personal sales and marketing skills or on recruiting, hiring, training, motivating and keeping other salespeople. Make no mistake. This is a serious and game-changing decision. So the sooner you make it, the sooner you can begin or continue to build a business that is directly suited to your own personal strengths, skills and objectives. Need Help Making Your Biggest Business Decision? 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. @font-face { font-family: 'graphik-web'; src: url('chrome-extension://ihcjicgdanjaechkgeegckofjjedodee/vendor/graphik/web/graphik-bold-web.eot'); src

We get a lot of comments and questions from people asking “how can I get it all done?” There seems to be so much that has to be completed on a given day. We have to follow up with clients, put together quotes, get pricing together, bring new clients through the door. Many people say they rarely have time for that type of thing. But more is never the solution to too much. So we need to leverage prime thinking time & prime selling time. So what are some tips for planning your work to accomplish more each day? Here’s an important consideration. If this is something you’re struggling with, don’t just ask “how can I get it all done?” Instead, it’s more important to ask “how much of this needs to be done at all?” So the first question I recommend you ask yourself is “can I reduce the number of activities that I’m engaged in?” Can I reduce the number of things that I need to do on a daily basis? Because the answer to having too much to do is not to add more stuff. More is never the answer to too much. I know that sounds really obvious. But I can’t tell you how many times I’m on the phone with a consulting client talking about all the different things they’re doing. Then they start asking about something else they can do. Whether it’s related to the internet or some of the things that we were just talking about. Driving traffic to a website. If you’re set up to do that, that’s great. A lot of people are not. So what they’re asking, in a sense, is “how can I learn and master these 50 other new skills, in addition to doing everything that I need to do to keep my business operating?” And the short answer to that is, it’s very difficult to do that. So what you want to look at is, what can I eliminate first? What are the things that are being done now that need not be done at all? The goal here is to accomplish more. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do more in terms of the number of activities. So the first step in planning your work to accomplish more each day is to look at the specific things, the primary movers, the activities that create results for you. Then prioritize those to make sure you do those first. What do you need to prioritize to get it all done? It could be targeting and approaching new prospects and clients. Maybe it’s getting a customer acquisition program and system in place so that you are doing that like clockwork on a regular basis. Whatever it is, we need to make sure that happens. If you have prospects in the pipeline now, with deadlines and dates, and they need to get quotes, obviously that’s a priority. You need to do that. But one of the things that a lot of people seem to have trouble with is when somebody asks for a quote. The prospect will say, “Hey, can you get me pricing on this?” And the person will just go scamper off and put together pricing without first knowing “when are they actually going to do this?” Do they really need a price right now? People will often say, “can you get me pricing on this?” But until you know they have an event or what day the event is, when they need it, what’s their in-hands date? It almost doesn’t make sense to put together a price quote. Because if you put together a price quote for someone now, but they decide not to move on it for the next two or three months, it’s likely that pricing will be completely different. Not to mention stock levels! When do they actually need it? So one of the things you always want to find out from your prospects or clients before you put together a quote is: When do you need this? What’s your in-hands date? If their in-hands date is three months out, you can give them a ballpark in terms of pricing. But it might not make sense to do the whole work of putting together a full quote until you’re closer to that time. This will ensure your numbers are going to be more accurate. It will also prevent you from wasting time doing something that you will likely have to re-do a few weeks later. So look at your prime movers. Identify the activities that create results, and make sure that you do those things first. Look for activities that create positive interaction with your prospects and clients. Those are important. What are the specific actions you take, the activities you engage in to create those positive interactions with clients? Which activities will allow you to get it all done? Is it sending them emails? Is it talking to them on the phone? What are the specific things that you need to do to make that happen? And how can you leverage those types of things? Because that’s what’s going to allow you to accomplish more on a daily basis. The final thing I tend to examine is taking advantage of various types of prime time. We’re all familiar with the idea of prime selling time. We hav

There is a huge disconnect in business today — one that wastes enormous amounts of time and causes salespeople and business owners to miss out on enormous opportunities. While it’s common in many businesses, it’s rampant, even among those who might be great at everything from social media, to content marketing to traditional selling. It’s the disconnect between digital and physical, between content and conversion, between social media and your sales funnel. Over the years, one of the biggest disconnects in business that I’ve been complaining about is the disconnect between marketing and sales. In many organizations, marketing makes promises that sales struggles to keep. And sales says things that are completely inconsistent with marketing. Sales complains about marketing and marketing complains about sales, because there is very often little communication between the two departments. That is not the disconnect I’m talking about today, but it’s pretty similar! Today, it seems to me the biggest disconnection is between our digital presence and our physical presence, between online content and offline conversion, between social media and actually selling stuff. Some people are pathological about social media. They are there, consistently, like clockwork, posting on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter, connecting on LinkedIn, blogging, vlogging, podcasting, and whatever comes next. They are in the market, commanding attention, making noise, waving their arms and legs, and getting themselves heard. And that’s great. But it is far greater, far better, far more profitable, and far more valuable to prospects and clients, when all of that messaging, chit-chat, and content is actually pointing in the right direction and connecting up with your sales funnel. If you want to do that — if you want to monetize your message by crafting communication that sells — you’re going to have to recognize that it’s not just about tossing content against the wall. Throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks is a huge waste of spaghetti and it’s exactly the same with your content. Instead of just putting out quantity, you are far better off crafting meaningful communication that creates a direction and a connection. Each piece of content you create should help you demonstrate your authority and bond with your audience, of course! But beyond that, it needs to lead them away from the endless loop of noise, chaos, competition and confusion on social media to the quiet, focused, helpful refuge of your client base. This requires direction and connection. The direction should be away from others and to you. You want to direct people from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linked In and iTunes to connect with you on properties you own, like your website, your blog site, your email newsletter and opt-in pages where people can make themselves known to you, one-on-one. The flow should always be from confusion to clarity, from distraction to focus, from chaos to order, from everyone else… to you. Remember, the goal is to get people on social media to become loyal, established clients. The goal is not to drag loyal, established clients onto social media. That’s backwards. It’s like actively sending people at the bottom of your sales funnel back to the top. It’s like sending your best clients into the lion’s den. I believe the only place you should ever ask a loyal, established client to follow you on social media is ON social media, so you can then use your presence there to lead them right back to you and your funnel. With very few exceptions, your messaging should be a one-way street directing people off of social media and connecting them with you. We connect our social media presence to our sales funnels, so we can pull people into our orbit, not to send them back off into outer space. So don’t direct people from your email, where you’re communicating with them one-on-one to Facebook, where they’ll become distracted and overwhelmed. Instead, do the opposite. Direct them from Facebook to opt-in to your emails. Don’t direct people from a podcast, where they’re listening to you, to social media where they’ll be listening to everyone else. Instead, direct them to an opt-in page where they can make themselves known to you and access a free report, a tip sheet or video series that will help them. The direction of your communication should always be toward you and away from your competition, unless you have a very specific reason for doing otherwise. If you’re ready to get some help with this, then let’s schedule a time to talk. Just go to TopSecrets.com/call. That’s TopSecrets.com/call.

