Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

Success in sales is dependent upon intelligent repetition of contact, without being a pest. We need to be able to reach out to people lots of times, in lots of different ways and keep them engaged with us and very few salespeople have mastered this skill. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast! Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be talking about how to create intelligent repetition of contact with prospects and clients. Hi Chris. Chris: Hi David. Thanks for having me. I’m really, really excited to talk about this one because I think it’s so, so important. Repetition of contact, you know, it seems that any sales position requires this. What is it that gives you the sense that salespeople aren’t doing this or maybe just as importantly, aren’t doing it well? David: Couple of things, if you’ve ever heard a salesperson say, “I don’t want to be a pest,” that to me is a screaming red flag, right? Because what that generally means is they’re not following up with people enough. They’re not being in touch enough because they don’t want to create waves. They don’t want to bother the person or whatever. And to me that’s a function of not being very clear about your outcome for the conversation because your goal is not simply to follow up with people and get on the phone and nag them until they’re ready to buy. If you are doing that, then yes, that’s being a pest, but don’t do that. You know? Think in terms of what you actually want to accomplish, have reasons and excuses for contacting people so that when you are reaching out, you’re actually providing value in the conversation, in the communication. If you do that, you’ll be advancing the dialogue. You’ll be helping your prospects and you will not come across as a pest. Chris: And I imagine that the other thing is that if a sales guy says, “I don’t want to be a pest,” especially to a potential client, they already feel like they are one. David: Well, yeah, because you’re planting that thought in their mind, the fact that you’re thinking it and then let alone vocalizing. Even if you don’t say it, if you’re thinking, “Oh, I’m afraid I’m going to be a pest,” it’s going to come through in your voice and you’re not going to sound as confident as you need to sound and it’s not going to be helpful. If you actually say it out loud, “Hey listen, I don’t want to be a pest.” Then immediately their thought is you just said you don’t want to be a pest. I now have to process the word pest in my brain and then draw a line through it because you’re saying you don’t want to be that. And maybe just by saying it, you’re being a pest. So, I think it could be a self-esteem thing, but if you can just sort of get over this idea that you’re being a pest. Part of it though, and I always believe that confidence is tied to competence. If we’re good at what we do, we’re going to feel a lot more confident doing it. And so if you’re not quite sure what to do, what to say, who to approach, how to approach them, then yeah, you’re going to feel like that. And you might feel like you’re being a pest, so if you’re feeling that way before you go into the call, ask yourself, “Okay, what can I do to add value in this communication so that what I’m saying to them is helpful to them.” because then that way I can be reasonably assured that I’m not being a pest. Schedule a Strategy Session Click Here Chris: Isn't a big piece of that in terms of adding value in a conversation about really being focused on your prospective client as opposed to focused on selling the product? David: Absolutely. Focused on their results. What is it that they want to accomplish? What do they need to have happen as a result of making this purchase? Just focusing on their goals, their desires, their outcomes, and when you're focused on them it becomes a lot easier. I remember one of the first live training presentations I did, it was in Las Vegas and it was a really long session. It was actually a full day training. Essentially it went from 9:00 AM until 5:00 PM with breaks about every couple of hours. And I was young and stupid, so I was just so fired up that I didn't really care. And so I went in and I did that, you know, I did the presentation and it went very well and I was very happy with it. And someone came up to me afterwards and said, “Wow, weren't you nervous when you were doing that?” And my immediate response was that I really wasn't. And the reason I wasn't nervous is because I wasn't thinking about it from my standpoint. I wasn't thinking, “Oh, I have to get up and talk to these people.” I was so excited to share what I had to tell them that it was all about them and I could get up there and be excited about it and not feel nervous because I knew th

Many businesses spend a ton of money recruiting salespeople, but then ignoring the ones they have. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast, today co-host Chris Templeton and I are here to talk about the terrible practice of spending lots of money to recruit new salespeople and then spending little to nothing to help the very people that they’ve recruited. Welcome Chris! Chris: Thank you, David. Well, what are you so worked up about on this one? David: What am I worked up about? I guess I’m worked up because I’ve been doing sales training and marketing training for much of my adult life. Nearly all of my adult life has been involved in sales and marketing in one capacity or another, and when I see this practice, it just sort of drives me crazy because it feels like people are saying they don’t care about their salespeople or they certainly don’t care enough, but what they’re saying is, “Hey, glad to have you aboard, now I’m going to go find somebody else!” Right? It’s about piling up and stacking up salespeople with the idea that it’s sort of a revolving door and some people will spin out and some people spin in and the good ones might or might not stay. And I just think it’s such a short-sighted practice. And as I mentioned in a previous podcast, I’ve done a lot of work in the promotional products industry where this practice is rampant. There are ads everywhere trying to recruit other people’s salespeople. So the whole goal is that I want to try to get people at other companies to come work for me, right? And other people at those companies are trying to get my people to work for them. So there’s this whole thing going on where it’s this big sales person swap and they’re so focused on creating this vortex of salespeople moving from organization to organization to organization that they forget that once they’ve recruited these people, if they were to simply help them a bit; simply train them on what’s going to work well and what’s not going to work as well, that they can be more successful. Their business could be more successful, their sales people can be more successful. It’s more success all the way around and I just think this is ignored or avoided entirely too much. Chris: I one hundred percent agree with you. Talk about what you can do to help a manager to change from being, “Let’s see what sticks on the wall” to really taking care and helping their salespeople to become better at what they’re doing. What is required in a sales manager’s mindset to make that transition David? David: Well, part of it is the salesperson or the sales manager rather, and part of it is the ownership. If the ownership is not willing to put any sort of funds behind it, then it’s just not going to happen. But if a sales manager can just think in terms of, “What can I do to help and nurture this salesperson so that this person can get in front of the right people, be more likely to be saying the right things, be putting the best foot of the business forward?” That’s the thing that drives me crazy, is the idea that a business would spend tons of money to recruit someone in and then just turn them loose and say “Go ahead, knock yourself out.” In the promotions industry in particular, a lot of times these people are independent contractors and so management will very often use that as an excuse. They’ll say, “Well they’re independent contractors so we can’t force them to do anything.” Which is true, but you can offer it – and the ones who are likely to take you up on the offer are the ones who are going to be the ones you want to keep. Cause the ones that don’t want to do it anyway; they don’t want to learn anything new, they don’t want to grow. They’re not going to be as valuable. So simply by offering salespeople the option of learning things that would help them to increase their sales and improve their profit margins, they’re going to be a lot better off. Schedule a Strategy Session Click Here Chris: And think about, we're talking sales and marketing here. Think about how important it is that message that you're giving to the salesperson that you care about them beyond recruiting. David: Yeah. Well, I think a lot of times it doesn't even occur to them. You know the business owners are so focused on just bringing new people in that it doesn't even occur to them that they should be treating the people they have better. As a sales principle, we all know that it is far easier to resell an existing client than it is to go out and find a new client. But in this particular case, I think some business owners and some managers lose sight of the fact that the assets they have, the people that they have who have said, "I'm going to dedicate my time, my day, my life to your business." deserve some level of respect and some

