'--Top Secrets of Promotional Products Sales--'

When it comes to getting referrals proactively, that's another thing people do as well. They think they have to wait until they have already sold something and the client is happy. And that's not the case. I mean, when you're talking about asking about referrals, you can do that at any stage, and at every stage, I mean, ask always, right? Why not?

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist and I discuss the topic of getting referrals proactively. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Great to be here, David. How you been?

David: Been doing great. and you?

Kevin: I can't complain. I'm doing well. Yeah, this is a good one. This is a good topic because anybody in any business can get a lot from more referrals. So, why do so many businesses sit around, waiting for referrals, instead of actively generating them.

David: I have no idea.

Kevin: Oh, thanks for joining us..

David: No, I do have an idea. Because I think we've probably all done it at one point or other over the years. The reason that I really think it's important to talk about referrals is so often, I mean, I've done presentations at trade shows all over the country and actually around the world.

I mean like Australia and in Europe. I mean, I've done this with a lot of people, a lot of times over a lot of years, and very often when I talk to people and I ask them the biggest way that they grow their business, they tell me referrals.

And when I hear that, I think, "okay, that's great, but how much business are you leaving on the table?"

Right? Because a lot of times they are doing exactly what you just described. They're just sitting around waiting for those referrals to come in. Now, they don't say that.

They won't tell you that. Right? What they'll say is, yeah, referrals. They got a lot of business from referrals. And I'm like, that's great.

And when you get business as a result of referrals, just because you're doing a good job and somebody hears about you, that is wonderful. But that is also extremely reactive. So that's why we're talking about, in this podcast, the idea of doing it proactively.

Because when you add that component to your referral-getting, you can very likely double or triple the results that you're getting as a result of just waiting around to see who shows up at your door.

Kevin: Is it a mindset shift that needs to happen to get better at asking for referrals or feel more comfortable asking for referrals?

David: It could very well be a mindset shift. It could be that it hasn't even occurred to people, right? It's like, okay, referrals are like a bonus. I get referrals. I'm happy when I get them, and I don't think about them.

But when you're looking to grow proactively, you need to think in terms of all the different methods that you're using to make that happen.

So if I'm doing any sort of outreach, whether it's social media, whether it's on the phone, whether it's emails, whatever it is that you're doing. You say, okay, well how can I do more of this?

And when it comes to referrals, a lot of times people say, oh, well, that's when stuff comes in. But it's like the old saying, I think it was Zig Ziglar who said, don't wait for your ship to come in if you haven't sent one out. I always love that quote.

Kevin: Really good.

David: And so, yeah. So if you're looking to get referrals, what are you doing to make that happen? It's just like anything else.

Social media. If you post something on social media and somebody responds to you, you've initiated a conversation. You don't have to wait for someone else to initiate a referral. You can do it more proactively.

So yeah, I think a lot of times it doesn't really occur to people that they can really get good at doing it proactively. I do think there is a discomfort level that comes with it sometimes. I'm like, yeah, I feel funny about it. I feel weird about it. Are they going to think I don't have much business?

Here's why tariffs aren't the problem. Because there's always someone who's buying. Sometimes it's harder to find them. Sometimes it's easier to find them. So if, as a result of tariffs or anything else, it's going to be harder to find people, we understand that. But it doesn't mean that business is over and it doesn't mean that we can just sit and stew, because that just doesn't work.

David: Hi. Welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I'll be discussing the fact that tariffs are not the problem. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Good to to see you, David. How you been?

David: Been doing great. Great to see you as well.

Kevin: Yeah. We're talking about a topic that is in the news a little bit these days. You introduced the topic as tariffs aren't the problem. What do you mean by that?

David: Yeah. I mean, if you're watching the media, you would think they are, but...

Kevin: Yeah, I would say so.

David: What I mean by that, and I'm not saying they're not a problem. What I'm saying is they're not THE problem. Okay, difference in the title. Tariffs aren't the problem. Okay?

The reason this came up is I was having a conversation with someone in the promotional products industry who was talking about some of the issues that she was dealing with, and she mentioned the tariffs, and how the tariffs really had her very concerned.

And I said, well, it's understandable because it creates a level of uncertainty that people are generally not happy with. I said,

Kevin: Sure.

David: How many orders have you actually lost as a result of the tariffs? And she said, well, none. I'm like, okay. Well that's a good start, right?

If you haven't lost any orders so far as a result of it, that's a great way to start. And we just talked about the fact that everyone is dealing with this, everyone in the United States, anyone is dealing with this. And so, we're on an even playing field with any competitors, right? Because any competitors that we have are likely dealing with this as well.

When we focus on things that are not the problem, like the thing that's actually keeping us from getting clients or getting reorders, or getting referrals, when we focus on those things, we're going to be a lot more productive in terms of being able to accomplish more things in less time, without focusing on the things that are not the immediate problem for us.

Kevin: I mean, are business owners using tariffs or other external factors as as an excuse, if maybe they're having poor sales or things like that?

David: Probably not consciously, I don't think they're consciously using it as an excuse. But it's easy to see it happen. And it's not just tariffs. Anytime anyone is concerned about the growth of their business, not being able to get enough new orders through the door, not able to get enough new customers through the door.

Whenever they're not doing that, they're looking for reasons. And when you think of it logically, you'll look at the reasons that are actually happening. Well, what are the reasons this is happening? But when there are any sort of scapegoats in the market, people are likely to look at them, or point to them, or express concerns about them.

Very often the concerns are about the things that could happen, that might happen, that could potentially happen, as opposed to what is actually slowing them down right now?

Kevin: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think, it's dangerous to blame outside forces, like tariffs, instead of addressing in ternal issues. Because if you do that, you're going to potentially either ignore or downplay maybe some internal issues that you might have within your company. Is that a fair assessment?

David: Yeah, and it's just not productive. When we're having interactions with clients, and let's say a client does raise the issue that they have concerns about pricing or they have concerns about how tariffs are going to impact their pricing and all that sort of thin...

It’s no fun when clients shop your ideas. If you ever came up with a brilliant idea for a promotion, only to have a prospect think it over, say they’d get back to you, but then ghost you and buy it from someone cheaper, you know the pain of being the unpaid consultant in the room.

Being the brains behind a competitor’s sale is not ideal.

You’re the one who did the work, thought it through, created the ideas, sourced the products, and made the recommendations only to have someone else place the order and cash the check.

What’s up with that?
Why are some ideas purchased immediately, while others are stolen, ghosted, shopped around, or just ignored completely?
That’s what we’ll explore in today’s episode.

If your best ideas keep ending up on someone else’s commission report, you may think you have a pricing problem. But it’s more likely you have a positioning problem.

And it starts with the way you build out the experience of doing business with you.
You're Not Just Selling Products—You're Selling a Process and an Experience
You already know that prospects and clients can buy promotional products from ANY of a never-ending lineup of distributors, both online and off.

That’s not what sets you apart.

What sets you apart is the experience you create for them, from your First Contact through every other aspect of dealing with you and your organization. This includes:

The clarity you bring to the project
The confidence they feel in your guidance and
The relief of not having to think through all the moving parts themselves

Those are just a few of the differentiators, and none of them happen by accident.

Instead, they’re the result of:

The Messaging you use to position yourself as a valued resource, instead of just another product peddler.
The marketing Vehicles you use to reach, impact and motivate recipients to get the desired response from them, and of course…
The People you are proactively choosing to engage with. Not just anyone, but those who are less likely to shop and more likely to buy.

If you don’t have those three pieces firmly dialed in: Your Messaging, your Vehicles, and your People, then the right experiences are far less likely to happen.
Why the Experience You Create Beats Product Alone Every Time
Let me ask you this. What does it feel like to work with you?

Years ago, salespeople had a much easier time getting away with selling features and benefits. “Here are the features of what the product is, and here are the benefits of what the product does for you.”

But in the information age, that doesn’t begin to cover it.

A spec sheet can do it adequately. They don’t need you for that.

So what are your best clients actually buying from you?

More often than not, it goes way beyond features and benefits. It also goes way beyond branded merchandise. It’s:

The confidence they get from the recommendations you make
The trust they have in your ability to deliver what you promise
The experience they have when interacting with you

Ultimately, it’s the emotion they feel as you bring all that together for them, taking the stress off their plate and knowing you’ll make them look like a star to their target audience.

It’s very difficult to shop that, because so few businesses deliver it consistently.