Ready to Dominate Your Market? Read or listen to the blog/podcast below, then enter your questions in the box at the bottom of this page. Visit any city in the world and you will find a slew of businesses and salespeople, each virtually indistinguishable from the next. Same approach, same products, same pitch — dull as dishwater! If you don’t want this to be you, you better figure out how you’re going to differentiate yourself quickly and dominate your market! So let’s talk today about one of my favorite topics: Total Market Domination. That sounds like it would be tough to accomplish, doesn’t it? But it’s really not as difficult as it seems, primarily because of the apathy, lack of knowledge and laziness of much of your competition! The fact is, many businesses are just so busy simply trying to stay alive, it never even occurs to them to try to dominate their markets. Of course, there are exceptions. I know that, because many of my clients ARE the exceptions. But here’s the thing… If market domination seems totally unrealistic to you, you won’t even attempt it. So start with this: What exactly is the market you want to dominate? Is it the world? A continent? A country? OK, Doctor Evil, world conquest might be a tad unrealistic, so maybe start smaller. Is it a state? A city? Is it one particular area of a city? If you want to make market domination happen, start with just a small subset of your desired market. Could you dominate one industrial park within a city? One building within that industrial park? One floor of a building? How about just the area to the right of the elevators on the third floor of one building. Could you dominate that? To begin your domination plan, slice it up! Establish sub-markets. Get in there with a proven customer acquisition plan that allows you to quickly create top of mind awareness with exactly the market you want to dominate. Take action on that plan, move forward on it — even a little at a time — and start dominating! This is not rocket science. It’s something I do with my Total Market Domination clients all the time. And it is amazing how much traction you can get and how quickly you can get that traction and create those levels of awareness when you know how to do it… and when you truly make it your focus. Of course, if you knew how to dominate your market, you would have already done it by now, right? So what are a few of the components necessary to dominate your market? We cover a lot in my training materials, but for purposes of today’s podcast, we’ll hit just a few. First, it has to occur to you. If you never consider the idea it can’t happen. Next, it requires: Desire. You have to want to do it, or you certainly never will. You also have to make it a priority. Vision. You need to be able to picture it in your mind before you can ever create it in the real world. What does market domination look like to you? Who will you be interacting with? Where will you spend the majority of your time? What types of clients will you have? Who else needs to be involved? Direction. This means knowing exactly where you are now, where you want to go and how you intend to get there. This leads into the big three: Plan, Formula and Action So what’s your plan for making it happen? What is the specific formula you’ll use to quickly qualify the good prospects in and disqualify the bad prospects out. Here’s a hint, the Lead Qualification Procedure in my customer acquisition training is a great place to start. It’s also going to take persistence, better-than-average performance (because average performance in our industry is really pretty sad.) It will take a staff committed to the process — even if it’s just you, starting out as a staff of one. It will also take a commitment to accuracy and speed. Why? Because accuracy creates exceptional results and client loyalty, and speed creates momentum. And you can’t dominate much of anything without momentum! These are a few of the things it takes. If you’d like me to help you with the plan, the formula, and the tools to make it happen, then let’s schedule a time to talk. Just go to TopSecrets.com/call. That’s TopSecrets.com/call. Dominating your market is possible, but it won’t happen by accident. Go to www.TopSecrets.com/call. Ready to Identify and Dominate Your Market? 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

If you don’t hit the sales goals set by either you or your employer, that’s a problem. In this podcast, business growth expert David Blaise explains why. If you’re just starting out and you’re not yet hitting your sales and profit goals, maybe you’re lucky. Maybe it’s just a timing thing and eventually, you will. But if you’ve been in the industry for any length of time and you’re STILL not hitting your desired levels of sales and profit, that indicates a real problem. In fact, it indicates a problem that time is unlikely to fix. Because as the saying goes, if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Let’s look at the reasons we set sales goals in the first place. Very often, businesses set at least minimal goals for their salespeople. They know how much the salesperson needs to generate in order to just pay for himself or herself. And that’s before they’re ever profitable to the company. Some companies are more patient than others. But let’s face it, when salespeople can’t do the one thing their hired to do — sell — it’s unlikely they’re going to remain employed in that capacity. “You had one job!” The fact of the matter is that in most businesses, everyone’s job ultimately depends on the company’s ability to sell it’s products and services. Because if nothing is being sold, no one is getting paid. At least not for very long. But beyond company goals — the goals required to simply remain employed — as individuals we also tend to set personal goals. These are the sales goals that will actually allow us to achieve our own desires and objectives. “If I generate x dollars in sales, I’ll earn y dollars in commissions. After taxes, this will allow me to pay my bills, live in the home I want, drive the car I want, pay for college for my kids and provide for myself and my family in the style to which we’d like to become accustomed.” When it happens, it’s great! But in our industry, even those salespeople who manage to hit their company goals often fail to hit their personal sales goals again and again, year in and year out. They continue to put in more time and effort, but they still can’t hit the numbers they want. They sacrifice their time, energy, health and quality of living and still fail to hit their numbers. It’s a tremendous source of frustration. And it’s confusing because so many of us have been taught that it’s hard work that leads to success. But if you continue to target a level of sales for yourself that continues to elude you year after year, please don’t delude yourself into thinking that time is going to fix it. It won’t. What Can You Possibly be Doing? My business partner, Rick Drake, was talking to a distributor who was frustrated with her sales volume. She told him how hard she was working — putting in eight to ten hour days five or six days a week for years without achieving the level of success she was looking for. When he asked her sales volume, she said she was doing $20,000 a year in gross sales. He was shocked. He blurted out “What can you POSSIBLY be doing for ten hours a day, five or six days a week to only generate $20,000 in sales?” It was a blunt response, but it’s a great question, and it was absolutely the best possible question he could ask her. Really, what WAS she doing with those hours? And what are you doing with yours? It doesn’t matter if the number is $20,000, $200,000 or $2 million. The chronic inability to hit your own desired sales goals indicates a serious problem that time alone will not fix. Naturally, I’m not talking about people who set sales goals, achieve them, and then set new ones. All of us should constantly strive to exceed our previous successes and shoot for new heights. But frustration, stagnation, and lack of achievement require different actions. Misconceptions In sales, our biggest problems often come from misconceptions. We think we have a better grasp of things than we really do. Maybe we think we know everything necessary to attract, qualify and convert prospects into clients, and for some reason, we just don’t do it. We think we know what it takes to build and sustain a client base. Perhaps we think we should be able to obtain a higher level of success with our existing level of knowledge and ability. But it just doesn’t work that way. When we fail to achieve the level of sales, profit, and commission we want to achieve, it means there are specific things we either don’t know or fail to practice. Are There Really Things You Don’t Know About Hitting Your Sales Goals and Getting Clients? If you consistently fail to hit your desired numbers, then yes. Over the past fifteen-plus years, I’ve spent a lot of time talking with salespeop

Tired of having your presentations derailed? In this podcast, business growth expert David Blaise reveals his simple, three-step RPR method to regain control of the sales process. As salespeople, we all know that if we want to be effective, we need to maintain control of the sales process. We also know that generally speaking, whoever is asking the questions, controls the conversation. But the way we do that — the way we ask questions and maintain control of the conversation and the selling process is also important. We can’t always just flip things around on our prospects and expect them to sit still for it. Back in the early days of sales training, many people were taught to answer customer questions with questions. Some people still subscribe to that philosophy. So if the prospect said, “Does it come in green?” you might respond, “Would you like it in green?” If the prospect asks “How much for your mugs?” you might respond, “What’s your budget?” To me, this is downright painful. If you’re dealing with a thoroughly uneducated customer, you might get away with an approach like this. But uneducated customers don’t usually control large budgets. And today, in an era of highly educated consumers, responses like that are just deadly. Not to mention painful to listen to! In most cases, ignoring prospects’ questions and just trying to flip them around does not benefit either you or them. Naturally, as sales professionals, we don’t want our presentations to get derailed. We need to keep things focused. We need to keep things moving forward. So very often there are times when we would prefer to put off answering a prospect’s question or questions — particularly those related to price — until after we convey the major points of our presentation. However, ignoring or disregarding our client’s questions is not the appropriate response. We can ask them to hold their questions until the end, but we can’t always make that work. We can sometimes deflect by saying we’ll get to that in a moment, but we can’t always make that work either. For that reason, I find that in nearly every situation, when questioned, we are far better if we provide a basic response, the promise of more information, and then a quick redirect to turn the conversation back to where you need it to be. I call it RPR: Response, Promise, Redirect So if they ask “Does it come in green?” you could say, “I believe it does, but I’ll confirm the exact colors for you. Is this for an ongoing promotion?” Response: “I believe it does.” Promise: “I’ll confirm the exact colors for you.” Redirect: “Is this for an ongoing promotion?” When you answer using this framework — Response, Promise, Redirect — your prospects won’t feel like you’re blowing off their questions. They won’t feel like you’re ignoring them or disrespecting them. They won’t feel like you’re flipping their words around on them to make a sale, and you’ll get credit for being far more responsive. Prospect: “How much for your mugs?” Salesperson: “Well, the pricing depends on the style you want as well as the quantity you’re ordering. I can give you specific pricing when we’ve clarified some more of the details. Tell me, when do you need them delivered?” Response, promise, redirect. It’s the cleanest way I’ve found to address questions when you’re not quite ready to address them. Let’s face it, relationship marketing is about relationships. So why not shoot straight? Respond to your client’s basic question, give them the promise of a more complete answer and redirect them back with a quick question designed to get you more of the information you need to close the sale. Ready to Regain Control of the Sales Process? 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.