Some people say that education is never wasted. I completely disagree. My feeling is that unapplied education may be the biggest waste of all. That’s why the LAIR Method, our 4 step success cycle is so powerful David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be talking about education, specifically education designed to help businesses sell better and how that education is always wasted unless it’s being applied. Welcome Chris! Chris: Hi David. This is a fascinating point and it’s interesting that you would take a well-known phrase like education has never wasted and completely turn it on its head. Are you just trying to be provocative? David: No, not at all. I think the reason that I’m saying it is because I really believe it. Every time I heard that expression, even as a child, I always questioned it. I’m like, what do you mean education is never wasted? It seems to me that if you learn something that you never ever use, then that’s kind of a waste. I think it’s part of the reason why as a child there were some classes that I just couldn’t get into because I felt like I was never going to use this information. Now, I’m not suggesting that people use that as an excuse not to learn stuff. On the contrary, what I’m saying is that if you’re learning something, particularly something that’s designed to help you to sell better or improve your business or improve your life, then definitely learn it to the best of your ability, but make sure that you implement it as well. Chris: It’s a great, great point. If we’re not applying it, there’s just not a whole lot of point in it is there? David: None that I can see. Chris: So rather than learning what to do, a lot of salespeople simply wing it. What’s the likelihood of that working? I mean, that will work won’t it? David: Well it might, but it’s pretty much slim to none. Out of a hundred salespeople who wing it. There might be a small percentage who may do great with it. It’s entirely possible, but the people who actually are taught: what to do, how to do it, who to approach, how to approach them, what to say, how to say it – have a much better likelihood of success because they’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. And that’s where, particularly in a career like sales, if you don’t take the time to learn how to do it right, you’re going to spend many months or years figuring it out and essentially blowing it on high quality prospects. If you’re in front of a good quality prospect and you don’t know what to say and you’re just winging it and saying the wrong things, then you can spend a long time getting it wrong. Not selling a lot of stuff, giving your company a black eye and really not valuing the time of the person you’re interacting with. Chris: Well, it’s interesting that you say that because almost the underlying assumption is that I’m a sales guy and I ought to be doing this on my own; and I’ll betcha you think that managers probably should be doing more to help their salespeople be better sales people? David: Well, I think it’s certainly helpful if you are a sales manager and you have the salespeople under you, then yes, certainly helping the salespeople you have should be a critical and important part of your job. And a lot of sales managers are good at what they do and they really help their sales people to grow. There are some who sell as well and sometimes there’s a bit of a competition there and they always want to sort of show how they’re better than the people they work with. That sort of dynamic is rarely good in sales, but when you get a sales manager who really understands that his or her job is to help the people that they’re working with to become better at it and to establish rapport with more high quality prospects and to close those sales effectively. And when that person does everything they can to impart that knowledge on the salespeople, then everybody wins. The company wins, the sales manager wins because they look good to the boss, the sales person wins, and it’s just all around a far better approach. Chris: So what is it that you’ve seen that’s made it clear for you that sales managers need to be doing more? Schedule a Strategy Session Click Here David: Well, I do a lot of work in the print and promotional products industry. In fact, the topic of our next podcast is very closely related to this. We're going to be talking about recruiting new salespeople instead of training the ones you have. And that's something that I've seen a lot, particularly in the promotional products industry where a lot of the focus is on bringing in new salespeople as opposed to helping or training the ones that they have. And again, we're going to be talking about that next time so we don't want to get too deeply into it

In sports, MVP stands for most valuable player. In The MVPs of Marketing & Sales™, the letters MVP stand for Message, Vehicles and People. These three components are arguably the most valuable things you can focus on if you want to communicate effectively and dominate your market. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today co-host Chris Templeton and I are here to discuss The MVPs of Marketing & Sales™. Welcome Chris. Chris: David, thank you. Great to be here. You know, for years you’ve been talking about the MVPs of sales, but for those who don’t have the benefit of really understanding what you mean by that, help them to understand what the term MVPs of sales means. The Most Valuable Players of Marketing & Sales David: Okay. When we think in terms of The MVPs of Marketing and Sales™, it’s just like the most valuable players in sports. But when it comes to marketing and sales, it stands for something different. In marketing and sales, MVP stands for Message, Vehicles, and People. So essentially what we’re asking is what is the marketing (M)essage that I want to convey? That’s the M part of it. Which combination of marketing (V)ehicles am I going to use to communicate the message? And then who are the (P)eople or prospects that I want to reach? When you get these three things right, your promotion is almost inevitably successful. And if you get just one of them wrong, it’s inevitably not successful. Chris: It’s like a three-legged stool. David: Exactly. The MVPs of Marketing & Sales: 1.) Message What Message do you want to convey? Chris: And so, the first leg of that stool is messaging. I think a lot of people don’t have a clear understanding of the value of messaging, what it means and how to be consistent about it. David: Yeah, most business people communicate a lot, right? We’re communicating all the time. We’re interacting with people, we’re having conversations. But very often what we’re saying is not strategic. We’re not necessarily thinking about it in advance. Maybe we don’t think in terms of it as messaging. We just think of it in terms of communication. But the idea of the messaging is to think in advance. What do I want to happen as a result of this interaction, this conversation? Whether it’s a discussion with someone, or a sales call, whether it’s an email, social media post, whatever it is. What is the goal of the communication? What do I want to happen as a result of having this communication? Let’s say it’s early stages and I’m just meeting someone for the first time. If I want to get them comfortable with me, obviously the messaging is going to be different than if it’s somebody that I’ve been talking to for a while. Same thing if we’ve been talking about putting something together and we’re trying to get a sale closed. Communication is different, but it’s always strategic. We should always have some sort of goal in mind when we initiate that message. Wanting More Sales Chris: I think a lot of people have a tendency to say, oh, I just want the sale. And I imagine a big piece of what you’re talking about with your clients is, wait, what are the steps? So talk a little bit about that in terms of messaging and, and the results you’re looking for. David: Okay. Well, most salespeople, if they are thinking, “I just want the sale,” and that’s true, they’re probably going to want the sale. That’s perfectly natural. But it’s very unlikely that you’re going to make the sale in that first conversation unless you’re selling something very inexpensive. Something that’s very easy for someone to make a decision about. But the reality is that in the early stages, first of all, they have to get to know us. So a lot of our communication, a lot of our messaging is simply about letting them know who we are, making them aware that we exist. We talked about this in a previous podcast. So the early stage messaging is about that. Getting them comfortable with us, confident enough with us that they will place that first-time order. Throughout those conversations, assuming it takes more than one, which it often will… The closer we get to actually making that sale, the more focused the conversations become. In other words, the middle conversations might be about specific products that they’re looking for and providing pricing and that sort of thing. And those conversations will be happening a lot closer to the sale. Whereas earlier in the conversation it’s about getting them comfortable. Schedule a Strategy Session Click Here Chris: Talk about the importance of comfort because I think a lot of people think, well, you know, here I am, I've got this product and I just want to tell you about it. And then you can buy it and comfort and I think trust is another word that kind of fi

In the past you’ve said that market leaders think, act and communicate differently than the rest of the population. What do you mean by that? And how can people start thinking, acting and communicating like a leader? David: Hi and welcome to the podcast today co host Chris Templeton and I will be talking about communication, how market leaders do it compared to the rest of the population. Welcome Chris. Chris: Hey David, thank you very much for having me back. I sure am enjoying these conversations. I’m super excited about this one because leadership is something that is so important, so missing in business, and when you say that leaders think and they act and they communicate differently than the rest of the population, talk about what that means from your standpoint. Need Help with This? Schedule a Call David: Okay, well first of all, when I talk about leaders, I don't necessarily mean presidents of organizations or chairmen of boards, things like that. When I talk about leaders, I simply mean people who other people look at as someone that they want to pay attention to and people who lead tend to communicate differently. They tend to be more focused. They tend to be more authoritative in a lot of cases, generating good ideas, engaging people, all that sort of thing. And most people don't really think about it, they don't focus on it. And as a result they end up meandering around and just having sort of boring conversations and hopefully every now and then they'll hit on something that moves people. Chris: So how do you make that change when you switch to really becoming a leader? What do you think are some of the more important characteristics around that? David: Well, in terms of communication, I think it really begins with the idea of wanting to, once again, as we talked about previously, help other people and how can I get to that as quickly as possible? You know, a lot of people today talk about content like this podcast is content. A blog post is content. A social media post is content. It's all content. And what some people do is they just go out there with a whole lot of words and hope that occasionally some of their words will connect up in a way that means something to someone. And I find that rather inconsiderate of the listener. One of the reasons that I've hesitated in the past to have the kinds of conversations that we're having now is that I wanted to make sure that it stayed focused, that it stayed on track so that people are able to get something from it. Chris: Right. David: And if we started wandering off on crazy tangents, then it loses its value. And so I think that from a leadership standpoint, it means really thinking in terms of what is going to help the other person, what's going to help this prospect? What's going to help this client? What's going to help this person that I would like to be able to establish some sort of business relationship with? And if my communication can then reflect that, then it's going to be better all the way around. I'm sure you're familiar with the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Chris: Dale Carnegie. David: Yeah! So, the basic concept of that book is that if you talk to other people about themselves, they'll think you're the most interesting person in the world. And what I think leaders do and salespeople who are leaders certainly do this, is that they make it about the other person. They make it about the prospect, they make it about the client, and then figuring out based on what that person needs, how they can help. Chris: And I think there are a couple of things that really help to push that along in the nicest of all ways. You and I have in the last two podcasts have talked about fit quite a bit and one of the things that I think is the nicest approach is to say, you know, I'd love to sit down with you and see if there is a good fit between us. And then I think the second thing that you can add to that is I'd love to be a great resource for you, but if it's not a good fit, let me see if I can't help to get you pointed in the right direction. You know, really what we're talking about in a lot of ways in regards to being a good leader is getting people to relax with you and to feel like they're not being threatened. And their guard doesn't have to be up that we're just trying to sell them something. Right? David: Right, and the idea of saying to someone, I'd like to sit down with you. I think that many salespeople should be, in some ways hesitant to have that conversation. I think many salespeople are too quick to jump at the idea of sitting down with someone else before they even know if they can possibly help them. Chris: Right. David: That's why I believe the idea of qualification, you know, intelligent, thoughtful qualification should always precede the appointment. And I've had discussions with salespeople about this who have argued with me about it. They're like, well, no, you've got to go for the appointment. I'm l