But that’s what they’re buying from you. Clarity. Confidence, and Certainty.

If your messaging doesn’t communicate that, then your value is invisible.

Without that, you end up with people asking for ideas, shopping them around, and awarding the business to the lowest bidder.
Not Every Prospect Wants or Needs Your Full Process, and That’s OK
Of course, not every prospect needs a full consulting experience.

Some just want a quote on a pen. Others want pricing on 50 business cards. Still others will just ask you to put together your best ideas and tell you they’ll get back to you.

All of that comes with the territory.

Want to stop undercharging and get paid what you're worth? In our last episode, we talked about the dangerous disconnect between effort and results. How being busy isn’t the same as being profitable, and why aligning your actions with your outcomes is the only sustainable way to grow.

But what happens when you do align your actions…
You do deliver real value…
And you’re still not making what you feel you're worth?

That’s what we’re getting into today. It's a big blind spot related to pricing and undercharging.

So if you already know your work is worth more than what you’re charging for it, this episode could be the game-changer you didn’t even know you needed.

The Hidden Problem: Undercharging Isn’t Just About Numbers
Most business owners don’t consciously undercharge for their services.
No one wakes up in the morning thinking, “How can I leave money on the table today?”

But undercharging is not usually about neglect. It’s also not about generosity.

More often than not, undercharging is related to fear.

Fear of losing to lowball competitors.
Fear of being seen as too expensive or greedy.
Fear of not getting the order.

It's also about perception: Their own perception, and the market’s perception.

Many people base their pricing on what they think their clients can afford… or what competitors are charging… or worse, what a particularly cheap prospect once told them they were worth.

But consider this:
Pricing isn’t just math. It’s strategy.
If your price doesn’t reflect your expertise, your results, and the transformation you create for your clients, it’s not just undervaluing your work.

It’s sending your market a message that says: “The work I do isn’t really worth all that much.”
Your Pricing = Your Market Position
In business, price signals value.

So when you charge like a commodity, you get treated like a commodity. And when you price like a strategic partner, you tend to get treated like one.

It’s not just about numbers, it’s about how your prospects and clients see you.

Are you the kind of person they value and are grateful to work with?

Or are you just someone they’re trying to squeeze for discounts?

That gap often comes down to three things that many business owners tend to overlook:

How they define their work.
Who they present it to.
What they allow themselves to charge for it.

It’s not about buzzwords or branding jargon. It’s about clarity.

Are you describing your work in a way that makes prospects lean in or glaze over?
Are you putting it in front of people who already get the value—or those who need convincing?
And are you pricing it in a way that honors the transformation you deliver… or just typical industry pricing?

In a free market system, everyone gets to set their own pricing. We all get to decide.

By saying this, I’m not suggesting you should overcharge for the products and services you offer. I’m just encouraging you to consider what your time, effort, and life energy are worth to you when calculating your prices.
Clients Are Willing to Pay More When They Understand Why
You already know that in every market, there are price-shoppers who always make their buying decisions based solely on price.

They’ll get ten quotes. That means ten people will do all the work of pricing out the job, only to lose that order to the one person who is willing to work for the least amount of money.

Are those the people you want to be basing your pricing on?

Another important consideration is that in every market, there are always people who are willing to pay more.

You just need to target them, know what to say to them, and be able to reach them effectively.

That’s the essence of the monetization strategy that is missing from most businesses. So when you have it, and others don’t, you win.

When providing a reason for your ideal clients to choose you, it can’t be the usual, “we do great work.”

Busy doesn't equal profitable. We got a lot of great feedback from our last episode, in which we talked about how many business owners still cling to outdated methods that used to work, but don’t work anymore.

We addressed the hard truth that more of the wrong activity won’t fix a broken approach.

We looked at the reasons typical performers feel stuck, waiting things out, hoping for a turnaround that may never come…

And we pointed out how smart, focused professionals adapt and move forward now, in a way that differentiates them from less-profitable, average businesses.

Today, I’d like to pick up that conversation by talking about one of the biggest sources of frustration that I hear from business owners and salespeople across the board:

Why am I working so hard and still not making enough money?

If you're grinding all day, doing "everything you're supposed to do," but still not seeing results, you’re not lazy, and you’re not crazy.

But it’s likely you got caught in a trap that drains your time, energy, and income.

I’m talking about…
The Effort Trap: Busy ≠ Profitable
At one time or another, we’ve probably all bought into the idea that if we just work harder, the results will come.

More hours, calls, emails, and outreach.

In some cases, it works. But not always.

More effort does not automatically equal more income. Sometimes it just means more exhaustion.

You can do all the things you think you need to do: chase leads, follow up, create quotes, juggle accounts and still feel stuck.

Because it’s not always about how much you’re doing.

It can also be about how well you do those things, and how well you communicate your value.

Effort alone doesn’t create income.

So it’s not just actions that create value in the eyes of your clients, and revenue for your business. Only aligned actions can do that.

When that alignment is missing? You can work 24/7 doing everything you think you need to do, and still come up short in the money department.
The Illusion of Progress: Mistaking Motion for Momentum
And that leads into the second trap—the illusion of progress.

This is where the to-do list becomes a badge of honor, and the packed calendar provides a false sense of security.

It feels productive, but at the end of the month, you still might not have enough in the bank.

Because movement alone is not progress.

It’s like the rocking chair, or the hamster wheel. It may keep you moving, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.

Same thing with being busy. It doesn’t guarantee forward momentum.

And that can be extremely demoralizing.

You’re checking all the boxes, showing up, doing the work… and you may still feel stuck in the same place.

That’s where burnout sets in, doubts creep in, and even really good people can start to wonder whether all of it is worthwhile.

Because even when you do great work, you still might not get paid based on your worth.
Value vs. Revenue: When Great Work Goes Unrecognized
Let’s say you’re someone who’s not just spinning your wheels.

You’re producing results, making your clients happy, and solving real problems for them.

If your income still isn’t where you feel it needs to be, it’s one of the most frustrating disconnects in business:

Doing valuable work… but not being paid in proportion to that value.

There’s a reason this happens.

It’s because the market doesn’t reward effort. And it doesn’t always reward value.

In fact, it’s more likely to reward perceived value and perceived results.

Meaning, that If your clients don’t understand the value you provide, and the results you create for them, then your revenue can still fall short of your value.

It’s not a reflection of your talent or the work you do. It’s a reflection of how your prospects and clients perceive that value.

And much of that is about your communication.
The Strategic Shift: Replace Hustle with Alignment

Time for a shift in your business? There was a period of time when getting print and promotional product clients was a lot easier.

People loved and appreciated your work. They answered and returned your phone calls. They placed orders proactively. Sometimes they even referred enough new clients that your customer base practically grew all by itself. Sounds like a fantasy! But does that still happen?

It can. But nowadays? Not so much...

Today, too many people in our industry are fighting against reality. They're pounding away on activities that used to work, but don't work anymore. Instead of changing their actions, they blame the prospects, or the marketing method, or the economy, or the tariffs.

You'll see them complaining in industry groups, saying things like "People aren't answering their phones." "Social media's a waste of time." "No one's returning phone calls." "Networking events are worthless." "This economy stinks!"

And while people may be experiencing those things, the people who are making money in our industry right now are not doing any of that. They know that all the whining, blame-shifting and scape-goating is not going to fix problems that are partially caused, at least, by taking wrong or ineffective actions that no longer work.

So instead, they're adapting their approach, refocusing their efforts, eliminating ineffective tactics, and engaging in the tested, proven, strategic methods that work right now.

You know, the gap between where you are right now and where you want to be is not going to magically fill itself. And you can't count on the actions that used to fill those gaps to continue to do so in the future. Because they won't. They can't. It is literally impossible.

Of course, very few motivated people will sit around willingly and do nothing, as the things that used to work for them continue to lose their effectiveness. But very often, they just double down and try to do more of it with brute force effort. Putting in more time, more energy, making more calls, and overcoming more objections, while continuing to fall behind.

It's exhausting to watch, and it's even more exhausting if you have to do it!

So why doesn't that work?

Because taking ineffective actions more aggressively does not create the results you want.

Yes, in business, particularly when you're facing challenges, speed of implementation is critical. But that only works when you're taking the right actions in the right order.

Doing the wrong things faster won't get you to your goal. It's like speeding off in a racecar that's going in the wrong direction.