Is it really true that in business, everyone is replaceable? In this podcast, business growth expert David Blaise discusses this uncomfortable truth. Today, I’d like to call your attention to an uncomfortable truth. In business, everyone is replaceable. The person in your organization you think is replaceable? Replaceable. The person that person thinks is replaceable? Replaceable. The people in your organization you think are not replaceable? Replaceable. You, Me, All of Us. We’re all Replaceable. The reason I tell you this is not to make you feel sad or hurt or inconsequential or unspecial or irrelevant. In fact, quite the opposite, because, while we’re all replaceable, some are harder to replace than others, and I believe it should be the goal of each and every employee to work to become as hard to replace as possible, because the easier we are to replace, the more likely and the more quickly it is to happen. I’m sure there was a time when people thought John D Rockefeller, Henry Ford and JP Getty were irreplaceable to their companies. Same thing with Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and while we may argue that their replacements may never live up to their legacies, it doesn’t change the fact that all of us, eventually, will be replaced. It’s easy to pick out the people we think could be replaced, and many of the people we think that about may think the very same thing about us. And it’s true, we’re all replaceable. Why do I keep saying that over and over? Because I believe it’s actually very empowering. If you think that other people are replaceable and you’re not, you won’t treat them well and you’ll have no incentive to improve yourself. If you think that you’re replaceable but other people aren’t, you’ll devalue yourself, live life in the shadows and have a harder time living up to your potential. Each of us has our own skills, strengths, and unique abilities. And we’re far stronger when we develop those skills, learning, growing, and striving to be the best we can be, because the better we are, the more likely it is that someone else will see that value in us and want to reward that value. Recognizing that we’re not irreplaceable can actually pay. As an employee, the harder we are to replace, the more we’re worth to our current employer, and the more likely it is that another employer might want to steal us away, because no one wants to steal away an employee who’s easy to replace. But as a business owner, it’s a little different. It’s actually better to be replaceable. So, here’s what I mean. I’ve personally started, built and sold several businesses, and one of the things I’m most proud of is the fact that I could sell them — that someone saw enough value in what I had built to want to pay for them. In fact, I was only able to exchange those businesses for money because I was replaceable. If potential buyers thought the businesses were entirely dependent upon me, they never would have bought them, so in that sense, being replaceable can actually pay. The bottom line is that by seeing everyone, including ourselves, as replaceable in business, we have more options. We acknowledge that, “Yes, maybe someone else could do this. Maybe they won’t be as good as we are, but who knows? Maybe they’ll be better.” So for that reason, we continue to strive. We continue to stretch. We continue to improve our skills, because when we do that, it’s far more likely that we will get to decide when we’re replaced rather than having someone else make that decision for us. Want to make yourself less replaceable? 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.

It can be tempting to give in when a client beats us up over price. However, selling cheap is rarely a good idea for you or for your client. Here’s why… Did you ever have a prospect who really worked you over on price? If you have been in this industry for any length of time, you probably had a lot more than one. Fun, right? Not so much… When you run into these situations, it’s tempting to cave in. It’s tempting to either cut your price or sell them what they’re asking you for… something cheap! But today, I’ll explain why that is rarely a good idea. Why Selling Cheap is Not the Answer When clients beat you up on price, it can be tempting to give in. Many of us in sales are people pleasers. We like making our clients happy. It’s what we do! But there are a lot of inherent problems when we give in to this temptation. First, if we just sell them the same product at a lower price, it does a number of things, none of which are good for us long term: By rewarding the behavior, it trains clients to beat us up over price. It makes them think we were trying to overcharge them (because after all, if we could have charged the lower price upfront, but didn’t, then by definition we were attempting to overcharge on the first price we quoted.) It forces us to cut our profit margin, which is the only part of the sale our company gets to use, to cover things like overhead, taxes, business expenses, and yes, sales commissions. For those reasons and many more, it’s rarely a good idea to just cut your price on the same product. However, if we give in to their pricing demands by recommending and selling them a cheap product — not just a product that is inexpensive, but a genuinely cheap product — that opens us up to an entirely different set of problems. The difference between cheap and affordable can be enormous. Good quality products can be affordable, but cheap products are rarely affordable in the long run because they don’t hold up. Very often, the difference between affordable and cheap is also the difference between acceptable and unacceptable. Let’s say your clients demand something cheap… and you get it for them. Shortly after delivery, some of the products fall apart, or the imprints rub off. The pens leak or maybe they don’t write at all. In that scenario, do you suppose your clients will blame themselves for ordering something “cheap?” Or will they blame you for selling it to them? The answer is pretty obvious, isn’t it? They’re going to blame you. And for good reason, because… The products we sell represent us. The products you sell represent you. Sell good quality products, it makes you look good. Sell cheap products, it makes you look cheap. So tempting as it might be, do what you can to resist the urge to sell cheap quality products. One of my favorite responses to the price/quality argument was one made by author and sales trainer Zig Ziglar years ago, and it goes like this: “Many years ago our company made a basic decision. We decided that it would be easier to explain price once than it would be to apologize for quality forever.” Does that argument work on every prospect? No. But will it work on the type of client who actually appreciates quality and is willing to pay for it? Probably. So if that’s the type of client you’re after, the approach is clear. Focus on providing high-quality products and services to high-quality prospects at prices that reflect the value you bring to the table. Are you ready to stop selling cheap? 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.

“Sales is a numbers game,” they said. “Make more calls and you’ll make more money,” they said. “Keep smilin’ and dialin’,” they said. They said a lot of things, but who are they, anyway? Is sales truly a numbers game? If you make more calls, will it always increase your sales? Here’s my take on it. Yes, sales IS a numbers game, but it is a SMART numbers game. This means that more calls are NOT always the answer. For example, here are three times when calling more people is NOT the answer: 1. When you say the wrong things. Some salespeople were never adequately trained on what to say and what NOT to say… let alone how to say it. When salespeople like this get on the phone with live prospects, more calls are NOT the answer. Instead, they are detrimental. The more calls they make, the more prospects they have the potential to alienate. Not ideal. 2. When you target the wrong businesses. Face it, each business is different. They are not all equal. Some have a lot of money. Some have a little. And some have debt up to their eyeballs. Sell to a company like that, and good luck getting paid! When you make more calls to the wrong businesses, you don’t just waste your time, you may do more harm than good. 3. When you approach the wrong people. Some salespeople do a terrible job of targeting. As a result, they reach the wrong people. Maybe it’s not their fault. Maybe it’s like in the movie Glen Garry Glen Ross. “The leads are weak.” In any event, if you call the wrong people, in the wrong companies, and the wrong departments at the wrong time… if you approach those with no need, no desire, no money, no budget, and no ability to pay, then no amount of additional calls will improve your results. So does this mean you should use it as an excuse not to make calls, hang up your phone, and go home? No. It means you should start dialing smarter instead of just faster. For brand new promotional distributors we have a training program called Getting Started. If you’re new to the industry and you have not taken this training or something as thorough, then I can virtually guarantee you are leaving money on the table, running the risk of alienating clients and losing business. You can get details on that program at topsecrets.com/gettingstarted If you’re already established in the industry and just need help bringing in new business like clockwork, we have a tested, proven six-step process for doing just that. It’s called Top Secrets of Customer Acquisition and promotional products professionals across the country and around the world prove that it works, time and time again. You can test-drive it in your business, risk-free for one full year. For details, go to topsecrets.com/tsca. Check out one of those links. Order Getting Started or Top Secrets of Customer Acquisition or both and put them to work in your business for one full year. If it doesn’t make or save you at least ten times its cost in increased sales or bottom-line savings, I don’t want you to keep it. Just request a full refund. We have offered this guarantee on our training products since 1998, so if the program didn’t work, we would have gone out of business long ago. Improve your sales. Make your numbers game smarter. Look beyond “more calls.” Don’t make another worthless phone call. Instead, visit our website or call 1-800-494-2721 right now, this very moment. Put these proven customer-getting resources to work immediately. So order Top Secrets of Customer Acquisition now, and I’ll send you an instant gratification bonus! Instant gratification. It sounds naughty, but actually, it’s nice! You get instant access to the complete customer acquisition overview, so you can start turning total strangers into paying clients right away. Have a question? Call us and we will help you. Join our community of smart, focused industry professionals today. Are you ready to grow 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.