You talk a lot about market domination, is that just for effect or are you serious about it? David: Hi and welcome to the podcast today. I am joined once again by my co host, Chris Templeton, who is here to challenge me on the idea of market domination. Welcome Chris. Chris: Hey David, thank you very much for letting me be your interrogator for this podcast! David: Work me over, man. Work me over. Chris: Domination. You know there is a lot of talk about domination and I don’t think from a business standpoint we really understand what it is. So, is it a serious word? Are you serious about this, David? David: Well, I’m serious about it to the extent that I believe that in every market there are leaders and followers, someone is leading the parade, and someone is following. If you’re leading, then you’re dominating. Essentially, you’re going to be a recognized force in the market. And if you’re not dominating the market, then what that means is there’s business that you are absolutely losing out on. So for example, if I’m in the market for any kind of item, pick an item, pick an industry. Chris: New speakers for my computer. David: Okay. I’m in the market for a new computer speakers, so if I think of new computer speakers, what are some places that might immediately leap to mind? I mean it could be whatever… Office Max. Chris: Amazon? David: Yeah, it could be Amazon. Yeah, of course. Amazon, right? It could be Staples. It could be any place that sells speakers, but there are names that immediately leap to mind, right? You said Amazon right away. I deliberately skipped them because they’re such a great, obvious example, but in other words, you hear something, and something leaps to mind. The people who leap to mind are the ones who have that top of mind awareness, which results in market domination. David: If I think I need computer speakers and I immediately think of Staples or Best Buy or whatever, and I get in my car and I go there, then if you sell computer speakers, you’re never even going to have a chance at that business. Right? Because I didn’t even think of you. So, market domination means that you’ll at least leap to mind. We named three or four different places that leaped to mind for us. Now. One of them would get the business, the others wouldn’t. But those that didn’t even leap to mind, they don’t have a chance. Because otherwise what I would have to do is do a Google search or try to figure out where I wanted to go. Ask a friend, “Hey, where did you get your computer speakers?” And then I’d have to take action to try to find another place. So, without that level of awareness, it’s impossible to dominate markets. This is particularly true for those who sell B2B. So I am very serious about the idea of domination, but I also recognize that not everyone’s going to be able to dominate at the level of an Amazon where people think of anything and they say, okay, I’m going to go to Amazon to get it. Or I can go to Amazon to get it. But the advantage here, and I think a really important distinction is the fact that just because someone dominates any market, whether it’s Amazon trying to dominate anything, it doesn’t really matter because there are people who will say, Oh, I need computer speakers. I’m going to go to Amazon. And there are other people who are going to say, I need computer speakers, but I’m sure not buying them from Amazon. Right? So, but they know about it. So, they have the opportunity to buy from there. And most businesses in most markets, no matter what they do, whether it’s lawyers or doctors or salespeople of any kind, most people don’t have that sort of recognition. And so, what happens is they don’t even know about the business that they’re missing. What I’m talking about is creating a level of awareness in the marketplace so that when people think of the product or service you offer, you will potentially leap to mind so that they can at least consider you for the purchase. Hopefully that makes sense. Chris: A really, really important point because I can tell you there are listeners that are saying, well, there’s no way I can have the level of awareness of an Amazon, and what I want the audience to understand is that’s not the level of awareness that you need for your market, in all likelihood. Unless you’re selling computer speakers, which I would then recommend that you consider a different business. But let’s talk about two things. Number one, how do you define a market? David: Okay, well, one of the things that we do in the Total Market Domination course is we really identify exactly what is the market that the person wants to dominate, right? Is it a particular geographic market? Is it a particular vertical market or niche? Who is it that they would like to dominate? In other w

Many businesses can start out and plod along for years without making any serious inroads in their marketing. But those who want to grow more quickly, need to take a different approach. For years, I’ve been training my clients on a strategy I’d like to share with you today. It’s about moving from stealth mode to intimidation mode. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton and I will be talking about moving from stealth mode to intimidation mode. Welcome Chris. Chris: Hi David. You know, this sounds like two drastically different things. So what do you mean by stealth mode? And what do you mean by intimidation mode? David: I hope this topic isn’t too intimidating for people, Chris. Chris: I’m intimidated, but in a good way, David. David: OK, good. One of the things that I’ve noticed that most of my businesses had in common, is that when I started them, I was essentially operating in stealth mode. It was very quiet. It was very low key. It was a lot of planning. Trying to decide, who are we going to go after? Who are we going to target? How are we going to approach them? What are we going to say? How are we going to say it? So all of that stuff is happening behind the scenes. So that’s what I refer to as stealth mode. Stealth mode is when people are not even really aware that you’re there, the market, doesn’t know yet, prospects and clients don’t know yet. In stealth mode, you’re still figuring it out. Now in the early stages of stealth mode, you’re reaching out, sort of behind the scenes. You’re getting to people in the market who could potentially buy from you, and you’re communicating with them. You’re getting them qualified, as we talked about in previous episodes. You’re finding out who’s ready to buy now? Who has specific dates in mind? Who’s generally receptive? Who’s disqualified? Who’s unresponsive? You can do that very quietly. And your competitors don’t even really know, necessarily, that you’re there. And in several businesses that I had, I was able to operate in a market, very quietly, for a very long time before people actually had an idea (particularly competitors) had an idea that I was there. And the way that they found out that I was there is that they would approach a prospect or client. and that person would say, “no, I’m doing business with this company.” And they were like, “Hmm, that’s weird. I’ve never heard of it.” Chris: Who? What? Who? David: Yeah, exactly. And then there get to be more and more people who are aware. And then eventually what happens is you switch to intimidation mode. And when I say that, I’m not trying to be obnoxious here. And the goal isn’t actually to intimidate people in a harmful sense of the word. It’s to create an environment in the market where your competitors are going to be looking at you and going, “wow, it’s going to be hard to compete with that. I don’t even know how to compete with that.” That’s what tends to intimidate competitors is when they just have absolutely no idea how they can compete with what you’re doing. And so moving from stealth mode to intimidation mode is about finding out, in stealth mode, all the things that work, which aspects of the market you want to approach, fine tuning, honing the right things to say so that you can bring prospects and clients through the door like clockwork. Once you’ve got that nailed down, then you can start promoting aggressively, and you can bring more clients in. And other people look at that, and they’re like, “I don’t know how this person is doing it.” That’s essentially the nutshell version. Chris: And you know, the thing that just occurs to me is, the word that keeps coming into my head is listening. All right? Like I have, in stealth mode, I have done a whole lot of hopefully active listening with prospects and clients to be able to get to that place where at some point my competition is intimidated by the way that I’m doing things. And I can’t imagine that there’s really any other way than solid listening, and as a friend of mine used to say, monitoring and adjusting. David: Yeah, exactly. In the early stages, you have to do that. Because if you don’t, if you’re not paying attention to what the market wants, you have absolutely no way to deliver it to them. Chris: Yeah, exactly. What do you think the biggest advantages are to operating in stealth mode, David? David: Well, the fact that nobody even really knows that you’re there. They don’t know what you’re doing. They don’t know how you’re doing it. I mean, obviously, I have a brand called Top Secrets. So this is something that I like. I mean, I like the idea of being able to operate in a sales environm