So while TYPICAL businesses try to fix the problem by running faster, working longer, pushing harder, and sacrificing more -- to try to make the hamster wheel turn faster, and faster, and faster, while still getting them nowhere -- smart, focused business owners are changing their approach to suit the times.

You probably already know that if your business is struggling, and you don't change your approach, your results cannot possibly change. It's like Einstein's definition of insanity, doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result. And since so much has changed in such a short period of time, you can't even expect the things that DID work well -- even a few months ago -- to work well now.

So what do you do?

Well, it's likely that if you knew what changes to make -- if you knew exactly what to do, and exactly how to fix it -- you would have done it by now, right? Because, who wouldn't?

What I'm talking about today is not for the majority of typical business owners who are just going to sit it out, wait it out, or worse yet, whine it out on social media.

It's also not for average performers who take average actions to create average results. That's going to happen by default. When things get tough, average sales inevitably decline.

Those of us who have been through these cycles before?

Arguing with reality in business is a huge waste of time. If you've got clients who are in that head space where they're sort of scared, they're not quite sure what to do next. If you call them and you're in that same head space, then you're not helpful to them. But if you call them with some thoughts or ideas on how you can help them to accomplish the things they want to accomplish, now you have value, and they're going to be happy to talk to you.

They're going to want to talk to you because they understand that you may have the solution to some of the problems they're facing.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I ask the question, are you stuck arguing with reality? Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Good to see you, David. Normally, I feel like I'm stuck arguing with virtual reality these days. With Chat GPT or the like. What are we talking about when you say "argue with reality?"

David: We touched on this in a previous podcast, and it's a quote that I heard from Byron Katie. She wrote a book called Loving What Is, and she had this quote in there where she said, "Whenever I argue with reality, I lose, but only 100% of the time."

And I loved that quote because it just seemed so completely true.

Anytime we argue with whatever is actually happening, whatever's going on in the world, whenever we argue with that reality, we lose.

And if you go to social media, any social media platform, you will find millions of people, every day, arguing with reality.

They'll be talking about things they have no control over, that they wish weren't the case. And you can waste so much life doing this, that I thought it would be good for us to have a conversation about it.

Kevin: Well, we talked a little bit about controlling what you can control and accepting what you can't control, so it kind of fits into the same category. And it feels like we tend to resist what's happening, instead of adapting to it. Is that fair to say?

David: Yeah. I think a lot of people do that, and not that we're even doing it intentionally. A lot of times we don't even consider this idea of what is reality versus what am I looking at on a day-to-day basis?

We tend to go into experiences, whether it's conversations with people, whether it's posting something on social media or replying to someone on social media, doing any of these things, and we just feel like we're having a conversation and we don't necessarily take into consideration what are the things that are just real and true, that I might be arguing against, right?

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: So when people go online, particularly now, and they're on there and they're talking about tariffs and all the terrible things that are going to be happening to their business, I look at that and I'm like, okay, well, the tariffs, that's true. The uncertainty in the market, that's true.

Everyone is dealing with that. But if I talk about that without looking for solutions, without looking for the ways to get around those problems, then why am I even doing it? Isn't that not just wasting time, but wasting our lives and other people's lives?

Kevin: Mm-hmm. What other ways, you know, we mentioned tariffs, there's plenty of big stuff out there that's happening that affects the business world.

But as far as, you know, just getting into the sales process, the business process, what other ways do you find that people argue with reality?

David: Ghosting. Sales in general? Cold calling. I mean, every aspect of sales requires us to deal with different aspects of reality every single time. Right?

"These people won't call me back." Okay. That may be a reality with those people.

Another part of reality though, is that there are people who will call you back. There are prospects who are responsive. There are people who need to buy your products and services right now.

All of those things are also true.

We'll say things like, "oh man, there's just so much going on. I'm so busy. I'm just busy, busy, busy every day." When you're saying that sort of thing, it's a strong indication that you've got a bunch of unfinished business. You've got open loops, and maybe you're not capturing it.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist and I will be discussing the topic of no more unfinished business. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Good to see you, David. How you been?

David: Been doing great. And you?

Kevin: Good, good. So unfinished business. What do you mean when you say that?

David: Well, I learned this somewhere, a number of years ago, and when I first heard, I was like, "oh man, this is me."

They were talking about the fact that in business there are starters and there are finishers. And very often they're not the same person. Right? There are some people who are very good at starting projects and other people who are very good at finishing them. A lot of entrepreneurs, and some salespeople as well, are very good at starting projects.

We're all excited and we're very happy to dive in, and then we tend to lose interest as we go.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: And what that creates is a lot of unfinished things all around. And when you've got these unfinished things, they weigh on you. Right?

And so when I talk about the idea of no more unfinished business, what I'm saying is that we should look at the things that are out there, that are stuck in the back of our minds. It's like, "I know I need to do that. I know I need to finish it. I haven't done it yet, but I don't feel like it," or whatever it is that's keeping us from getting it done.

Kevin: Is it possible that you need to look at it and say were these things really that important in the first place?

David: That's a great way to approach it. Right? Because there are things you just say, you know what? I started that, but no, that's not worthwhile.

Kevin: There's a reason I didn't finish it. Yeah.

David: Exactly. And it's good to eliminate that sort of thing. Whenever you're able to do that. If there's something that you're working on, you decide, look, this is not generating the results I'm looking for.

Yes. Just make sure that you don't cancel it because you don't feel like doing it, right? You got to cancel it for the right reasons. If you're going to eliminate it, make sure that you evaluated it first.

One of the things that I've talked about a lot in terms of just the things that we do in our projects is looking at things, I refer to it as the RADD method, RADD.

It stands for Remove, Automate, Delegate, or Do. Okay, so we start with the R. Remove.

And there's a reason these are actually in this order, which I'd nearly forgotten. But the reason is that if you do it in this order, you're going to end up a lot better off. If you start by removing the things that don't have to be done, then wow, that's a big relief.

You're able to, essentially,

Kevin: Your list just got smaller. Yeah, yeah.

David: Yeah. You just eliminate it before it even becomes a problem, so that's the first step. You basically remove it.

Second step is if you can automate it, right? If it's something that can be automated, then you don't have to do it. You don't have to have anyone else do it, and it will happen automatically going forward.

So simple things like email autoresponders can allow you to create responses to something once and then have them happen again and again and again. So anything that can be automated, ideally should be automated.

Third step is delegating. Can I delegate this to someone else? Can I delegate it to someone else in my organization? To a virtual assistant? Can somebody else do this effectively?

And then the fourth one the second D is Do it. Then you actually do it. And if you go through this in that order, you remove things first. You automate them second,

I've been having conversations over the past couple of weeks about this very topic of creating certainty in uncertain times. So much of it boils down to the specific steps I can put in place in my business. Reach out to the right people, say the right things, in the right order, consistently. That will not only improve your confidence in yourself. It will improve their confidence in you and their certainty that you can do the job for them.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing creating certainty in uncertain times. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Great to see you again, David. Wow, uncertain times. There's an understatement of the year, huh?

David: Yeah. There's been so much discussion on the forums and inside the social media groups and everything like that. A lot of people are uncertain about a lot of things, and that does not generally bode well for businesses.

Kevin: No, no, it definitely doesn't. So what does it really mean to create certainty? When everything around you feels unstable.

David: Yeah. We had talked in a previous podcast about our circles of influence. Like the things we can control and the things we can't. It really does circle back in a lot of ways to this.

When we talk about creating certainty, we can only ever do that within the realms that we control. We can create certainty in specific aspects of our business.

So when we're talking about things like tariffs, which obviously is a big topic these days, a lot of our clients are in the promotional products industry, and a lot of that product tends to come from overseas. Much of it is coming from China.

So in those situations, we're not able to create certainty with that, right? That's not within our sphere of influence. So what we can do and what our clients can do is to look at the specific things we can create certainty around.

Can we identify suppliers who are can provide products for us that are not impacted by that?

Can we look at more domestic suppliers? What are the specific things we can do to create a level of certainty for our customers? Something our competitors might not be able to provide?

Kevin: And I think there's a level of authenticity too that has to go with it, right? Because certainty you can sort of project certainty. but you don't want to pretend to have all the answers when you don't. So how do you balance that?

David: Yeah, you can't really fake certain, well, I guess you can fake certainty.

Kevin: You can try. Yeah,

David: You can pretend you're certain, but I'm not really talking about that.