If you have not yet achieved everything you want from your business or sales career, take a look at the unfinished business on your to-do list. If you’re like most people, you’ll find it’s not the things on your list that create the problems. Instead, it’s the things you can’t seem to get rid of. Many people in business are too busy for their own good, and most of us know it. Some people wear the term “busy” as a badge of honor. But I’m no longer one of those people. A long time ago, I was. I watched as other busy people nodded along knowingly as we discussed how busy we were. It’s as if they said, “Yes brother, I understand, I too am busy. We are busy people, leading busy lives. And we derive our worth from our busyness.” But Busyness and Business are Two Different Things Busyness is making phone calls. Business is closing sales. Busyness is meeting with people. Business is accomplishing the goal of the meeting. Busyness is about doing things. Business is about getting things done… as in finished… as in complete. This means that until we complete the goal or objective of our work, we can’t fully realize the true value of that work. This brings me back to the all-important to-do list. How many of the things on your to-do list should you have completed a day ago, a week ago, a month ago, a year ago or even more? Are there items on your list that have been “a work in progress” for so long that you lost sight of the fact that at some point you actually need to complete them? How is it that I can work on losing the same ten pounds year after year and not make it happen? At some point, I need to either achieve the goal or admit that it’s just not enough of a priority for me to get it done. So why continue to pretend about unfinished business? In saying this, I don’t mean we should give up on our goals. But I do suggest that we get real about the things we actually do. This is different from the things we intend to do or the things we consider doing or think about doing. It’s also different from the things we say we’re doing, without ever actually getting them done. So at some point, isn’t it just 100 times better to put a big old checkmark next to that goal? Finished! As we approach the end of the year, take a look at your to-do list. Ask yourself: Which of these projects should you complete NOW? Which of these projects can you move to your calendar to complete within the next week or two? And which of these projects are either dead or no longer worth pursuing? People Say that a Goal Without a Deadline is Just a Dream. So what do you dream about and what will you commit to acting on? What are the most important goals you outlined that you need to complete? What are the most important actions on your to-do list that you need to accomplish so you can mark them as done? Which one item, if you were to clear it off your list, would remove the most mental clutter? If you confuse activity with accomplishment, or busyness with business, now is the time to just STOP. Take a deep breath. Review your goals and objectives. Decide what you want to happen. Determine which specific activities you will perform. Then focus on not just performing those activities, but actually completing them. Check! Are you ready to eliminate your unfinished business? 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 grow your promo sales by hiring others, 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.

It’s the holiday season and this week I stopped by my local Walmart to pick up a few things. As I walked in I noticed a Salvation Army volunteer standing in front of the store ringing a bell. He encouraged people to drop money into a red bucket. And it made me wonder… how many promotional products distributors are engaged in the equivalent of marketing with a bell and a bucket? Most businesses have a charitable side. And most charities have a business side — at least if they want to remain in business. But there’s a big difference between business and charity. And I believe it’s important to understand and keep that distinction. You see a bell ringer in front of Walmart soliciting contributions. Maybe you make a purchase in a store and the cashier asks if you’d like to contribute an extra dollar or two to a particular charity. You walk down the street and a homeless person approaches you asking for some cash. Each of these experiences gives us an opportunity to be charitable. But the approach can make even some of the most charitable people feel really uncomfortable. Most of us like helping people. We like feeling charitable. But we also might like to choose the people and organizations we want to help — without any prompting, expectations or guilt. We need to feel good about the fact that we’re giving. We have to want to do it. Otherwise, we’re likely to feel resentful. Many charities are in the business of asking people for contributions that might not provide a direct benefit to the person contributing the money. In other words, the contributor gives, the charity gets. Then it presumably passes on the money or services to a party more in need. But business is different. Business exchanges value for money. When we give money to a business, we expect to get something in return — and not just something of equal value. We expect to get something that is more valuable to us than the money we’re paying. Otherwise, we won’t make the purchase. In reality, we expect to make out on the deal whenever we buy something. Marketing and sales mean creating value The only reason we buy a new home or car or laptop or mobile phone or anything is that we’d rather have the item we’re buying than the money it costs to buy it. In business, we must create value for the buyer. We have to create more in use-value than the person is paying in cash value. If not, they won’t make the purchase. Understand this distinction. It’s critical. Have you ever been approached by a salesperson who seemed desperate to make the sale? They try to close the deal at all costs. They try pushing, prodding, cajoling, using guilt. It can be very uncomfortable. I remember running into a situation like that more than 30 years ago, shopping for my wife’s engagement ring on jeweler’s row in Philadelphia. The experience was so uncomfortable, I still remember it clearly to this day. “Desperation is not an aphrodisiac, in love or in business.” So you need to make sure that nothing you do comes across as desperate or clingy or needy. Ask yourself, is there anything I currently do — any behavior I engage in — that might make me appear desperate to make a sale? Do I say anything — with my words, facial gestures or body language — that makes me look like a beggar instead of a professional? Does any aspect of my marketing or sales approach conjure up images of a guy with a bell and a bucket? Or, is it obvious to the buyer that my primary focus is fixed on creating exceptional value for him or her? Not just making a sale for myself. Our best results in sales and business always come when we create exceptional value for loyal clients. Focus on that and the rest will take care of itself. Are you ready to stop begging and make more 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 grow your promo sales by hiring others, 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.

When your best clients talk to other people about you, what do they say? If you’re focused on getting referrals you’ll need a good answer to this. And you’ll need to do it proactively. Do they say you’re creative? That you’re responsive? Do they say you’re excellent at coming up with recommendations? The kind that make perfect sense for the objectives they’re trying to reach? What if they’re not saying anything about you at all? Whenever I ask salespeople where most of their business comes from, they inevitably tell me “word of mouth.” Someone they know referred the business to them. That’s a great place to get leads, but how can we make that happen more often? When Getting Referrals, the Answer is to Teach Our Prospects and Clients What to Say About Us Sometimes it’s enough for them to say, “my friend Jim sells that stuff, you should give him a call.” But that’s not really all that compelling, is it? Instead, we want to give them the hook… the primary benefit of doing business with us rather than anyone else. This goes back to what I was saying before about what your best clients say when they talk to others about you. Do they say you’re great at meeting deadlines? That you’re able to work within budgets? That you can get stuff for them fast, fast, fast? It’s nice when people say good things about us. But we also need to ask, “How does what they’re saying about us match up with what we consider to be our core strengths? What do we want to be known for?” If they tell people you can get stuff for them fast, what type of clients will that attract? Last-minute shoppers? Indecisive people? Procrastinators? If they tell people you’re the cheapest, what type of clients will that attract? Bidders? Cheapskates? Low-ballers? If you want people to send you the right type of referrals, you need to teach them what to say about you. And that starts with having some idea of what you want people to say about you. What Do You Want to Be Known for When You’re Getting Referrals? What is it that you want other people to think about when they hear your name or your company name? Whatever it is, you need to say it with words and demonstrate it with actions. If your core strength is creativity, you need to promote your creativity (that is, tell prospects and clients how you do that, how you are creative.) Then demonstrate it with each presentation. If your core strength is meeting deadlines, you need to tell them in your marketing and show them with your actions. When we try to be all things to all people, it’s harder for prospects and clients to understand what we’re all about — let alone explain it to other people and refer them to us. So today, take just a few moments to determine what you’re great at. 1. What is it that you’re great at? 2. What would you like to be great at? 3. What would you like to be known for? Take a moment. Jot it down. Then, concentrate your efforts on communicating that primary benefit in your conversations, your marketing, your emails, your blog posts, your social media — and demonstrating it for your clients in the work you do every day. Your words can give people a great idea, a guideline of what to say about you, but ultimately your actions will determine whether or not they’re going to want to say it. Are you ready to get more referrals and make more 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 grow your promo sales by hiring others, 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.