A lot of sales training focuses on the idea of maintaining control of the sales process: Directing attention, leading the conversation, deferring questions about price until the end. Essentially it’s about getting clients to go along with your agenda rather than following their own. Is that realistic? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton and I will be talking about the idea of maintaining control of the sales process. Welcome back, Chris. Chris: Hi David. I can’t think of a single sales person who wouldn’t want to completely control every sales situation. Is it at all realistic to think that we could do that? David: No, not at all. Chris: Okay. Good podcasts. David: Yeah. Chris: Moving on. David: Great chatting with you. No, it’s not realistic to think that you can completely control every sales situation. Should we try to maintain control of each selling situation? Absolutely, we should. And can we do better if we do provide some sort of structure? Yes. So I think it’s realistic to recognize that if we don’t at least try to provide a structure, a framework, something that will allow people to get from the beginning of the sales process to the end, that they probably won’t end up buying something. And a lot of time and effort and energy and thought has been put into the idea of what happens when a client follows a sales person’s agenda, versus what happens when a salesperson follows a potential client’s agenda. Because if somebody walks into a selling situation with the idea of, “I don’t want to spend any money” and they’re taking control of the situation, then the salesperson is ultimately buying that idea. And so many times over the years, you’ve probably heard the adage that somebody is always buying something. Either the salesperson is selling the person on the idea of the thing they’re selling, or the potential buyer is selling the salesperson on why they’re not buying. And somebody has to accept that. But there’s always a sale being made. If you’re going to be the salesperson, if you’re going to be the person who is leading the conversation, then yeah, you definitely want to be able to increase the likelihood of having a successful outcome. Chris: So what are some of the components that are involved in discussions that help you to retain more control of the sales process? David: Well, a lot of it depends upon the people that you’re interacting with. So I’m not going to pretend that there’s some sort of magic formula that you can follow and have it work. Early on in my sales career, I took various sales trainings, and many of them talked about different structures that you want to have in place. And you want to start with step one and then move to step two and then move to step three. And you want to make sure that when you complete step one, you close the door on that. You’re not going back and now you’re going to step two. And as you listen to that sort of thing, you go, “wow, that sounds amazing.” But then what you find out is that in practice, you cannot control that, right? You could think that you had the pricing stuff all nailed down, that you put a nice bow on it and you moved on and now you’re onto the next thing. But the fact of the matter is that if the prospect then says, “okay, but I’m not sure about this,” you’re going backwards, right? Chris: Yeah. David: It’s not like you can completely control that. So I’m not a big fan of creating rules in selling that are completely unenforceable. I don’t like the idea of saying this is what has to happen when it’s out of your control. So I look at, okay, what are the aspects of the sales process that are within our control? And the things that are within our control are the things that we say, the things that we do, the order in which we say and do those things, the way that we handle questions and comments and objections, and those are the things that we can control. We cannot control how someone is going to respond to that. So I think the more we focus on the aspects of the presentation that we can control, how we would like things to go, how we’re going to structure our part of the presentation, and then recognizing that while we can get off track, somebody can certainly get us off track, as long as we know where we’re headed, so that we can get back to where we were and continue where we left off, we’ll have a much better likelihood of being able to have a favorable outcome. Chris: You know, one of the things that occurs to me is that throughout the sales process, if you feel like you’re not in a place where you’re controlling that, a lot of times, I think there’s a lot of resistance in the conversation between the salesperson and the prospect. And I encourage anybody that

It would be great if we were able to close every prospect we ever targeted, but that’s just ridiculously unrealistic. So how many prospects should we have in our pipeline? And how many do you have in there right now? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton, and I will be talking about the prospects in your pipeline. Should you have more? Could you have less? Welcome Chris. Chris: Hi David. You know, many business owners and sales people think in terms of growing their customer base. But the number of prospects in their pipeline is a key element of that, isn’t it? David: Yes, absolutely. And it’s very often overlooked. It’s one of these things like we were talking about in the previous podcast, things that people know — business owners know, salespeople know — but we don’t always practice. The idea that we have to have a nice solid sales pipeline. You have to put enough in the front of the pipe, so you can have some coming out the back of the pipe? Or some people use the analogy of a funnel. If you don’t have enough going into the top of the funnel, you’re not going to have anything coming out the bottom. So yes, having a really solid pipeline is absolutely key. If you think of like an oil pipeline or something like that, if you have great gaps in the pipeline, if you just have great pockets of air, that is not going to accomplish the goal. And it’s the same thing with customers with prospects. If you’ve got a nice, solid pipeline of customers in place or prospects in place, then the likelihood that some of them are going to close is pretty great. And you will very likely have the type of customer base that you can grow and the type of business that you can actually live in. But if you’ve got tremendous gaps in between your prospects in your pipeline, then the likelihood of success is greatly diminished. Before we started this podcast, we were talking about this topic, how many people do you have in your pipeline? And I responded with “both of them.” You know, and for some people, that’s where they are. They might have a few people, they have a handful of people in their pipeline. And they’re just crazy about the idea of when is one of these people going to close? And they fail to take into consideration that if you had twice as many people in the pipeline, then your closing ratio could be cut in half and you’d still make a sale. Chris: And the other thing is the whole time, if I’ve got a full pipeline, if I’ve got 20 or 30 potential people that I’m working on over time, or a hundred, whatever the case may be, depending. David: Or a thousand, yeah. Chris: Depending on where I am in that, I love the funnel analogy. At the top, it’s probably somebody who may be receptive at some point, or is even a lead that you haven’t talked to. But having that pipeline loaded with potential clients, I think is one of the greatest ways to reduce stress in your business. Especially if you’re a sales person. Would you agree with that? David: Yeah. It reduces stress and it increases the likelihood of success. And it positions you to be able to generate the sales that you want to generate. You know, one of the things I’ve always struggled with, with the idea of either a pipeline or a funnel is that if you have a pipeline, if you have a funnel, you put something one end, it all comes out the other end. In a sales funnel or a pipeline it doesn’t really work that way. Some of them are not going to make it all the way through. So it’s like these things have these various escape valves going off in one direction or other, and the ones who aren’t going to make it get siphoned off. But the ultimate visual, I guess, is that you put a bunch of them into the top and the ones that actually make it through the bottom of the ones that become your custom. Chris: Yeah. And it’s almost a filtering process. You know, how rock is graded. You know, you get the big ones out first and then the ones in the middle, and the big ones are the ones that aren’t qualified or just don’t have any interest. And as you get a little finer, finer, finer, that you’re getting people that are ready to buy now on the other end. And I think that’s one of the things that’s really important to think about in terms of a pipeline is that we are filling it with enough. So that what filters out at the bottom really is the exact kind of clients that we want. And hopefully that filtering process is also getting out the kind of clients that we don’t want. So when you look at this, David, what do you think the number of prospects a sales person should have in their pipeline? David: Yeah, it’d be great if there were just one number… Seventeen, Chris. Chris: Forty two. David: Yeah. Right. The answer to life, the universe… Chris: And