I think there's certainly an air of confidence that you want to be able to convey to your clients, and sometimes when you're conveying confidence, you may still not be certain about things.

But in this conversation, I'd like to look at, okay, what are the things that we can do? What can we be certain of? You know, are we certain that we can help our clients? And if so, how are we certain that we can help our clients?

What are the things that we know that we can do that will help them? And if it's about sourcing things that are more in line with exactly what they're looking for, trying to get around the obstacles for our clients.

If we're certain we can do those types of things. Just identifying the very specific steps that we can take, what can we be certain about, and then focus on those things.

Kevin: You mentioned that, a lot of our listeners are in the promotional product space. There's still a lot of uncertainty that's coming our way. A lot of flipping and flopping going on with tariffs and whatnot. What do you recommend businesses do to sort of like help prep?

David: Well, first thing you should do is recognize that your clients are not unaware of this. Like they are aware of the fact that this stuff's going on.

Kevin: Right.

David: And I've talked to a lot of business owners recently who are just really conc...

Anytime there is any sort of issue in your business that’s not quite going the way it should, don't sabotage your sales success. Instead, just ask yourself, is this because the process that I have in place is not working? Or is it because the person who is supposed to be following the process just didn’t do it?

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist and will be discussing How Businesses Sabotage their Sales. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Good to see you, David. How you been?

David: Been doing great. It's good to see you too.

Kevin: Yeah, for sure. I'm excited to talk about this. So, sabotaging sales, what do you mean by that, when you say businesses are sabotaging their sales?

David: You know, I had some experiences recently and I'm like, did they intend to do this? Is this what they were trying to do? Did they set out to do this when they were doing it. One of the experiences I had recently was I was going to buy a pair of earbuds, right?

And there's a particular brand of earbuds that I like. It's not the ones that would normally leap to mind. It's another one. But a good brand, they work really well. And I got a text from them saying that they were having a sale. And I was like, okay, cool. Maybe I'll buy an extra pair of earbuds even though I don't need them.

And so in the link that they sent me, they said, click through and you get 35% off. I'm like, cool. So I click through the link and it takes me to a picture of what I think are the earbuds that they're selling, and it says 20% off, with a certain promo code.

And I'm like, okay, well I'm looking for the 35% off, but there was a different promo code in the text, so I'm like, okay, I'll just plug the correct promo code and it'll work. Right?

So finally figured out how to do that. No, it said this is not applicable to this particular product. So I'm like, okay. But they had some sort of chat person or chat being or chat AI, I don't know what it was.

Kevin: Chat AI agent. Yeah.

David: Yeah. Something not quite what I thought it might be, but. I thought, okay, well I'll ask the question. And none of the answers that I got were relevant to what I was asking. And I was like, I'm here. I've got my wallet open.

Kevin: I'm ready to buy!

David: I want to buy exactly the thing that you sent me a text to, and you're making it hard. Why are you making it so hard?

Kevin: Yeah.

David: And it replied quickly to a lot of questions and then, it was just like ghosting. It's like, okay, I didn't hear anything back. So I'm like, I'm like, are you AI? And I didn't get an answer. I thought if it was AI, it would at least tell me it was AI.

So, I didn't get to order that day. The next day I tried again. I actually reached out to their customer support, had another non-experience there. But eventually I was able to figure out that apparently there were two sets of this earbud in a similar color, and the link took you to the wrong one and applied the wrong link. And so that's why it was saying it was wrong.

And I didn't care about the color. I was like, I wouldn't have normally bought this color, but it was 35% off, so I was like...

Kevin: Yeah, yeah, whatever.

David: Right.

Kevin: Earbuds.

David: Anyway, long story short is what should have taken three to five minutes and been an exceptional experience took a whole lot longer and diminished my passion for this particular product.

So I thought, you know, there are a lot of businesses that do this sort of thing, and the words that leap to my mind is that they're sabotaging their own sales, which is kind of the purpose of this conversation.

Not for me to vent, but for us to talk about what businesses can do about it.

Kevin: Well, I'm glad you got that off your chest, David.

David: Thanks.

Kevin: It's probably something you needed to do.

David: I feel a lot better.

Kevin: Good, good, good. Well,

It's not always easy to get information from clients. If you're in a situation where you have good relationships with your clients, but you're struggling to get the information you need from them, there are very specific things that you can do that will help you to accomplish that a lot faster and a lot more organically. It'll just feel better when you're doing it right, and they'll be a lot more likely to help you with it.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing getting information out of clients. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Hey, welcome back to you too. I'm really excited to talk about this because let's be honest, like we're all very conscious of the fact that everyone wants our information, so it's a bit of a struggle sometimes.

David: Yeah, it really is. And when we're looking at trying to extract information from clients, sometimes it's like trying to pull teeth. Or trying to get the information that we need to either advance the sale or to be able to get an order completed and that sort of thing. And it can definitely be challenging.

Kevin: Yeah, no doubt. How much of it do you think is how people ask for the information? Instead of saying like, give me this. Is it better to kind of think about it in more of a storytelling narrative kind of way to pull things out?

David: That's a great question. I think a lot of it depends on your personality and the way that you communicate with people.

Many salespeople, many of the best salespeople, I think are natural storytellers. You ask them what time it is and it starts with a story. Right? So...

Kevin: Well, it all started back when I was eight.

David: Let's talk about time, shall we?

Kevin: Yeah.

David: Yeah, so I think it can take that form. I think there are also situations, a lot of times, where we know what we need to get from them, and sometimes if we're just going for it all the time, that can come across as a little too pushy in some ways.

So I think there's a natural give and take that needs to happen, so that people can feel engaged with us.

If they feel engaged in the conversation, if they feel that we're listening to them, paying attention to what they need, and that's woven in with getting the next piece of information that I need without coming across like an interrogator.

Like I'm going to shine a light on you. It's like the third degree in the cop movies. Right? If it feels like that, they're gone.

But when you're able to just engage them and let them know that you care about getting them a result, then they're a lot more likely to be free with the information.

Kevin: Obviously at the front end of a sales cycle, it's more basic information and it keeps going, getting more detailed as things go on. Should people change their approach as they go on from first contacting someone to maybe having a warm or even hot lead?

David: Definitely, and I think you raised exactly the right point there, which is that it does generally start out more general and then it gets more and more specific as you're getting down to it.

Sometimes salespeople will lead with things like, what's your budget? Right? Which is kind of intrusive, right?

Kevin: Yeah. That's the one, right?

David: You don't need to ask me about my budget if I'm not buying anything from you, right?

Kevin: Yeah, yeah. What's your budget? What's your timeline? Right? Isn't that what everybody always says first?

David: Yeah. And that's not the kind of thing that generally needs to come first.

Initially, what needs to happen is they need to feel some sort of connection. They need to have a clear idea of what you do, how you can help them, and all that sort of thing.

So I think a lot of times, in the early stages of a relationship when we're first meeting a prospect, it is information gathering from us, but it's about trying to find out what they need, what they're looking for,

When we discuss a step-by-step approach to the sales process, we're taking a scientific approach, which most people don't do. They just keep going out there and getting in front of people, smiling and dialing, whatever it is they're doing. And when you take a more strategic approach, you just get far more consistent results.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing a step-by-step process to the sales approach. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Great to see you, David. Excited to talk about this.

David: Yeah, it's great to see you as well. This actually came up because I saw this question going through a Facebook group. I thought it's an interesting topic because everybody's got their own idea of what that is, what that should be, and very few people actually have what they would describe as a step-by-step approach to the sales process, which I believe is critical if you want to be able to create consistent results.

Kevin: Why is it you think that people don't implement a step-by-step process? Is it just because they just like to shoot from the hip a little bit more or what is the reasoning?

David: Well, there are a lot of salespeople who do just like to go with the flow and they go with the conversation and everything like that.

And there are some people who can do that extremely well.

Kevin: Sure.

David: But my feeling is that even those who can do that extremely well are essentially harming themselves, by not having at least a framework that they go back to again and again and again, so that when prospects or clients inevitably get them derailed, they know exactly where to come back to so that they're not missing any steps.

That's why I think having the sales process in place is pretty important.

Kevin: Obviously, there's no universal sales approach for every industry because you know every industry is a little different, so how can a business lay out a good step-by-step sales approach that is suitable for what they do?