One of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned in business is that just because we can do something — either well or poorly — doesn’t mean we should do it. After all, being capable of doing things is not the same as being required to do them. And like most business lessons, I learned this one the hard way. In the early days of my career in the industry, I tried to do everything possible for a client. And I tried to do it all myself. Need a logo cleaned up? Sure, I can do that! And I don’t mean jobbing it out. I mean physically doing it myself! Does the fact that I have no art background at all slow me down? Nope. I’ll just figure it out and dive right in. Need “just-over-cost” pricing on that order? Sure, I can do that. It’s not like I need profit margins to survive, right? Need rush service? Sure, I can do that, too. I don’t mind eating rush charges for a first-time client who may or may not pay me at all. Want me to drop off the order in person? Sure, I can do that. Maybe I can find a pair of brown shorts and pretend I’m the UPS guy. That’d be awesome! Need me to wait 45 to 60 days to get paid? Sure, I can do that. Functioning as an unpaid banker is something I’ve always aspired to — despite my desperate financial situation. It’s amazing what we’ll do in the early days when we don’t know what we’re doing. We Can Do All Kinds of Things For Our Clients. But Just Because We Can… Should We? In some cases, maybe we should. But in many cases, the answer is a resounding “no!” Naturally, we want to provide our clients with an exceptional experience. I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t accommodate a client’s reasonable requests whenever possible. But when the requests start to pile up, wasting our time and crushing our profit margins, it’s sometimes best to just say no. Two Kinds of No In fact, there are two kinds of no we should learn how to say: First, is the public no. This is when we actually have to say “no” to our clients. We do this in response to requests that will actually harm you or your business. For instance, if your margin structure won’t support the discount they’re asking for, it’s best to tell them you just can’t do it. Moreover, if you don’t have the financial wherewithal to carry an order past 90 days, don’t wreck your credit rating by telling them you’ll do it. Just say no. Second, is the private no. This is the no we should say to ourselves when we’re tempted to do something that we know we should delegate to someone else. For example, “No, I won’t clean up that logo myself. But I will job it out to someone who will do a better job than I would, in a fraction of the time — and for far less than it would cost me to do it myself.” Or, “no, I won’t stop what I’m doing, run over and pick up those blank shirts, but I will send someone else to do it, or have them shipped, while I continue to sell.” Finally, there are some things we shouldn’t do for clients at all because those things are bad for business. There are other things we need to do for clients, that we shouldn’t do ourselves. In both those cases, remember just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Are you ready to focus on doing the things that will get you results? 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 grow your promo sales by hiring others, 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.

Persistence in sales can be a valuable trait, but only when we’re doing the right things. When we’re doing the wrong things, persistence can be harmful, detrimental or even deadly. One afternoon in the summer, my wife noticed something strange going on outside our home. There was a bird that kept flying into the window on the side of our house again and again. It wasn’t big enough to damage the window, but if it kept it up, it would certainly kill itself. As soon as one of us would go outside, it would fly away. But then, after a bit of a break, it kept coming back. It stopped that evening, but returned the next day. It was clearly doing something that was harmful to itself. But it just couldn’t seem to stop. This made me think of the many salespeople in our industry who do something very similar. They take the wrong actions with prospects and clients. Many engage in actions that are harmful to themselves and deadly to their careers. They experience the pain and frustration associated with doing the wrong things. Hitting their heads against the wall each day. Suffering through the long hours, low paychecks, lost orders, wasted efforts and unreturned phone calls. But instead of changing their actions, they just keep on doing it. And like the bird outside our window, I have to wonder… why? Do you ever feel like you’re beating your head against a wall? Trying to sell to the unsellable, qualify the unqualified or get responses from the unresponsive? If so, you are not alone. Much of the anxiety, frustration and burnout that happens in our industry is directly related to these activities. Common wisdom and many well-meaning people tell us to remain persistent, stay focused, it’s all a numbers game, keep at it. And there’s a lot to be said for persistence… but only when you’re doing the right things. When you’re doing the wrong things, much like the bird attacking our window, persistence can be harmful, detrimental or even deadly. What are the activities that are currently causing you the most stress? Attending networking functions that waste time and provide you with no good leads? Cold-calling rude, obnoxious, unqualified people who treat you like dirt? Spending hours chasing down artwork for small orders from small clients who have no likelihood of growing? The good news is that you’re a human being. You’re not a bird. You don’t have a bird brain. You can decide when it’s time to stop being persistent and start being strategic. That means abandoning activities that create poor results, changing approaches that cause more harm than good and engaging in behaviors that are better suited to getting you the results you actually want. When you’re ready to do that, you should give us a call us at 1-800-494-2721 and say, “I’m ready to start being strategic.” We’ll help you with a solution that won’t leave you banging your head against a wall. Also, in case you’re wondering, I did help that bird with a new strategy. I put a few Mylar balloons outside the window, which distracted him enough to stop smashing his head into our window. So now he can spend his days building nests, gathering worms and making baby birds — being productive instead of just persistent. Are you ready to have your persistence in sales pay off? 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 grow your promo sales by hiring others, 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 experienced salespeople are at least somewhat familiar with the idea of selling to a client’s needs. So how do you create a need when a prospect doesn’t already feel like they need the products and services you offer? For decades, business owners and sales managers encouraged their sales teams to sell to the prospect’s needs. “Find a need and fill it.” But in reality, the biggest problem or issue in your prospect’s mind is probably NOT related to the products you sell. So how do you sell to them if they don’t have the need? Can you really create a need? It would be great if you could, but it is incredibly difficult to create needs in people out of thin air. You can’t just tell them they need it, although many have tried. “You know, Mr. Prospect, you really need to buy these products.” No, you probably won’t create much need that way. Maybe you can turn it around in the form of a question like many salespeople have been trained to do. “So as you can see, Ms. Prospect, you really need to buy these products, don’t you?” Again, no. You probably won’t create much need that way either. So if you can’t tell them they need it, and you can’t just ask them if they need it, how do you sell to the need? Well, first of all, understand that instead of trying to create a need, it is far easier to channel or redirect the needs that your prospects and clients already have. We all have needs — some of us more than others. But the most successful salespeople in the world are those who become experts. They identify the needs of the prospect or client. Then they gear their presentation to position their products and services as a critical component in meeting those needs. So what does your prospect really want? If you approach a business owner, she might want to grow the business, add more staff, or move the decimal point on the number at the bottom of her income statement one place to the right. When you talk to a marketing manager, he might want to create more awareness, get his message out there or make an impact among a new group of prospects. If you interact with human resources directors, they might want to attract the right people, reward the performance of a team or incentivize specific activities. Naturally, promotional products can help with all those needs. But if you think the prospect’s primary need is for promotional products, you are very likely mistaken. It is unlikely the prospect sees that as the most pressing issue. Create a need that gets them what they want What if my prospect’s biggest need is that she has to pay for college for her kids? How will your products help her do that? That’s a tough one. But you need to be able to answer questions like this for yourself. What if you could create a promotion designed to bring in additional customers, get more from the customers they already have, and get their existing clients to buy from them more often? Wouldn’t that generate additional revenue for the business? And couldn’t some of that additional revenue be used to help pay for college? Successful promotions can cure a lot of problems and fill a lot of needs. But not if you confuse the need with the product you’re selling. Our products are not the need. Instead, we should position our products as the answer to the need. Top Secrets clients are trained in the consultative selling approaches that connect the dots between a client’s perceived need and the products and services we offer, between what they want and what we sell. So sell to the need! Not your need to sell a product, but their need to create a specific result. If you need help with this, see below… Are you finally ready to grow your business? 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 grow your promo sales by hiring others, 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.