Everyone knows it’s generally easier selling more to your existing clients than it is to sell to new customers. Still, many salespeople and business owners focus a lot of attention on getting new clients. But what are some of the best ways to earn more from your existing customer list? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton, and I will discuss earning more from your existing customer base. Hi Chris. Chris: Hi David. You know, it does seem like many people focus a lot more on attracting new business than to selling to their existing customers. Why do you think that’s the case, David? David: Good question. I think a lot of it may have to do with just the idea of new customers. It’s a lot more fun, a lot more sexy. People tend to gravitate toward that. Where the idea of selling to existing customers may seem a little bland compared to that. It could be some of that. It could be old habits dying hard. If you had a sales manager that you reported to, very often, you would be flogged for not bringing new customers through the door. So it could have something to do with that. The focus of the sales management or ownership, if the goal was to bring new people through. But I think a lot of it is just the idea that once we’ve conquered a particular account, once we’ve gotten that order, the tendency is to move on to the next one is to find the next customer, the next customer, the next order and that sort of thing. And sometimes we forget that it’s been a while since we’ve gotten that order from the previous customer, and maybe it’s just time to go back. Chris: It just seems to me like a major disconnect that selling to existing customers is something that just doesn’t get near the attention that it should. And we all know, we all know that it’s the easiest sale. The most rewarding sale is the repeat sale, isn’t it? David: Yeah. And everybody can quote that. Everybody knows it, intellectually. We all know it. Probably anyone who’s been in sales for any length of time knows that every business owner probably knows it. And yet it’s just not practiced. Chris: When you think about it, how costly do you think it is for people who fail to maximize that value of their customer base? David: I think it’s extremely costly. If you’re not doing it, there’s no question that you’re missing out on revenue that you could otherwise have. In fact, one of the things that I focus on with my clients, whenever I take on a new client, if we’re working one-on-one, or even if we’re working in a small group, one of the first things that we’ll do is to address that. Because if you want to grow your sales and profits, the way that I look at it is your existing customer base is going to account for some sort of percentage of that. So very often what I’ll do is I’ll say, okay, let’s say I’m talking to somebody and they’re doing half a million in sales and they want to get it to three quarters of a million in sales. One of the first questions that I’ll ask them is what do you think you’ll do with your existing customer base over the course of the next year? In other words, if you did half a million dollars with them last year, what’s it going to be this year? Is it going to be 550? Is it going to be 450? Is it going to be 250? Right? Are a lot of them going to have gone away? What’s that going to be? And a lot of times it’s just spit-balling. You’re just sort of trying to figure out roughly what might be. But very often people will have a good idea of that. So they’ll say, okay, well I did half a million with them last year. Maybe I’ll do 525 or maybe I’ll do 550 with them, depending on a couple of different things. And then I’ll say, okay, well, if you really decided to focus on trying to get the most from them, what’s the most you think you could get? And in some cases they’ll go to, you know, 575 or 600 or 650. And that tells you, right there, that a lot of times we know that there are dollars that could be had, and we’re just not going after them. But then after that, once we’ve identified that we say, okay, so if you think you can get to 550 or 600 with your existing customer base, and your goal is to get to 750, now we’re going to supplement the rest with new customers. So it makes sense to do that, but it really makes sense to start with identifying how much your existing and your previous customers could be worth to you over the course of the next year. Chris: When you look at this and see this as such a common issue, I mean, my sense from what you just said is that most of your business owners who talk about this, it’s something that just doesn’t get first play in terms of my planning. What do you think is a better way to monetize existing clients? David: Well,

Most value-based businesses hate the idea of price-cutters — those who go into a market, offering a low price (often for an inferior product,) while pretending it’s all the same. But price-cutters have always existed and there’s always been a market for them. So what place do price-cutters really fill in the current economy? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast today. Cohost Chris Templeton, and I will be talking about the value and worthiness of price-cutters in business. Welcome back, Chris. Chris: Hi David. You know, one of the things that seems to frustrate salespeople more than anything else are price-cutters. Some people complain about them. Some people buy from them and some do both. They complain about their competitors who cut prices, but then they buy from the price-cutters who sell to them. What is up with that? David: Good question. What is up with that? I think there are people who sometimes get lost in whatever’s going on. We touched on this in a previous podcast, but particularly when things are challenging in business, the idea of price-cutting, the idea of going for the lowest cost alternative can be appealing. And there are a lot of people who I think have made really difficult, tough, and just flat out wrong decisions about moving things forward in their business, by simply cutting price, by going with lower cost alternatives, that aren’t nearly as good hoping that they’re going to be as good. And it just doesn’t usually happen like that. Chris: You know, when I got together with my wife, she was buying, for herself, Ferragamo shoes, which were, even 30 years ago, $200, $300. And she wanted me to buy those high end shoes. And I was like, “Oh honey, this is not a good idea, not a good use of money.” And then she said, “no, you’re buying a nice pair of shoes.” And three or four resoles later, they are so comfortable, and such a pleasure to wear, we somehow in the process of price-cutting, give up on the idea of the full value of what we’re buying. Don’t you think? David: Yeah, I think a lot of people do. And I mean that’s, to some extent, an extreme example, not completely extreme, but there are some people who are always going to go for the highest quality product. And that’s great. I remember Dan Kennedy, marketing guy, was talking about this one time. And he was saying that in every market, there are people who will always stay at the top hotel, the Ritz Carlton of whatever that particular city is. Regardless of what city they’re going to,.they’re always going to stay at the most expensive hotel. Similarly, there are people who will always stay at the lowest cost alternative. They’ll always stay at the Motel Six or whatever the lowest cost alternative is in a market. And of course the bulk of people fall somewhere in between. Chris: Right. David: And then the question becomes — and this is what I thought was brilliant about his comment — who do you want to build hotels for? Chris: (Laughs) Wait, wait, let me think about this one for a minute, David: Right? Yeah. Who do you want to build hotels for? And I thought about that in my own business so many times over the years. “Who do you want to build this for?” And for me, the types of clients that I love, the types of clients that I really enjoy working with are smart. They’re focused. They think. They’re willing to engage in conversations. They don’t just accept the lowest common denominator as an alternative. They’re willing to engage. They’re willing to invest in themselves and their businesses, growing things. And those are the types of people that I build my businesses to accommodate. So when there are people who come along and they want the cheaper thing or the cheapest thing or the low cost thing, or they think it’s going to do the same thing, in a lot of cases, I’m like, you know what, go for it. Knock yourself out. Because what’ll end up happening is I’ll end up working with someone else in your market who “gets it,” and it’s just going to be better for them. Chris: And you know, it is such a pleasure — I had this come up just recently, a client’s wife sent me an email asking what it would cost to set up her website and that sort of thing. And it was clear that this wasn’t a budget that was going to work for me. And so I spent 10 minutes just writing an email with what I thought her options were, that I didn’t think my budget was going to be hers, but you could do this, this, this, and this. And you know what? It was an absolute pleasure to send her on her way, know that my client, her husband, is going to be pleased with what I had to say to her. And at the same time, I’m not in a situation where I’ve got somebody who wants to do a low cost site, wants to spend more time than they’r

David: In our last podcast, we talked about how adversity reveals a client’s true colors. This week. I’d like to take it a step further and explore the idea of how to reboot your customer base. With everything that’s happened in business over the past few months, it may be the perfect time to do it. Hi and welcome to the podcast today. Cohost Chris Templeton, and I will be talking about the pros and cons of rebooting your existing business. Welcome back, Chris. Chris: Hi David. You know, to some, the idea of rebooting their client base may sound really scary, but I suspect that deep down inside, it’s something that appeals to nearly every business owner, as well as their salespeople. So let’s start with this. What do you mean by rebooting your client base? David: Good question. Well, I think of it in terms of rebooting your computer. If you have Windows, we’ve had Windows for years, Microsoft Windows, you’re probably familiar with rebooting. You get the blue screen of death sometimes, and you try to reboot your computer. And what happens when we reboot or restart the computer, is that it clears out everything that’s in there and it starts over again and pulls everything up. Then everything is fresh and new and hopefully not all messed up. I think that is a perfect analogy for our client bases sometimes. Over the years, they can accumulate just a lot of things that will slow us down. A lot of clients who are no longer a good fit, a lot of people who may be too demanding, where the amount of time that we invest in the relationships is no longer worth the amount of revenue that we’re able to generate from those accounts. And so, sometimes we need to look at it and say, “okay, what would a reboot of my business look like?” If I were to walk in the door tomorrow morning and walk into a business that is a lot better than the one that I’m operating today or working in today, what would that look like? How would the day start differently? Who would I be interacting with? Who would I no longer be interacting with? That’s what I think of in terms of a reboot. Chris: And, you know, I think one of the things to really think about as part of that discussion is why. Why do you want to do this? Not as a challenge to doing it, but as a “let’s get into,” as we talked about in the last podcast, “let’s get you into solution oriented mode.” And when you know why you want to do this, and my sense of that is it’s really about what I want, like you said, my day to look like, what I want my business to feel like. “Start with the why” as Simon Sinek says. So when you look at it, why do you think this is an important thing to do? David: Well, first and foremost, from a proactivity standpoint, designing the business, designing the life that you actually want to have, I think. The idea of rebooting your business, I think it’s very important to do it from that standpoint. From a quality of life standpoint, I think that’s big. That’s probably number one. If I were to boil it down. In business, we very often spend more time with our prospects, clients and coworkers than we get to spend with our friends and family and loved ones. And so for that reason, I think we need to be very conscious of the fact that every time we choose to do business with a particular prospect or a particular client, that we’re going to be interacting with this person. And if it’s a good fit and if we’re able to help them, and if they understand and appreciate everything we can do for them, it’s going to be a great relationship and we’re going to get along fine. If that fit is not there in the beginning, or if it was there, but now it’s no longer there, then, when we do that reboot, we’re going to be able to eliminate those relationships that are holding us back and holding them back. It’s important to understand this too. I’m not just talking about saying, “okay, well, I’m just going to pick my clients and work with the people that I want to work with.” Essentially, that’s what clients do too, right? Clients decide who they want to work with. And we decide who we want to work with. So when that happens on both sides, it does tend to keep things a lot cleaner. But there are some times where we have clients who know that it’s no longer a good fit, but they insist on doing it because whatever, they’re too lazy to try to find someone else, we’re too lazy to try to find that customer, to replace them. And we continue doing business with people when the relationship is no longer, really valid. So I think it’s important first and foremost, from a quality of life standpoint, second, certainly from a business standpoint, the idea that we want to interact with the people that we can help the most, those are the two primary re