David: Great question. So in our business, one of the things that we help our clients with is exactly this. And a lot of our clients are in the print and promotional products industries, but this also applies to any other B2B business. It actually applies to a B2 C business. I haven't really found an industry where it doesn't apply.

And so when we initially laid this out in a program called Top Secrets of Customer Acquisition, we basically laid out six steps to customer acquisition. I'll put up a graph here to sort of demonstrate it as we're going through.

But the first step that we've identified is the targeting. Who exactly is it that I'm going to go after? Because if I don't know who I'm targeting, I've got no one to sell to.

I've got to have a really crystal clear idea of who the people are that I would like to go after. And so for me it always starts with that, who is it that I want to sell to?

Kevin: And in this day and age, we have so much data, we have so much information that there shouldn't be any reason you can't figure out that pretty precise target.

David: Exactly, and a lot of times people want to feel like they sell to everybody. But the problem is that, as the saying goes, if you feel like you're selling to everybody, you're probably not selling to anyone.

Because people don't always get it. They don't resonate with something unless they feel like the messaging is actually directed toward them.

So, it's a really good idea to. target small, Aim small, miss small, as they said in the movie the Patriot, right? Aim small, miss small.

You want to be able to do that with your targeting because when you do that, you can be more consistent in what you're saying to the people that you're approaching.

It'll make a lot more sense to them, and you'll be able to get a lot more traction with what you're doing.

Kevin: All right, so after targeting the right people, what's next?

What are the things you can control in your business? What are the things that we can look at? Identifying the very specific companies, the very specific industries that we need to be able to interact with, to be able to get our customers as close to what they need as possible.

We might not be able to get them exactly what they want at the price they want it. But most of them are going to understand that. Most clients are not going to blame you for the fact that the economy is doing certain things, or that there are things happening in the world.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, cohost Kevin Rosenquist and I will be discussing focusing on things you can control. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Hey, it's great to be here, David. I always am a big preacher around the house of "control what you can control." You know, I can't do everything. So control what you can control. So I'm excited to talk about this.

David: Yeah, it's a really good topic, both from a personal standpoint and from a business standpoint. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day of what's going on outside our own environments. Especially with the news. Everybody's talking about different things that are happening regarding the economy, the stock market, all kinds of things that are happening.

When we focus too much on the things that are outside of our control, we basically abdicate the things we can work on that move the needle for us.

Kevin: Do you feel like people are even more focused on stuff they can't control? Like what's happening in the world and in the news now because of how much news is thrown at us in so many different ways with social media and whatnot?

David: I think so. Yeah. I think it's always been like this. But yes, it does seem to be more of an epidemic lately, than maybe it has been in the past.

I remember being exposed to this concept, I think it was in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Stephen Covey was talking about your sphere of influence.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: Where you basically draw a circle and you say, okay, inside this circle is what I can control. And everything outside. It is what I can't control, which is basically the world and everything else. Right.

Kevin: Which is, which is a lot of stuff.

David: It is a lot of stuff. If this is the circle, then everything outside the circle off into infinity is the stuff you can't control. Exactly.

In a situation like that, the more you focus inside your sphere of influence, the bigger it gets.

So when you're focusing on the things that you have control of, you end up having control of more things.

When you focus your attention outside the sphere of influence, the smaller it gets. That's because you're not working on the things you can actually control.

And so for those of us in business... When we are able to really pay attention to that, you can grow your sphere of influence. You can control more of your own environment to accomplish the things you're looking to accomplish.

Kevin: Absolutely. So let 's get a little specific here. Let's talk about sales for a second. 'cause one of the things I think about with sales is that sales teams can get really tied up with market conditions and what competitors are doing and all that.

How can sales teams kind of focus on what they can directly influence.

David: That is such a brilliant example because it's so true. In sales meetings very often you'll have conversations. "Well, this person's doing this, or this person's doing that. Or these people are cutting their price." It's all valid.

Those are all things that may actually be happening in the marketplace that we have to respond to.

But the first thing to do in that situation is to say, how can we flip the script on this?

How can we turn this into something that we can do that is going to be better, different, and received by the market in a way that makes what they're doing less important...

We'd love to help you to get from here to there in terms of eliminating waste in your business. When you're focused on getting those things done and when you've got processes and procedures in place to allow you to accomplish it more quickly, then everything gets a whole lot better.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing eliminating waste in your business. Welcome, Kevin.

Kevin: Great to see you. David. Excited to be here.

David: I'm excited to have you here.

Kevin: Yeah, so we're talking waste, obviously waste in business. There's different kinds of waste.

A lot of people will immediately think of money, but that's not really what we're talking about, is it?

David: Well, some of what we're talking about, I guess. Yeah. There's been a lot of talk about finding and eliminating waste in the news. So I thought, how does that really apply when you're operating a business?

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: Anyone in business, particularly small to medium sized businesses, must be aware of the fact that there is always likely to waste in the business.

And as you pointed out, I mean, very often it starts with money. We're afraid that we might be wasting money, and in many cases we are.

Kevin: Sure.

David: But for most businesses who are reasonably run well, that's usually not the biggest thing.

Kevin: What would you say is the biggest thing, or can you give me like your top three?

David: Okay, sure. Yeah. I think for most of us it probably starts with time.

Kevin: Yeah.

David: Because the time that we waste is something that we can never get back.

I think I heard Brian Tracy say this years ago. If you lose money, you can always make more, but if you run out of time, that's it. All the money in the world won't help you. That's pretty much how it went.

Kevin: Yeah. I mean, there's no going back. So far they haven't figured out a way.

David: No. We have not figured out a way to do that.

So when we look at our days, weeks or even hours, we look at things like meetings. Are our meetings productive?

Are our processes organized or disorganized? What are the distractions like during the course of a day? Because when we're focusing on one thing and then we're distracted and we have to switch back and forth, it requires flipping the switches in our brains and getting ourselves adjusted to the new thing that we're thinking about.

All of those things consume time, which is, in many cases, even worse than money when we start wasting it.

Kevin: You brought up a good one, meetings. And I think that's something, especially in this day and age of Zoom calls and all that stuff. I have a lot of friends who are in the corporate world or in the business world, and they talk about the needless meetings, the constant need for them, for people to feel like you got to get the crew together.

Why are small businesses and medium sized businesses so focused on that and how can they like pull back?

David: Yeah, it's a great question. I think there are some people who just feel like it's necessary. I think there are some business owners, some managers who feel like their presence in everyone's day-to-day life is critical

Kevin: Right.

David: And that's true more of some people than others. Some employees are happy to be able to just do their own thing and get everything done. Others do need more interaction.

So it is an individual kind of thing. I think most business owners have to take a look at that and say, how much of me do they need? How much of their sales managers do they need?

But being aware of the fact that each time we force everyone to get together, the clock is running. The clock's running on everyone. And when you have a bunch of people on one meeting, that means that all those people are tied up for that period of time.

And if it's not productive for everyone on that meeting or in that meeting,

If we look at the idea of reactivating your client base in as many ways as possible, it means interacting with the people who have spent the money with us and doing that at a personal level, building the relationship, that’s about the best thing we can do.

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. You can engage your people in a lot of different ways. It can be done via email with a drip campaign.

There are reasons people buy from you, and reasons they don't buy from you. Today I'd share a presentation I put together for my clients in the print and promotional products industry that reveals many reasons why clients don't buy from you, and the one solution that addresses them all.

Hi and welcome to today's presentation Why Promo Clients Don't Buy from You and the One Solution that Addresses Them All.

I am so happy to have you with me today. This is a topic I find extremely interesting and extremely powerful. It's information that I've shared with my Inner Circle clients and our Total Market Domination clients. But I wanted to give you just sort of an overview of some of the things that you might be addressing. And when you address them correctly, you can actually create amazing solutions inside your business.

So with that said, let's take a look at why promo clients don't buy from you, and then what we can do about it.

Well, first of all, why don't they buy from you? One of the first, primary reasons that people don't buy from you is that they have no idea that you're alive. If they don't know you're alive, they can't buy from you.

Next is that they don't know what you do.

Obviously, if people have no idea of what you do, they're not going to come to you for solutions. This also ties into the next one, which is that they don't know how you can help them. If they have absolutely no idea how you can help them, no one is going to seek you out.

Sometimes they may know you're alive, they may know what you do, they may know how you can help them, but they don't yet trust you.