I had a buying experience or two recently that left me feeling frustrated, annoyed and kind of sad. It was frustrating that people could be so blasé about business. And it was annoying to spend money with people who really didn’t seem to appreciate the business I gave them. It’s also sad that as a society, we seem to have entered a phase where thoughtless, inconsiderate, sloppy service is becoming more the rule than the exception. Buying is an experience. Sometimes good, sometimes great, sometimes terrible and sometimes totally forgettable. But it’s always an experience. So what kind of buying experience are you creating for your prospects and clients? If it’s great, you will likely have repeat customers. If it’s terrible, you won’t. These are at either end of the spectrum. If the experience is good, you might get another chance, or they might try someone else. And if the experience is totally forgettable, you’re probably finished. In just the last few weeks, I had a landscaper tell me he would get me an estimate on Monday. It arrived on Tuesday. That wasn’t a terrible experience, but it wasn’t great either. He, at least, apologized for the delay. That alone made him stand head and shoulders above many of the other experiences I’ve had recently. I spent a bunch of money with a travel agency. Prior to purchasing, I had trouble getting answers to my questions, because the person “missed” my questions the first time around. Then I had to hound them to get copies of receipts for stuff they were billing to my credit card. I also noticed that the responses I got always came at the very end of a business day, which would inevitably push my next set of questions into the following day. This resulted in higher ticket prices and fewer good seats left on the aircraft. In another situation, I had a very straightforward pre-purchase question with a service provider that was not answered — by anyone in the organization. But I needed what they were offering, so I just placed the order. I figured I would answer the question for myself after I took delivery. It reminded me of that famous political quote that said “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Not an ideal way to do business. The selling experience, and more importantly, the buying experience for the customer, should be great. If it’s not, people won’t want to come back. Many people like to complain about Amazon. I don’t love Amazon as a company, but when I order from them, I usually know where my orders stand. They deliver my invoice right away. They provide my estimated delivery dates upfront. My orders almost always arrive within that window and ultimately, I don’t have to think about it. For me, that’s huge. So while I might not love them, I have to say, they have my confidence. And I find my confidence sadly lacking with many of the other organizations I deal with. Business coach Dan Sullivan says that much of success boils down to three things: Show up on time, do what you say you’re going to do, and say “please and thank you.” That sounds like some really basic stuff. But today, it is ignored far too often. As you consider the type of experience you want to create for a prospect or client, think in terms of a Disney park. It’s a totally immersive environment. Everything you see, hear, smell and experience as a visitor has been conceptualized, orchestrated, choreographed, and executed flawlessly. Every aspect of the experience is decided in advance. And while it’s probably not possible to create a Disney-level experience in every selling situation, it’s a great idea to try to get as close to that as possible. We need to consider not just the type of buying experience our prospects will have, but the quality of that experience, the texture of it. Most salespeople focus on what a prospect will hear from them in their presentations, recommendations, sales pitch and close. But there’s far more to the experience than what they hear. At least there can be and there should be. What do they see from you? So ask yourself “What do they see” in terms of your peripheral materials? Your emails, texts, brochures, support materials, and samples? What do they feel? Physically, what do they feel with your product in their hands? But at a deeper level, what and how do they feel about their interaction with you? Do their interactions make them feel comfortable, confident, happy and secure? Very few salespeople think in terms of the feelings they want to generate in their prospects and clients. To the extent they think about it at all, they’re hoping those feelings are simply a side effect or byproduct of what they’re showing or telling their clients. If you want your sales experience to have some depth, it needs context. It also needs to create positive feelings that w

Some salespeople in our industry are very good at what they do, but they don’t get to do enough of it. They don’t get to sell as much as they could, because they’re afraid of coming across as pushy. And that fear can make them less confident, slow them down or even stop them dead in their tracks. I think we can all agree that no one likes a pushy salesperson. But if you’re really good at what you do, shouldn’t you do everything possible to convince worthy prospects to do business with you? You know there’s a big difference between being persistent and being pushy. Or between being helpful and being overbearing. Also between being confident and being cocky. For the most part, people like those who are confident, helpful and persistent. But they don’t like those who are cocky, overbearing and pushy. But if you look at it carefully, the negative traits we’re describing are essentially nothing more than extreme versions of the positive traits. Those who are too persistent come across as pushy. Those who try to be too helpful can come across as smarmy or overbearing, and those who appear too confident are often described as cocky. So Where Do You Draw the Line? It’s interesting to me that some of the best salespeople fail to get orders because they retreat for fear of being seen as pushy. So they back off. But instead of backing off just a bit, to a place of positive persistence, they back way off to a place of inconsistent follow up. They don’t want to be seen as overbearing, so they back off. Not to a place of helpfulness, but to a place of not un-helpfulness, but non-helpfulness. They’re essentially missing in action. And it’s hard to be helpful if you’re not around. They don’t want to be seen as cocky, so they back off on that, too. Not just to the point of confidence, which would be a great place to land, but to a place of timidity. Too afraid to have the conversations that need to be had in order to generate business. The irony here is that as a result, some very pushy, overbearing and cocky salespeople often end up getting orders, because those who are actually confident, helpful and persistent are too afraid to let their light shine. So they slip into the background. It’s almost like politeness carried to an extreme. Remember the two chipmunks from the old Warner Bros. cartoon. “After you,” “No, after you!” They’re so busy insisting the other one lead, that they don’t get anywhere. In our industry, this means not being in contact as often as we should. Not being present with ideas and recommendations at the right time, or simply failing to ask the client to make a decision and get us the artwork in time to be able to place the order. The late Zig Ziglar used to say, “Timid salespeople have skinny kids.” Find your balance Are you in front of your best prospects as often as you should be? Do you find yourself not promoting yourself as aggressively as you could? Are you losing business to salespeople who aren’t as professional, skilled or caring as you are? If so, it’s time to step up! Let the unskilled be timid, inconsistent and missing in action. Let the belligerent be cocky, overbearing and pushy. And be the person you were meant to be… a confident, helpful, persistent professional. Are you finally ready to grow your business? 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 grow your promo sales by hiring others, 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.

As a professional in our industry, you probably differentiate between your online and offline activities. You may further differentiate between your personal online activities and your business online activities. Or you may just find the whole thing a gigantic distraction. In any event, today I’d like to talk with you about why you may want to use social media to lead your prospects and clients off of social media. Today want to touch on something that I recently discussed with our Inner Circle and SmartEQP members. Your Social Media Persona Let’s think in terms of social media that’s designed to help our business. We can begin by thinking in terms of our online persona. This refers to what we’re communicating online. Meanwhile, our offline persona is about what’s happening in real life. For most people, there’s usually a bit of a disconnect between those two things. We don’t share everything that’s going on — though it seems some people do. Some people go onto social media to complain about things. They gripe about their lives, share every frustration and eventually just repel people. Am I being too candid? If you are using social media for business, I strongly encourage you not to engage in that approach. Staying Positive For the most part, in business, it’s usually a good idea to put our best foot forward. Keep things forward thinking and uplifting. Focus our comments and convey our personality as positively as possible. That’s not to say you can’t share the occasional frustration or “rant,” but when it gets to be too much, it can easily drive people away. Let’s face it, if you want to convert online leads into sales, people will have to like you. They’re going to have to want to interact with you, and much of that boils down to the way we communicate… how we put ourselves out there. When you start to think in terms of using social media to get people to interact with you offline, for business purposes, or to engage with you through your sales funnel, it should have a definite impact on what you’re doing in much of your communication. In some of my previous podcasts, I’ve talked about the direction of your communication. Where does it start out and where does it lead? What is the direction of your social media? In my view, the best use of social media is to encourage people to interact with you OFF of social media. That could start by directing them to your blog site, where they can opt-in to receive a special report or free video series. It could direct them to your company website where they can sign up for your newsletter or subscribe to your podcast. It could invite them to lunch, or to get together for a meet-up. So why do we want to use social media to lead your prospects off of social media? Well, aside from the obvious distraction, diversion, competition and sensory overload that are the hallmarks of social media, we all see, over and over again, how the rules, functionality and algorithms in social media change constantly, to reduce access and limit communication. It used to be that you could post something on social media and it would be shown to the people you’re connected with. Now we’ve reached a point where, if you put out a post, they may show it to your people… or they may not. In fact, if you don’t pay extra to boost your post, it might be just a tiny percentage of your connections who will be shown the message, which means even a tinier percentage can actually read it and respond to it. If we just post cat videos, it doesn’t matter too much. But if we put out a thoughtful, compelling message that we want our prospects and clients to see, then deliverability is important. While we can’t control what people will read or respond to after it’s been sent to them, we’re certainly better off if we can get them to a place where we can control the communication that we’re sending. Even the lowly email gives you far more control than social media, because when you send an email from a non-spammy address, you can be pretty sure it will actually go to the designated recipient. Which is something that is no longer even remotely guaranteed in social media. So how do you feel about the idea of using social media to lead your people off of social media? Do you love the idea? Do you hate it? I’d love your feedback on this topic. Just enter it in the comment box below. Are you finally ready to grow your business? 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