Many business owners and salespeople have struggled with the effects of stay at home orders, mandated company closures and social distancing requirements. Some have been able to thrive, finding levels of creativity and resilience they never knew existed, while others have retreated, becoming entitled, fearful, or even hostile. It really shows how adversity can reveal a client’s true colors. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton and I will be talking about how adversity can affect clients. Welcome Chris. Chris: Hi, David. Boy, is this true. You know, I imagine everyone in business has seen it in action. Some prospects and clients are doing everything they can to move things forward, while others are withdrawing, becoming moody and demanding. It’s almost like they become different people. Isn’t it? David: Yeah, it’s really shocking in some cases. People that you might think you knew, people who you thought were one way and you find out they’re kind of not that way. It really does point out that people react differently to adversity. And let me just say, it’s completely understandable when people are dealing with really tough issues in their business and their lives, it’s going to have an effect. There’s no way that you can get around it. But I think as business people, we have to be able to recognize this, identify it as early on in the cycle as possible and determine, decide, is this person, is this prospect still someone that we would like to interact with in our business? Chris: So, David, what do you think accounts for the primary difference in these people’s responses? David: If I had to put my finger on it, Chris, I’d probably take it back to one primary thing. And that is fear. How frightened is this person? How scared are they about what’s going on? How scared are they about their ability to be able to handle it, to be able to deal with it, to be able to process whatever issues they’re having to process and to be able to move forward from it? I’ve had conversations with people who have been on both sides of the fence… separately. I have people who, some are on one side of the fence, who are really focused and they know what they’re doing, and they’re really geared up and they’re moving forward. And I’ve talked to people on the other side of the fence, who are just feeling defeated and frightened and not inclined to want to take action. And in those situations, the biggest difference that I see is the level of fear. The people who have the knowledge that they’re going to be able to make it, that they’re going to be able to pull things out, those people seem to be doing just fine. The ones who seem to be struggling the most are the ones who are not quite convinced of that. They don’t know what to do next, exactly. They feel like their business is really struggling and they’re not quite sure what to do to change it. So I would say in addition to the fear, it’s also the not knowing how to handle it, not knowing how to address the fear and make the changes they probably need to make in order to keep things going in the direction they really want to go. Chris: I think that another way to look at this is that some people are in problem-orientation mode, and some people are in solution-orientation mode. And when you’re in problem-orientation, we keep telling these stories where we just pile it on and then there’s this and that. And how are we ever going to get this done? And you can just kind of feel the angst building and building and building. And then there’s the solution side. People who have a perspective that says “times are tough, got to monitor, got to adjust.” But they focus on moving toward the solution. And when you’re in problem-orientation mode, it is really, really hard to focus on the solution. But if you know that that’s where you are, then you start to create some of that space that lets you move back towards solution. So I would encourage anybody that’s listening to this and really feeling like they’re buried, recognize that you’re in problem-orientation mode and make a conscious and deliberate effort to be open with yourself about the negatives, but also open about how you can take those negatives and convert them one by one, into something that’s a little bit more positive. David: Yes. And by changing the questions that you ask yourself, you can significantly change that pretty quickly. The thing that I noticed among the people that I talked to, who seem to be struggling the most, is that their inner dialogue, or their inner monologue, rather, is geared toward, “I can’t do this. I can’t afford this. I need to cut costs. I need to lay people off.” I mean, they’re thinking in terms of all the things that they need to do to get smal

While many businesses are now getting back to work, it’s not always smooth sailing. Some industries are returning more slowly than others, which leave many business owners and salespeople wondering what they can do to get their business back in gear. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton and I will be talking about getting your business back in gear. Welcome Chris. Chris: Hi David. You know, it seems like many people thought that business would just automatically bounce back and return to normal. As soon as these restrictions were lifted. That’s not a given, is it? David: No, it’s turning out it’s really not a given, particularly in the early stages. You know, we just thought this thing would probably come and go fairly quickly and then it didn’t. And then the longer it went, I think the more difficult it got for people, but yeah, as different states come back at different levels, it’s really been a bit of a challenge. And so I think the idea of it happening by itself or happening automatically is probably not really the way that things are going. And so yeah, we have to see what we can do more proactively to get things going again. Chris: So when you think about getting a business going again, where do you think that business owners and sales people should start? David: Well, I think I’d start with looking at your existing customer base and asking yourself, okay, how many of these people are ready to move forward? How many of them are in a position to move forward? Because obviously it’s always easier to sell to your existing client base than it is to sell, to, or find new people. So we definitely want to start there. Just going back to them, trying to find out where they are, how they’re doing, what they’re thinking and all that sort of thing. So finding out from them also how well things are bouncing back or not bouncing back. And a lot of industries are responding in different ways. Certainly the food industry — restaurants have really struggled with a lot of what’s going on. I know hair salons here in Pennsylvania are still closed as of the time that we’re recording this. I’m sporting sort of a seventies, early eighties “do” at the moment because… Chris: Oh, but you look great, David. David: Yeah, I do. It’s fantastic. Just this sort of a Bee-Gees look. Vintage BeeGees. But anyway, some of those types of industries are going to remain affected until things get back to normal. But even then, it’s not a given that people are just going to automatically start spending again. So I think we need to look at “what is our existing customer base doing? How are they dealing with it? What can we do to help them to take action and move things forward?” And also just look at what are we doing? What are we doing in our own businesses to remind people that this is not forever. And we need to take as many actions as we can to help our customers to move things forward. Chris: One of the things, I think we’ve talked about this in a previous podcast, is the whole idea of doing a check in with my client base. All of them. I mean, why not call everyone and just say, “Hey, I’m calling to see how you’re doing.” I mean, just that as a starting point, and if you’ve got a prospect that you’ve been working with, I think it’s fair to say, “Hey, also want to check in and see how you’re doing. Where are you with what we’ve been talking about? Obviously a lot of things have changed and I just want to make sure that we’re on the same page moving forward.” Does that seem like a good way to start from your standpoint? David: Yes, absolutely. And we did discuss that in previous podcasts. I think if there’s anyone listening who has not yet done that, you definitely want to do that. Just reach out to them, find out how they’re doing, find out how things are going. And you can do that with a combination. You can do phone calls. If you can’t reach everyone by phone, you can certainly do something similar, initiate a conversation via email or on social media or via messenger, lots of different ways to reach people, particularly those that you haven’t heard from, the ones that you have not been able to sort of requalify and find out where they stand. If you haven’t been able to do it on the phone, try a different method, try something like email or social media or whatever else you can use to reach them and to find out how they’re doing. Chris: You know, there’s a product that I use and there’s a couple of them out there… more than a couple, probably three or four that are all geared toward simply being able to quickly record a recording with the screen or without. I use it to do a check-in, especially if it’s somebody that I haven’t heard from in