Another reason is that they don't know if they should trust you. Even if they can, they might not know if they should.

Many of your prospects aren't going to know why you're different, and if they don't know why you're different from what they already have, or what they've already tried, then they have no incentive to try you.

Next, they don't know if they can afford you. Obviously, they're not going to know what you charge or any of the above until you first overcome the problems that we addressed earlier.

They won't take your calls. Obviously, if people aren't going to take your calls, then you're not going to be able to sell to them.

Same thing if they won't return your calls. If you're calling people again and again and again, and they don't return your calls, they're not going to be able to buy from you.

Next we have, "they already have someone." Have you ever heard that one?

The answer, of course, is yes, you've probably heard that quite a lot, unless you have not been in business very long.

They view you as a commodity. In the promotional products industry, this is relatively easy to do, because they look at it and they say, "Okay, if everybody has access to the same products and services, then why should I choose you?" Right?

And one of the problems is that many distributors don't have a good answer to this either. If you don't know why they shouldn't view you as a commodity, you can't convey it to them, and so they're never going to know either.

They're on social media and you're not. I've heard distributors tell me this. The reason they won't buy from me is that they're on social media and I'm not. I can't reach them. Okay, we'll talk about that, but the reverse is also true.

They're not on social media and you are. "Oh yeah, they're not on social media. I'm trying to reach them and I can't." This is true. It's objectively true. If either of those scenarios are the case, if you're on social media and they're not, or they're on social media and you're not, then yes, you're not going to be able to reach them there and get those customers to buy from you.

They don't know if your recommendations are any good. How can they possibly know that until you have an opportunity to really communicate with them?

They don't know if your recommendations are going to work for them.

Disrupting sales relationships is tricky. When you go into a sales presentation, if you recognize that it's likely they're going to have someone, and if you've got an arsenal of responses that you can come back with to demonstrate to them why you are obviously the better choice, then they're going to be a lot more likely to at least give you a shot at that business, than if you don't have those things in place.

David: Hi, and welcome back in today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of disrupting sales relationships. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. It's a pleasure as always. I don't want to do it. Don't want to disrupt sales processes. I refuse. Don't want to do it.

David: Okay. I refuse to participate. Yeah, it's a tough one. The word disrupt is a tough word. But the reality of the situation is that when we're approaching a new prospect, a new client, and that person already has a business relationship, perhaps with a competitor of ours -- the only way that we're even going to get a shot at that business is if we can, in some way, disrupt the existing sales relationship.

Now, I'm not talking about trying to drive a wedge between people. I'm not talking about anything nefarious. I'm just talking about the idea that to disrupt an established sales relationship, particularly one that is going reasonably well, requires you to be significantly better and different than the option that they're already looking at.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. and I think that this starts way ahead of trying to disrupt any particular process that's going on right now. We've talked about, in the past, do you know your competitors at all? Do you know their sales process? I mean, how would you disrupt anything if you didn't know the process of what was going on?

David: Yeah, exactly. And if you think in terms of business relationships versus personal relationships, when you're in high school and you first start dating, and the person that you like is already attracted to somebody else, like, oh, okay, well, how am I going to position myself as a better alternative, a better option, right?

So it requires strategy. It requires persistence. It requires some sort of advantage, right? Some sort of, what we would call in business, a competitive advantage.

And we need to think through those things, because it's the same in a business relationship. If they've got a great business relationship, it's going to be a lot harder.

In those situations, we have to determine whether or not it even makes sense for us to try to provide a better solution.

But here's the thing, if we truly believe that our solution is better than whatever they're currently receiving Then we kind of owe it to them to let them know that, don't we?

Jay: Oh, yeah, I absolutely agree with that and we talked I think in the last podcast that we're a company that loves it when you talk to our competitors. We love it when you're in a sales process with somebody else, cause we know how unique we are in our presentation, in our initial consultations. We know.

And so the key for us to disrupting an existing sales process with somebody else is just, how do we get them to call us?

How do we introduce ourselves to them mid process? Because we know if they can find us or we can find them, our chances are pretty good.

David: Exactly. And so in your situation where you're using online resources like pay per click and things like that, it's a matter of getting some sort of messaging in front of them that has them questioning at that point, whether or not there is a better alternative out there for them.

And so the only people who are going to schedule a call with you are the ones who have determined that they are at least open to exploring that sort of relationship.

I think it's interesting that a lot of times in business loyalty is often based on inertia, right? It's just easier to stick with what I have rather than to try to fin...

Getting to your ideal prospects involves identifying what our ideal prospect looks like in terms of the type of customer we’re looking for, the type of industry they’re in, the number of people in their organization if we're selling B2B. All these considerations that are going to add up to the ideal prospect, because until we know who it is we're going to go after, we have absolutely no idea where to go to find them.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of getting to your ideal prospects. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much. Another great topic. We could call this one the Holy Grail of Sales.

How much time does everybody spend talking to people who would never be their client in the first place? What would you do with all that extra time?

David: It is an amazing amount of time. When we work with clients, that is one of the biggest ways that they get back time that is otherwise spent. Very often, when people are considering the idea of working with us to help them grow their sales and profits, it's like, “well, am I going to have time to do this?”

And nine times out of 10, they don't have time not to do it. Because they're wasting, in many cases, so much time with poor, unqualified prospects. And simply by taking a few specific actions, you can pretty much eliminate a lot of that right up front, save yourself enormous amounts of time, and better still, being able to then interact with the types of clients you actually want to do business with

Jay: But I'm a new company.

I need money to pay my bills. I need to try and close everybody. Isn't that what you would hear?

David: In the early stages, everybody says that, and after they've been in business for a while, they try to figure out, now how do I undo what I've done? How do I untie this knot that I've tied for myself over the past however, many months or years?

But yeah, in the early stages, we just want to take anyone who's willing to do business with us. But eventually, when our true selves kick in -- when we find ourselves in a conversation with the wrong client, somebody that we took on a while before, and we recognize, wow, this was a mistake -- that's when you start thinking, Okay, well, maybe what I need to do going forward is to not just take anyone.

I need to identify who are these ideal prospects. How can I identify and initiate contact with the right people up front so that I'm not wasting a lot of time with the wrong people down the line.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I have a business partner and he's this sage old business partner. He's built several businesses on his own over the years and I didn't know he was even doing it, but he has this list of people who he doesn't want to do business with anymore. He calls it the naughty list.

And, somebody came around and they were repurchasing our services. He just, with no emotion said, “nah, I don't want to do that.”

And I'm like, what are you talking…? I didn't even remember the customer. And he's like, “no, they're on the naughty list. They were a pain. They didn't provide what we needed soon enough and they harassed us on our pricing. The answer is no.”

And so he's got this Santa Claus naughty list, and I was like, “but they want to give us money.” And I've just come around to his way of thinking. I am not emotional about it anymore. They're on the list. Forget it.

David: It's a lump of coal for you, baby. That's how it works. Yeah. I mean, it is a strong argument for the fact that you don't need more prospects, you need the right prospects.

You don't need more customers necessarily, you need more of the right customers. Because life is too short to do anything else in my view.

Jay: Yeah. Let's say that you spend 10 hours a day working with customers are doing sales for potential customers, and five of those hours are spent on people who are not the right fit.

In order to turn the tables on rejection in sales, there are very specific steps you can take, and we work with our clients to help them do that every day of the week.

David: Hi and welcome back in today's episode co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of turning the tables on rejection in sales. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey Dave, it's always good to talk with you and I love these topics. They're so important I think more than anything, at least for me, rejection, fear of rejection stops me from doing a lot of things that I know I should be doing.

David: Yeah. And you are really not alone. I think we've all felt that way at one point or other. I know there was a period of time, a lot of years ago, where I was so frustrated by this that I'm like, okay, what can we do? To not just try to overcome it, not just try to overcome the fear, but to actually turn the tables on rejection in sales.

And essentially what I came up with is that in order to make that happen, we have to take the initiative in terms of identifying the types of clients that we want, the types of clients that we will accept. And by leading with that strength, going into each prospecting opportunity with the idea that I may accept this client, I may not.

They may accept me, they may not. If the two of us agree that we want to work together, we will. And if one of us doesn't want to work together, we won't. And being okay with that, Once I embraced that idea and that concept, everything became a lot easier.