Some people in our industry spend so much time talking about selling, thinking about selling and worrying about selling, that they rarely find the time to actually sell! The best salespeople I know are essentially machines as they perform the most important and profitable tasks associated with selling. They focus, like a laser to identify new leads, quickly qualify them and convert the qualified leads into sales. And like a machine, they perform those tasks again and again: methodically, consistently and repetitiously. They just keep churning it out. Selling is not about reflection In fact, the most profitable and productive salespeople don’t waste time, think about past failures, worry about uncooperative prospects, complain about tough gatekeepers or put off sales calls. Instead, they just focus relentlessly on doing the job now. So they do it, and they do it, and they do it, and then they do it some more! Naturally, they evaluate what works and eliminate what doesn’t, but they don’t dwell on analysis. Instead, they dwell on action. They take action and get it done. Contrast that with the actions of average or below average salespeople. Many come to work, grab a cup of coffee, chit-chat for a while and wonder who they might talk to that day. Maybe they pick up the phone and “reach out,” “touch base,” or “check in” with a prospect or former client. Some don’t set a real objective for the call. They don’t identify “next steps” or define outcomes. Instead, they just chat or schmooze in the hope that maybe someone they touch base with that day will say, “hey, while I have you on the phone, do you mind if I place an order with you?” Of course, that never happens, but tomorrow is another day! If Your Sales Aren’t Where You Want Them to Be, Ask Yourself, “How Much of My Time Do I Spend Thinking About Selling and How Much Do I Focus on Actually Doing it? Do I Qualify, Meet and Interact With High-Probability Prospects and Clients? So if you’re not earning up to your potential, examine your daily actions. What percentage of your day do you think, plan and put out fires? And what percentage of your day do you identify client needs and sell solutions to people? Track your actions for just a day or two. You may be surprised at the results. How many people did you contact? What percentage did you qualify in? How many did you qualify out? Which ones had specific needs and how many people convinced you they had no needs at all. Imagine that. A human being with no needs at all. In the meantime, if you want to spend more time selling and less time spinning your wheels, call us at 1-800-494-2721. Are you finally ready to grow your business? 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 grow your promo sales by hiring others, 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.

Success requires self-discipline. Every day in our lives, there are things we must do. Sometimes we feel like doing those things and sometimes we don’t. But one thing is certain. If you rely on discipline alone — forcing yourself to do things you don’t want to do — you’re probably making things harder on yourself than you have to. Being in business for yourself is not for the faint of heart. Neither is sales. Neither is any career or human effort that carries with it the possibility of significant rewards or great success. If you’re functioning in a low risk, low reward environment, then high performance may not be required. But for most of us who want more, we need to perform. And sometimes that takes more time, focus and energy than we may feel like putting in. But, of course, we need to put it in anyway. One of my very favorite quotes of all time comes from Albert E.N. Grey who said, “The successful person has formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.” Wow. That is tough… and harsh! But it is also incredibly true. By their very nature, those who achieve success do things that those who fail never do. Too often, we tell ourselves that things can’t be done. There isn’t enough time, there aren’t enough resources, it’s just not possible. But here’s a hint, if others have done it, it’s possible. The question is not if, the question is how? When it comes to getting ourselves to do things that we don’t feel like doing — the things Grey refers to as the things failures don’t like to do — there are two primary approaches: The carrot and the stick: reward and punishment. The stick is self-discipline. It’s when we force ourselves to take the necessary actions, even when we don’t feel like it — when we’re tired, when we’re unmotivated, when we’d rather do something else. The stick is the force that drives us from behind, pushing us forward, even when we don’t feel like going. And while the stick gets results, it’s not the only tool we have available, and it’s never as effective as when it’s used in combination with the carrot. The carrot is the promise of future reward. It’s the goal for which we strive. It’s what lights the path for us and keeps us moving forward. When we lose sight of the goal — when it feels too far off or too elusive or too hard to reach — it becomes difficult to move forward, regardless of the power of the self-discipline stick. But the real power of any goal is usually not the goal itself, but rather in what accomplishing the goal will DO for us. How it will make so many things better going forward. For example, we want to achieve a level of education, not for the achievement itself, but for our ability to use that education to increase our value in the marketplace. We want to achieve a specific designation or milestone in business, not because of the milestone itself, but because of how that milestone will impact our earning potential going forward. We want to reach a particular financial goal, not for the sake of achieving it, but for what it will do to the quality of our lives once we have achieved it. So when the stick is not enough… when you’re struggling to push yourself forward, look farther ahead. Look not just to the goal, but past the goal to the better, brighter future the goal will help you achieve. Time goes by, whether we’re moving at full speed toward our goals, or whether we’re standing still, paralyzed with fear and inaction. So look ahead to your brighter future, the goals and experiences that make the work worthwhile. Picture that future often, and use your mental image of it to overcome inertia, reorganize your priorities and form the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. If you rely on self-discipline alone, you may disappoint yourself. But when you combine that self-discipline with a firm focus on what you really want — your desire for a brighter future — it becomes far easier to take the necessary actions. Are you finally ready to grow your business? 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 grow your promo sales by hiring others, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with t

Would you believe that some people thought from last week’s episode that I was saying not to cold call? However did you get that impression? 🙂 As expected, I got a lot of passionate feedback about last week’s episode. Some were passionate about how right I was, some were passionate about how wrong I was, and some questioned how I could even SUGGEST that people not cold call. Well here’s the thing… I did not say that you shouldn’t cold call. Yes, I said that cold calling has probably stopped many potential salespeople in their tracks and killed sales careers. I then further said that it’s not actually cold calling that killed those careers, but rather fear of cold calling. In other words, they were so scared they just quit. They couldn’t bear up under the pressure. Or refusal to take action. They were so scared of the idea of cold calling that they were genuinely paralyzed into inaction. I also mentioned that more likely it was the mistaken notion that there are no alternatives to cold calling. It’s like the desperation of a person who feels there’s no way out. You think I’m exaggerating? Then you haven’t talked to nearly as many salespeople as I have. In any event, I did NOT say you shouldn’t cold call. I said it’s not always necessary and I went on to say that beyond that, it’s NEVER actually necessary. Then I said it doesn’t often lead to a successful sales process. Guilty, Guilty, and Guilty. But that’s not the same thing as saying you shouldn’t do it. Now if you have listened closely to the last episode, you might also have heard me say that I don’t recommend that you cold call. I will concede that while it’s not the same, it is pretty close to saying don’t do it. But did I say don’t do it? No, I did not. Each form of first contact says something to your prospect about you. If I call you on the phone completely out of the blue, that says one thing. But if I meet you at an event because we’re members of the same networking group, it says another. And if I send you a high-quality self-promotion item through the mail, then give you a call to make sure you received it, that says something else. So if I’m not actually saying that you shouldn’t cold call, am I saying that you should? No. What I am saying is that cold calling is one method of First Contact, and it’s not always the best method. I still maintain that it’s often one of the worst from a positioning standpoint. However, some people are great at cold calling and have a lot of success with it. If you’re truly successful at cold calling, then you possess a very rare and very valuable skill. If that’s the case, I would not recommend you stop it. I would recommend you continue doing it. But I would also recommend you test it against other forms of first contact that will very likely work a whole lot better for you. Because if you’re able to do well with a really tough approach like cold calling, just imagine how much better you might do with a warmer approach! So here’s what I would encourage you to do if you cold call… If you are cold calling, track your results. Track how many cold calls you made and how many of those calls turned into sales within 3 months, 6 months and 1 year. Compare that with other forms of first contact you might have initiated. What’s the conversion percentage, for example — over the same period of time — for those you personally were referred to? Determine the conversion percentage of those you meet at networking functions. Identify the conversion percentage of those you meet via social media? Consistent follow up If you follow up consistently and effectively to every form of first contact you initiate and track your results, you will very likely find that you’ll close more people with approaches that did not begin with cold calling. Why? Same reason we discussed last week: positioning. You will simply be better positioned to succeed. But don’t take my word for it. Track your own results, for yourself. When you have the actual numbers, you’ll know exactly which approach works best for you. Maybe it’s cold calling. Perhaps it’s something else. Either way, the answer will no longer be just an opinion. It will be a scientific result. You will have identified the first contact approach that works best for you… until you find something better. In the meantime If you’re serious about getting new clients and if you want to do it far more effectively, why not test-drive my Top Secret of Customer Acquisition system risk-free in your business for one full year? Test out the approach, try on a few of our proven, bullet-pointed phone scripts. Don’t just read them, make them your own. See what it does to your response rates. Let me help you improve your results over the next full year. If it