Social distancing has caused many people to feel isolated. This likely applies as much to you as it does to your clients. Helping clients is key. So what can we do to allow our prospects and clients to feel less alone and create more of a connection? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton and I will be talking about helping your clients to feel less isolated and creating solid connections. Welcome Chris. Chris: Hi David. You know, the ability to create connections, especially now, is so important. We’ve discussed how to use technology in previous podcasts, but there’s a psychological component to this. So what are some of the things we can do to help our clients and ourselves, David? David: Well, that’s a great question. And we had touched a lot on fear in the previous podcast and how do you overcome feelings of fear? And I think it’s possible a lot of this also applies to feelings of isolation and feeling like we’re all in it by ourselves, we’re in it alone. And the fact of the matter is that we’re really not. And so a lot of it starts with, I believe, recognizing that fact. That essentially if everybody’s in the same boat, then we’re about as far from alone as we could possibly be. Everybody’s pretty much in the same situation. Now, if you’re where you are in California and I’m where I am in Pennsylvania, if you and I are not connecting, then sure, we’re going to feel a lot more isolated than we will feel if we’re having a conversation like this one, where it’s as if we’re together and we’re able to have a conversation and we are able to feel more connected because we’re be able to have those conversations. David: So I think a lot of it starts with that, recognizing that we are far from alone. We’re all in this together. And I think adapting that mindset is really important for everyone right now to recognize, yeah, we may not always agree with everyone else, but we are certainly all in this together and the clearer we can get about that, and the more we can understand that the common goals remain the same: to have better lives, to be able to continue to move our lives and our businesses forward. And then, you know, how can we help ourselves to do it and how can we help those around us to do it? If we recognize that everybody’s in the same boat, then maybe we can all start paddling the same direction and feel less isolated about it. Chris: And I think the thing that you said that really resonates with me, and I, I think it’s easier to walk right by is this is about as much for ourselves as it is for clients or for prospects. If we’re trying to build relationships with our clients and prospects right now doing that is as good for you as it is for anybody else. You know what I mean? David: Yeah, no question. And it’s like what we talked about before, you have to be able to do some of this stuff for yourself before you’re going to be able to get good at helping other people. It’s like what they talk about when you’re about to take off in a plane, you gotta put your mask on before you try to help someone else. And it’s the same exact advice here, you know, how can we allow ourselves to feel less isolated and more connected? And the way that we do that is essentially going to be by establishing connections. Just saying things like, who do I want to be connected with right now? Who would I like to be able to interact with right now? And then just reaching out and making it happen. And this applies as much or perhaps even more and our social lives as it does in business. But I think the two are very much related. Chris: Absolutely. And you know, we talked off air about having Zoom meetings with our friends that I’ve, I’ve had, I think four or five of them in the last month and a half, two months. And they are so refreshing to be able to see the people that matter and doing the same thing. And I think you really hit it. Now, who are the people that are prospects and clients that you really do want to connect with? Who are the people that you would enjoy? Just having a conversation with what a great way to help me and to help those people by just checking in, like we talked about in the last podcast, how are you doing? How are things going? I think that’s just huge. David: Yeah. And one of the things that I’ve done for years is I would put together a list and I would usually do this at least on a monthly basis, who are some of the people that I would like to interact with this month? Who are some of the clients that I’d like to interact with, who are some other people that are in our industry that I’d like to interact with, who are some friends that I’d like to interact with? I don’t really have to document it as much with the friends, cause that’s going to happen anyway.

The COVID-19 crisis caused many business owners to experience things for the very first time. Customers ordered to stay home. Businesses deemed nonessential and ordered to close. Many personal liberties curtailed. All of this has created a lot of fear. So what can we do to help clients overcome the fear and see past it? David: Hi and welcome to the podcast today. Cohost Chris Templeton, and I will be talking about seeing past the fear and helping our clients to do the same. Welcome back, Chris. Chris: Hi David, with everything that’s been happening, wall to wall news coverage of every detail. There has certainly been a lot of fear in the market and rightfully so. I know that our topic today is about seeing past it, but don’t you think a little fear is actually helpful? David: Well, I think it can be, particularly for some people. Some people are really motivated by fear. And so for those who are motivated by fear, I think that it can be helpful in encouraging them to do the things that we’re being told we need to do. But I think it’s a fine line. And sometimes the danger is that when there is too much fear, not enough fact, or too much fear, not enough critical thinking, that we all tend to start to devolve mentally. We tend maybe not to be able to think as clearly or think straight. So I think, yes, a little fear can be helpful to some people, but overall, I don’t know. I just feel as if most of us are better at making intelligent, thoughtful decisions critically than we are from a basis of fear. Chris: It’s a really, really good point. And I think a lot of people don’t even realize that they’re falling into it occasionally. And with what’s going on now, every detail on the news, it’s certainly easy to go down that road. And all of a sudden we start to behave in a way, make decisions in a way that are based on that underlying fear without even recognizing it. A balanced perspective sure does make a big difference, don’t you think? David: Yeah, I think balance is very important. I had this thought the other day about the words to the National Anthem, “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” And I think it can be challenging for some people to think in terms of the land of the free, when you’re required to stay home. And the home of the brave, when everything they’re telling you on television is designed to potentially make you fearful. And so, it’s finding the balance and recognizing that there are facts, and we need to be able to look at the facts and just think in terms of “how can we keep things moving forward?” How can we do it for ourselves to be able to think critically analyze situations intelligently and help our clients to do the same? Chris: Well, and I think from that standpoint, it is about perspective. It is saying to yourselves, into your coworkers and your family and friends, “we are going to get through this.” We don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, but we know that we’ve been through it as a planet, in what, 1918 with the Spanish flu? And we do come back from these things. And even that, just as a starting point, in trying to bring more perspective and balance to what I’m thinking, has to be a great step in the right direction, don’t you think? David: Yeah, absolutely. And the better we get at doing that, the better off we’re going to be. But right now, I mean, when I look at what’s going on with our clients and with different people that I’ve talked to in business, a lot of the fear that I see people dealing with is the unknown. That seems to be the biggest thing. And it reminds me of childhood fears. The reason that children are afraid of the dark, is not because it’s dark. It’s because they don’t know what’s going on. It’s because they can’t see what’s happening. And as a result, it’s really the fear of the unknown. And that’s a lot of what we’ve been dealing with over the past couple of weeks and months is that there’s just too much unknown. And we hear lots of different conflicting reports. And as a result of it, people just don’t really know what to think. And that’s what generates a lot of the fear, because the question is, “should I go out, should I not go out? Should I approach clients? Should I approach clients? Am I going to appear insensitive if I talk to people about moving things forward and trying to continue life?” And so those are a lot of the fears that people are dealing with. It’s the unknown. And it’s the response that we could potentially get, which is also unknown. I think a lot of it just boils back down to unknown. Chris: Absolutely. And you said it, the top of that statement when we are in fear, it’s because we don’t know what to think. And so that’s where I thi

Over the course of our recent podcast series, we’ve been discussing pandemic and post pandemic selling skills. We’ve discussed things like Facebook, social media, LinkedIn, YouTube, video, teleconferencing, and today we’re going to be discussing generating leads online. Are you doing it? Do you know how to do it? Do you have the tools you need to do it? We’ll hit all of that in today’s podcast. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Chris Templeton and I are back, and we’re going to be talking about generating leads online. Welcome back, Chris. Chris: Thank you David. Nice to be here. You know, when we talk about generating leads online, that can mean a whole lot of things to a whole lot of different people. Talk about what your definition is of that process. David: Okay. Well, as you indicated, it can happen a lot of different ways. You could post something on Facebook that someone sees and they reply to it and they say, “Ooh, that sounds great. I’d like to be a customer!” Of course that never happens. Chris: But they may say, “ah, you know, I’m willing to take a look.” David: Exactly. So it could be that, but I’d like to get a little more specific on this, because as we move to these different methods of interacting with people and communicating with people, I think it’s important to understand that online lead generation can mean more than just somebody finds you online and then you connect offline and you end up establishing a relationship. Online lead generation can actually be a situation where you put something out to the marketplace. It could be some sort of lure, some sort of lead magnet, that is designed to get their attention and to sort of pull them into your orbit. You then would need to have the technology in place to be able to capture that lead. In many cases that would be through some sort of opt-in form, and then you want to be able to nurture that communication, which often involves autoresponders or ongoing communication. And so this starts to sound very technical (and obviously we’re not going to get into all the details in a podcast.) But this is exactly the type of stuff that we work with our existing clients on to help them to be able to increase their online presence, actually be able to generate leads online and to be able to replicate themselves — to be able to automate some of the process — so they don’t have to physically be doing all of the work themselves. And I think as we look at the whole topic of this conversation — sort of doing things in a post pandemic world — we want to look at how we can better leverage ourselves, how we can better utilize technology to sort of clone ourselves so that we don’t have to be all places at all times. We can actually utilize the technology to create an environment in which it appears that that’s the case, where we can be hyper-responsive without actually having to do all the work ourselves. Chris: And you know, one of the things that I think a lot of people kind of default to when they think about this is, “Oh, it’s going to be sales thing after another,” this automated followup type of thing, and that simply, from my perspective, and I think yours, should not be the case, should it David? These autoresponders should be something that are of value, that show who I am, help to figure out fit, that sort of thing. David: Yes. Just as in every business communication that we ever have. Chris: What? David: It should all be geared like that. We had talked in a previous podcast about sort of the 80/20 aspect of that, making sure that roughly 80% of what you’re saying to a client is just solid value and perhaps using the other 20% or so to sell. Maybe it’s even 85/15 or 90/10. But it’s about establishing those relationships. It’s about nurturing those relationships and helping our clients to get the results they’re looking for. Chris: You know, I used to be a consultant for a large financial services company and one of the seminars I’d give to agents was that marketing equaled relationship. And I think it’s very easy to forget that what you’re doing, what your goal is, is to create a connection with these types of communications. And so, I think you’re probably right, David, 90/10. 10% sales, 90% information. What do I do to help somebody feel like they’re going to be able to make an educated purchase of whatever it is that I’m selling, by providing information and talking things through that aren’t necessarily part of the direct sales process, but give that prospect enough information where they feel like number one, they know who I am, that I’m delivering value, I begin to trust you. I begin to feel like I’ve got that relationship going. And that can be in any form, too. David: Right. Absolutely. And when