Jay: Yeah. So just a paradigm shift. I will tell you, and this is no joke, before we dive into your concept a little bit more, I went to a doctor and I said, just give me a drug that makes me not fear rejection. He didn't have it, but hey, I was willing to try anything.

David: Yeah, it's funny because you would think there'd be something for that. I guess maybe something that might relax you or make you not care as much about the rejection, but, short of medication, I think the idea of sort of reframing it in some ways and saying, all right, I'm going to do what I can on my end in terms of identifying the clients that I want to work with.

And just by doing that, you can actually eliminate a lot of rejection when you decide in advance that there are some people you're going to talk to that are probably just not a good fit for you.

Jay: Yeah, I love this and I feel like I've been doing this, but not purposefully like you're talking about. I get to the point now where when I talk to somebody and they're not interested, I almost feel glad.

Because through the conversation, I learn they're not really a good fit for me. So we both kind of decide that on our own. We wish each other well. I add them to our drip campaign and it's done. I can hang up the phone call and do other work or move on to the next call.

David: Yeah. It's so much better when you're able to take an approach like that and feel good about the fact that we really weren't born to do business with anyone who can fog a mirror, right?

It's not an ideal scenario for either of us. I also realized at some point or other that rejection in some ways can actually be a tool to help you find better clients, whether you're the one who's rejecting them, basically saying, okay, this isn't a good fit.

Or even in a situation where if you decide you would potentially like to work with them, if they decide they don't want to work with you, if you view it as essentially a way for you to be able to find better clients, that also makes it quite a bit easier to take.

Jay: Yeah, I think I told you in the past, my dad was a salesman his whole life and I asked him how did you deal with rejection and he said I look at no's as a positive.

I know what my close rate is. I know how many cold calls I have to make. And so every time I got a no, that means I was one step closer to the yes. So, changing your outlook, your mindset, it actually made him feel good.

"You have to create value in the sales process, create value in all the communication that you're putting out there. When you do that, you're already positioned better and differently. So when you think about the idea of what you say about what you do, you're doing it in a way that is actually appealing to people rather than repellent."

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic "what you say about what you do." What it is, Jay?

Jay: Hey, David, how's it going? Once again, it's a pleasure to be here. I think, how we view ourselves, how we talk to ourselves, what is that inner monologue?

Those types of things, they matter a lot, and they're probably things that we never think about.

David: Yeah. And it's interesting you should bring that up. Because when we talk about what we say about what we do, yeah, there's what you just mentioned, what we're telling ourselves in our own heads. And then there's also the idea of what we're saying to prospects and clients about what we will potentially do for them.

Essentially the communication, the messaging that we are putting out into the world, that will allow someone to decide whether or not they want to do business with us.

Jay: Yeah. And this is so important because if you over promise, you're setting up for failure from the beginning, right? If you under promise, then they may find a competitor who promises something faster or better. So there is a strike zone there somewhere that you have to find.

David: Exactly. And our messaging is very likely either going to attract the person we're talking to, or it's going to repel them. Probably the worst case scenario is if it does neither. It's just totally boring and they're not even paying attention to what you have to say.

But when we recognize that, particularly in the early stages, what we tell them about what we do or what we're planning to do for them is going to determine the nature of the relationship.

If we communicate something that sounds appealing to them, It's like they'll be interested. If we communicate something that does not sound appealing to them, then it's likely they are not going to be interested.

So we don't want to go into these situations and wing it, particularly when we're going from prospect to prospect.

We want to make sure that we're creating a consistent experience so that each person we talk to is getting the best of what we have to offer, up front, so they can make an intelligent decision.

Jay: Yeah, we've really started using, I learned it from being in the media, process language. Like, if you are out doing a news report somewhere, you didn't just say, well, I'm standing on the street corner and this is what I'm seeing. You instead say, "well, we got here about 20 minutes ago when we rolled up, this is what we saw. This is what we're seeing, right? You bring them with you to wherever you're at. And so we kind of do this process language, not just about how we got here.

And process questions. Like I want to know what drove you to call me. So that's the first thing I want to know, "what drove you to call me?" The second thing I want to know is, what is your expectation from this call? Like what are you hoping to gain from it? And then we can get to where we're at.

And then we'll start talking a little bit. If you use our services, this will be the process moving forward. By the time we've shaped this whole thing, it's like we've been friends for years, you know what I mean? So, it's something that I love doing and it makes the potential client very comfortable.

David: It makes a whole lot of sense and it's really about being present in that moment with the prospect or client, and having them be there with you at that point as well. Where one person is not talking, another person is totally tuned out.

It really is about creating that level of communication where you are interacting the way that...

Reimagining the essentials is different for everyone. 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?”

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.

Don't be invisible to your target market. Do they even know you're alive? This goes back to the idea of money versus time. Because one of the advantages of social media is that if you have more time than you have money, you can spend more time posting and contacting people directly on social media.

If you have more money than you have time, then you can run ads and you can get your ads in front of people without having to sit in front of the computer all day. So there are definitely different ways to accomplish this.

If you want to become visible though, you have to have one or the other. You have to have time or money. You can't be out of both.

Well, I have no money and I have no time to do this. Well, at that point, you're out of business.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of, Are You Invisible to Your Target Market? Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much, David. This one is tough for me because when you know you have a product that people want, you just know it. And you know if they could just learn about you, that you would be able to sell this product and you just know they don't see you. It's a frustration. It really is.

David: Yeah, we've talked about this topic before. I've talked about this topic in live presentations and probably in previous podcasts, and one of the reasons that I keep coming back to it is that it really resonates with a lot of people in business, a lot of sales people, a lot of business owners, because it is so important.

The idea of being visible or invisible to your target market is going to directly impact your ability to make things happen. And what I find kind of fun about this topic, to the extent that it can be fun, is that a lot of times in the movies or in television, invisibility is generally viewed as a big advantage.

It's an asset, you know, Ooh, wouldn't it be cool if I'm Harry Potter and I've got my invisibility cloak, and I can do all sorts of things that are cool and fun. But in business invisibility is just deadly. Because, as you indicated, if the people who could benefit from what you're offering don't see you, don't hear you, don't know you're there, don't know you are alive, then you have absolutely zero possibility of selling to them.

So in evaluating that question for yourself, are you invisible to your target market? It's probably a good idea to really think it through, and don't assume that you are more visible than you might actually be.

Jay: Yeah, we know about assumptions, right? But I think this is also important because a lot of people will only focus on advertising that gets them leads or some type of returns.

There's a whole nother level of advertising where it's just brand awareness. You're probably not going to generate clicks, but if you can be one of the options in their mind, you know, if you're a plumber and you're not necessarily getting a lead every time you send out a postcard or something, but when that toilet finally goes down, if you're one of the three that they think about, then you're so much closer. And so that's a part of advertising that I think a lot of people miss.

David: Yeah, I completely agree. I think another problem that people run into sometimes with this is that they're trying to be everywhere at all times with everyone. And unless you have an unlimited budget, that just doesn't work. So you can get in front of a whole lot of people who have absolutely no capacity to buy from you.

I've worked with businesses in the past that were running radio ads and they were business to business businesses. And they're running on music stations, and I'm like, okay, well, it's possible that there are some business owners or some people who could buy from you who are listening to that station, but the majority of people listening to that ad don't own businesses.

They can't use what it is that you're selling.

When we're doing business-to-business or business-to-consumer outbound calls, the truth about call reluctance is that it can seem very real. Those fears can be founded.

They might very well say no. Or they might be rude, obnoxious, belligerent. It's possible they say all kinds of things that you don't want to hear. So that's all true. That could happen.

One of the things that helped me a lot though, is recognizing that we are not doing it for them.

We are not doing this for the people who react like that. We are doing it for the people that we are ultimately going to help. And we can't get to the people that we are going to ultimately help without having to go through some of these people sometimes in between.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic, Is Call Reluctance Real?

Jay: Listen, it's a pleasure to be here, David, and let me tell you, this is one of my biggest issues. I know it's real because I have a job where I spend a lot of time on the phone and man, there are days where I just do not want to do it.

And what's funny is it's actually something that I enjoy, but it requires a certain level of energy. It requires that you are prepared and there is the occasional call that turns in a direction that I don't want to go. And so this is me to a T. I experience this on a regular weekly basis.

David: Yeah, and the title is kind of provocative and I guess I sort of did that on purpose. Because anyone who has experienced this, that feeling of, "oh, I just don't feel like picking up the phone," is going to look at this and say, "well, yes, of course, it's real."