Some people hate even the idea of cold calling. Other people swear by it. But generally, at least once a month, someone will either talk to me about the problems they’re having with their cold calling efforts, or ask me my thoughts on it. So today, here’s my two cents. Cold calling. Just saying the words makes the blood of some salespeople run cold. And there’s probably a lot of good reason for that. Cold calling has probably stopped more potential salespeople in their tracks and killed more sales careers than any other obstacle. But if I’m going to be accurate, I’d actually have to say it’s not cold calling that killed those careers. It was fear of cold calling, a refusal to take action or more likely, the mistaken idea that there are no alternatives. Of course, there are. But let’s back up for a moment. Many people think of cold calling as the necessary first step in a successful sales process. But it’s not any of those things. It’s not always necessary, it’s not the first step, and it doesn’t often lead to a successful sales process. Wow, am I going to get emails about that. But it’s true! Let’s review: First off, cold calling is not the first step. The first step is targeting: Deciding in advance who I’m going to approach. Obviously, it’s impossible to make a cold call until and unless we first decide — as the old Ghostbusters theme used to say — “who ya gonna call?” So targeting always comes first. Second, it’s not always necessary. In fact, I’ll take that a step further and suggest that it’s never actually necessary. I can hear it now, screams of “Sales blasphemy” echoing around the industry from all those who have never bothered to explore any of the alternatives to cold calling. But I’m on a roll, so let’s see who else I can offend today… Average performing sales managers are going to be grabbing their torches and pitchforks and getting ready to storm my castle when they hear this one… Third, cold calling doesn’t often lead to a successful sales process. “How can you possibly tell my salespeople that?” I don’t have to tell your salespeople that. The numbers will tell your salespeople that. Make 100 cold calls and see how many of them go on to become clients? Great clients. All of them? No. Most of them? Probably not. Some? If you’re lucky! Certainly, much of anyone’s success in cold calling starts with targeting. If you manage to target a lot of the right people and also, somehow manage to avoid alienating them with your cold calling approach, you will certainly get more people to buy from you than if you target the wrong people, in the wrong businesses and the wrong industries. Or if you don’t contact anyone at all. So yes, I will concede that cold calling is a better alternative than doing absolutely nothing. Even when you do targeting and cold calling right — even when you do it as well as it can be done, you’re still likely to have a lot more failure than success. And the primary reason for that is positioning. When you cold call someone, how does it position you with that person? Above them or below them? As a professional or as a nuisance? What does cold calling tell that person about you? You may think, it tells them: I’m a professional with a solution to offer. I care enough about them to reach out personally. I am committed to their success and I want to help them. All noble and lovely sentiments. But what else might it tell them? You’re a typical salesperson? You have nothing better to do? You’re stuck with too much time on your hands? You are totally fine with interrupting their day? You haven’t bothered to figure out a better approach? Look, I know that what I’m saying today is going to be hard to swallow, particularly if you’ve bought into the prevailing notion that cold calling is the best way, or perhaps the only way to initiate contact with prospects. But it’s not. In my training program, Top Secrets of Customer Acquisition, I walk my clients through a six step process for bringing new clients through the door like clockwork. Can cold calling be used in that approach? Yes it can. But I don’t recommend it… for many of the reasons I’ve just mentioned and for many more that I won’t get into now. So try this: instead of thinking in terms of cold calling, think in terms of “First Contact.” What is the first contact that my prospect is going to have with me? Will it be positive or negative? Fantastic or terrible? Memorable or totally forgettable? Will it be a cold call? Or will it be something much better? We’ll talk more about that in our next issue. In the meantime, if you’re serious about getting new clients and if you want to do it far more effectively and without cold calling, I

Can you really program clients to choose you? How many of the people in your market, who need the products and services you offer, can you pre-program to go directly to you, without considering any other options? Or perhaps more telling, let’s look at the flip side. How many people in your market can’t buy from you right now, because they don’t even know you’re alive? Just a few of them? Or a lot? You know, it’s not their job to find you, right? It’s your job to find them. And if you’re really good at what you do — better than your competition — then you owe it to the best prospects in your market to let them know you exist and you want to help… and to get them programmed to choose you first. Right now, people in your market are actively looking for the solutions you provide. Maybe they haven’t identified someone they plan to use. Perhaps they did identify someone, but they’re not happy with their current vendor. Or maybe they just need a fresh start, some new ideas, something better or different, or just another set of eyes to look at their situation more clearly and recommend better solutions for them. In any case, the people who need your solutions the most can’t get them from you, if they don’t know you exist. So first, you must make that happen. I refer to this as creating Entry-Level Awareness, and it’s the bare-bones minimum level of awareness you must create before someone can even consider buying from you. But, of course, just knowing you exist isn’t enough. After that happens, they need to know why they should choose you over every other option available to them. I call this Comfort-Level Awareness, and you need to achieve this next, because no one will spend even a red cent with you until they feel comfortable and confident enough in you to do so. Then, if you do a good job for them the first time, they might come back a second time. If you do a good job the second time, they might come back again. And if you continue to do a good job for them, you might eventually achieve Top of Mind Awareness with them. That’s the level of awareness at which they default to you, every single time they’re in need of the products and services you offer. You essentially get them programmed to the point where they don’t even consider other options. Don’t believe you can program clients? Well, just think about who has you programmed. Do you have a family doctor you’ve been seeing for years? A grocery store you buy from each month? Do you have a search engine you use consistently? What about all the purchases you make every single month on auto-pilot for utilities like oil, gas, electric, telephone and internet. Do you even think about these purchases anymore? Probably not. Because you’re already programmed. Now. Who have you programmed YOUR prospects buy from? You? Someone else? Or have you not yet programmed your prospects at all? Are you sensing any opportunity here? When you achieve Top-of-Mind awareness with the very best prospects for the products and services you offer, you dominate your market. And as we discussed in previous episodes, leaders always dominate, while followers are left fighting for the scraps. The bottom line is that you can’t program clients by accident. You can’t just cross your fingers and hope it will happen organically to your business instead of someone else’s. It won’t. So rather than just waiting and hoping that it will happen, why not go to topsecrets.com/call to schedule a call with us today and start making it happen? Tired of flat or declining sales and losing business to your competitors? Then go to topsecrets.com/call and book an appointment for a complimentary strategy session today. We set aside some time over the next few days to speak with you personally, and help you get crystal clear on three things: First, identifying exactly the market you want to dominate. Second, looking at where you are now vs. where you want to be in terms of visibility, sales and profits and Third, examining the next simple steps to make it happen. Remember, market domination is not about control. It’s about creating an environment in which the very best prospects for your products and services know who you are, and know what you do, so they can choose to do business with you instead of your competitors. If you’re happy with the status quo, this is definitely not for you, but if you’re serious about creating top of mind awareness and dominating your market, go to topsecrets.com/call and schedule your appointment today. That’s topsecrets.com/call. Are you finally ready to grow your business? 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 ground