In our recent podcast series, we’ve been discussing pandemic and post pandemic selling skills. How many of these do you have working in your business right now? David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In the last couple of podcast episodes, Chris and I were talking about prospecting using social media that led to discussions about Facebook and LinkedIn and video, and I guess we’re just going to sort of pick up where we left off. Welcome back Chris. Chris: Hi David. Thanks for having me back and I am really pleased to talk about something that I’ve been doing for almost 20 years now, which is online meetings. You know, we talk about the idea of using video. Well, one of the things that I’ve been doing for almost 20 years is online meetings. I’ve had meetings with agencies between — I’m in Napa and New York, back in the day, and I have online meetings now almost every day and frankly that’s how we do this, isn’t it? David: It is. We’re having one right now, in fact. Chris: Yes we are. Although we’re not looking in each other’s eyes. Because we’re not using video, and that is certainly not a requirement. But let’s talk about, as a starting point, how well this has worked. You know, we’re on our 36th podcast right now together. David: Right. Chris: And we never looked at each other in the eye have we? David: We’ve never met. No. Chris: And that’s probably best that you’re not seeing me. But no, I’m kidding. But it’s amazing to me how quickly our relationship, in terms of being able to go back and forth, and really do this in a way that I think is compelling happened almost immediately, didn’t it? David: It did. Yeah. From the very first episode. And that’s the type of thing that can and should happen, ideally, in every meeting. In every online meeting between a prospect and a client, the whole purpose of being able to utilize online video or video conferencing is to be able to establish relationships and be able to foster those relationships in a meaningful way. So, yeah, absolutely. In our last podcast, we were talking about video, using it as a one-to-many marketing medium. So we can put together a video, get it in front of a lot of people, and be impacting a lot of people all at once. But what we’re talking about now, with video conferencing or even audio conferencing, as we’re doing right now, it’s just to be able to have a meaningful conversation with another person to be able to advance the sales dialogue and move things forward. Chris: And I think it’s so critical that people understand that the level of scripting that you and I have in these conversations is almost none. There’s a beginning, and maybe a few points to cover, and then a wrap up, but the rest of it is all genuine conversation. And so one of the things I think is really important for the audience to consider is “how can I have a conversation with somebody that will help me to bring out the best of myself?” And what I find is that I’ve done hundreds of radio interviews over the years, and I can count three or 400 interviews I’ve done. Gotta be less than 10 that I’ve been like, “how am I going to get through this?” I’m always shocked, number one, at how good people are at doing it and number two, how surprised they are that they’re able to be that articulate. David: Yeah. You and I both have radio backgrounds. I worked in radio from the time I was 15, so when you were talking about not seeing each other face to face, the old adage of “I’ve got a face built for radio” immediately leaps to mind. But it’s a very comfortable medium and I think that’s why podcasts have been so popular. Because you can listen to a conversation between two people talking about a topic of interest and it makes perfect sense. Now when we adapt this to selling in today’s environment, where we’re not doing it face to face. Or maybe we’re doing it face to face via video conference. A lot of the same things apply, like how to do this. And I think you really outlined it there, in the same type of approach that we take with the podcast, which is: you know where you’re going to begin, you know where you’re going to end, you might have a few points that you definitely want to hit in the middle, but then it’s just about authentic conversation. And so if you’re going to have a sales conversation with someone via Skype or Zoom or any sort of teleconferencing equipment, I think it’s the same thing. You have to know where you want to begin. You have to know where you want to get to at the end, and some sort of basic path for getting there. And of course, the road is going to wind around. Things are not going to go exactly the way you may love them to go, but as long as you’re able to foll

In our last podcast, we began a discussion on pandemic and post pandemic selling skills because the skills that got you to this point will probably not be enough to keep you moving forward. Do you have what it takes to survive and thrive in the new environment? Let’s find out. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast today cohost Chris Templeton and I are back to continue our discussion on pandemic and post pandemic selling skills. Welcome back, Chris. Chris: Hi David. You know in our last podcast we were going to talk about all kinds of skills that have to be developed in order to succeed in this new selling environment. David: Right. Chris: We didn’t get as far as we thought we were going to and we kind of left off on Facebook groups and the type of content that we can put up. Let’s talk about some other things that we can do in regards to social media. David: Okay. We started talking about Facebook groups and Facebook personal profiles and Facebook pages, but obviously there are other social media sources as well. LinkedIn is always thought of as being a good source for business. You want to discuss that one next? Chris: Sure. Let’s talk about LinkedIn. David: Okay. If you’ve been in business for a long time, you probably have some sort of LinkedIn account or presence. If not, you should definitely look into getting one. LinkedIn is one social media environment in which it’s okay to be in business, be in sales. Sometimes with some of the more personal social media platforms like Facebook, that can be frowned upon. But in LinkedIn people sort of expect the fact that you’re in business and that you might say things related to business. Now that doesn’t mean that you can just go on there and turn it into a 24 hour pitch fast, right? David: You can’t just go on there and say, “buy my stuff” all the time because you will alienate just as many people on LinkedIn as you would on any other platform. Chris: You don’t think that’ll work? David: You can try it if you want to. See how that works out. Chris: Yeah, you try it and let us know how it goes. David: Yeah, send us an email. But you can get on there and exchange ideas. You can initiate conversations that are more business related. You can connect with people. Because on LinkedIn it’s more about connections. Whereas on Facebook it’s about friends, quote unquote. So you’re friending people on Facebook, but you’re connecting with people on LinkedIn. So people expect that there’s going to be a business component to the discussion on there. So that’s helpful. The flip side is that since it’s all business, people do get pitched a lot, and so the way that we approach people on LinkedIn is going to have to be thought through and not just “winging it” the way that a lot of people do. Chris: And I don’t know if you want to go with 80/20 or some different split, but you know, like you said, if all you’re doing is pushing your sales messages, you’re not going to be very effective in generating connections and interest. And so, can we do 80% that is informational, maybe half of that tied to your specific products, but not as, you know, “Hey, buy my product” and then can you do things like we’re doing right now, which is how do we help people in these difficult times? And almost everybody in business has the ability to tie this to what’s going on with the pandemic, that sort of thing, don’t you think? David: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the primary changes in focus has been, and this is something we’ve talked about in previous podcasts as well, is that right now with everything that’s going on, sales is far less about what can I sell you and far more about how can I help you? How can I help you with what you’re looking to accomplish? And so if we’re looking to initiate business conversations, let’s say through LinkedIn, then we want to be clear up front that it’s not just about selling people, it’s about trying to figure out how we can help. And so if we’re initiating connection requests on LinkedIn. There should be a reason for that. In other words, you don’t use the generic, “I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn” because if they don’t know you, they don’t know the benefit. They don’t understand the “what’s in it for me” and so they’re going to be far less likely to be receptive or to connect. If you can give them a reason about why you’re connecting, there’ll be a lot more likely to do it. For example, if you serve a particular niche industry and you are able to say in your connection request, “I work with a lot of people in your industry, I thought it might be worthwhile to connect. I have a few ideas I’d be happy to share with you.” Then ther