And I think that when we just look at it as call reluctance, then it's easy to say, yes, it's real. What do we do about it? But the reason that I wanted to raise the topic is that I don't believe that call reluctance is actually the issue. if you boil it down, what does it mean?

When I did this for myself and for other people who were struggling with it, it all really just boils down to fear, right?

It's some type of fear. It's not that we're really afraid of picking up the phone. That's the easy part. It's not that we're afraid of dialing. The issue is what's going to happen next. It's about that unknown. And I think that's what people struggle with, without even realizing that that's what they're struggling with.

Jay: Yeah. So I mean, for me, fear of rejection, fear of the no, and I mentioned fear of the negative experience. You know, the guy who's asking the questions that I can't answer or wants to spend two hours on the phone and I only have 20 minutes for him or those kinds of things. You're right, it's all born out of fear.

David: And what's interesting, too, is that today, if you have to pick up the phone and call somebody and you don't have an appointment with that person, the likelihood that they're actually even going to answer, that you're going to get to a live human being is probably what? 30%? 20%, right? 10%. I mean, most of them are going to go to voicemail.

And so voicemails are kind of easy as long as you know what you're going to say when you get a voicemail message. So a lot of it, I mean, at least 80% of it, it's like, well, there shouldn't be any fear here because they're probably not going to answer. Right?

But as you indicated, it's the fear of rejection. In some cases, it's the fear of success. And some people are like, "I've never had fear of success. I love success."

Well, we all love success, but sometimes getting to that success can be a little frightening. It can be a little bit of a struggle. And sometimes it's just, hesitation is born out of fears that just haven't even manifested yet.

Jay: Yeah. They're not real. And, for me, it's asking the question, "what if?" And this is again, something that my parents taught me. I would tell them that I didn't want to do something or I was afraid of doing something and ...

When you're creating demand for your products and services to the point where they really want it, "listen, yes, I want to do this. I want to move forward with you." That is extremely powerful.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I discuss creating demand for your solution. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Thank you so much. Once again, a great topic. If we could all do that, if we could all accomplish this simple goal, then none of us would have to worry. We'd have all the business that we would want, correct?

David: It sure seems that way, doesn't it? I mean, when we are able to succeed in creating demand for our products and services, selling becomes so much easier. It's not quite unnecessary, but it gets darn close to it. When somebody just really wants what it is that you have to offer, everything gets easier.

Jay: Yeah. I think may be a little bit counterintuitive, right? Where like, I need to find a demand that people have, and then I need to create solutions for that demand. And I think that's entirely appropriate, but it's not enough, right? It's maybe only half the battle.

David: Right, because there's a certain amount of demand that can be found, but there is probably a lot more that can be mined with a little bit of effort.

Now mining, that sort of implies that you've got to do some digging. You've got to do a little more work and just sort of saying, well, I found this, this, and this. These are the three things I'm going to talk about, and these are the three things I'm going to lead with. But when you recognize that there are things that we can say, there are things that we can do that will not just create demand for our products, particularly if we're selling commodity products.

Because creating demand for our products isn't going to be helpful unless it's creating demand for the products that we're selling. Because if they can get it anywhere, I can create demand for something that they can then go buy from someone else.

So part of this has to be the ability to create demand for not just the products and services you offer, but the way that you offer those things. All the little differences in the way that you do things, there needs to be demand that is created for that.

And you're the only one who can do it because you're the only one who knows what those differences are.

Jay: Yeah, I agree, and back to the idea that I'm going to create a business based upon a certain demand, can that demand actually support and sustain a business? You know, just because there's demand doesn't mean that you can survive off it, especially if you're only going to get a certain market share of that demand.

So it better not be your only solution, right? And so I think with your website advertising, with everything that you do, you should be thinking, how do I convince people who may happen to my site or happen on my business? Wow, I didn't even think that I needed this person, but I really do.

David: Yeah, and a lot of that goes to getting past the what, in terms of the product, and getting to the how. The way that you are better, the way that you are different, the reason that If they don't choose you over every other option available to them, they're shooting themselves in the foot. And that's what most people tend to miss in their messaging.

They talk about products, they talk about speed of delivery, they talk about pricing, all the usual things. But so many of those things are common to everyone, that those can't be the things that you focus on. Because if you do, you're just creating more demand for the products and services, as opposed to creating demand for your method of providing those products and services.

Jay: Yeah, you know, I think about our own business model. A lot of people call us and talk to us in the consultation. They're not even sure if they need help. So our first step is to convince them they absolutely do.

To hit the ground running in 2025, we can start by taking responsibility. Whenever we blame outside factors for things that go wrong, we immediately forget that there are things we can evaluate in ourselves to say, okay, well even if this is the case, even if this was just a terrible prospect, are there things that I could have done better and differently in this circumstance to create a better outcome? And almost inevitably, the answer is going to be yes.

But in order for that to happen, we have to consider it. And we have to think, is this actually what I want to do? And if you do that, you're just going to feel better about yourself. You're going to feel better about your situation. Because you're allowing yourself some level of control in the situation rather than simply delegating the failure to outside factors and assume you're a victim and there's nothing you can do about it.

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how to hit the ground running in the new year. Happy New Year, and welcome back Jay!

Jay: Thank you, David. It's such a pleasure to be here. I think everybody has a desire, you know, at the beginning of the year, to say this year's going to be different, you know, we're going to make all these changes. It's going to be fantastic.

But do they really have a way to translate that into action? I picture myself hitting the ground, you know, it's like the cartoon when they start to run, you know, their feet are moving, but they're not moving quite yet. I think a lot of us are in that place. How do we get from spinning to actually moving forward?

David: Yeah, it's a great question. I know in the promotional products industry, we have trade shows that start at the beginning of the new year, the ASI Show in Orlando, the PPAI Expo in Las Vegas. And, There's one in Fort Worth as well, an ASI show in Fort Worth.

So we got three trade shows in the industry that are really designed to help people get up and running and get started. But as we look at today, you know, this first week of the new year, even aside from that, whether or not you're attending a trade show, chances are you're probably pretty reasonably fired up.

Okay, here we go. It's another new year. What are we going to do? This is exciting. And if we think about the types of prospects that we want to interact with this year, the types of clients that we would like to attract, the types of customers that we might want to let go this year, and really focus on building our businesses as proactively as possible.

Building our client lists as proactively as possible can really help to improve our quality of life in a dramatic way.

Jay: Yeah. I love that. in the restaurant business, there's something called a theoretical food cost and an actual food cost. Theoretical is, what would things be like if you ran perfectly? If there was no waste, everything was perfect.

And then actual is where you're at. And the goal is to constantly be trying to close that gap. And so to me, I think about it in any business, what does your ideal look like? Your ideal client base, your ideal staff, your ideal sales?

So if you can know what that is and then track a course to get to it, I think that's a great way to feel progress. Because that's what I tend to miss when I'm running a business is sometimes it's just a daily grind. And I don't feel like I made any progress today. And if you do that over and over again, it's hard to continue to press forward.

David: It really is. And I think a lot of that goes to the fact that very often we're just tied up in the day. Whatever it is that's going on in the day, we're just facing whatever is happening to us moment by moment, day by day. And that can get very frustrating.

I remember, I think it was Tony Robbins was talking in a seminar one time about the idea that in order to create our future, we need to envision it first.

Today, we'll discuss a simple framework you can use this week for New Year Success Planning. Very often we say we're going to prioritize time with our family and our loved ones. And we do this every year, January 1st, going to spend more time with the people we care about, the people we love. And then by March, it's back to life as usual, right?

So if we decide what we're going to prioritize, who we're going to prioritize, and again, the flip side, what am I going to deprioritize? Who am I no longer going to prioritize in terms of allocating time?

Those things as well allow you to live a far more proactive life. And it allows you to really start living the kind of life that you want to engage in.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will discuss how to use this week for New Year Success Planning following a simple framework I call The Big A.P.E. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Well, I'm so glad to be here. David. I have to tell you, after Christmas my number one tendency is just to kind of want to detox, you know, because of all the shopping and everything else.

But I know it's also, because there's not a lot going on business wise. It's probably a great time to kind of start thinking about the next year.

David: Yeah, and I think detoxing is also a really good part of that. It's nice to be able to use this time, it's sort of the eye of the hurricane, a little break in the action before the new year starts and everything gets rolling again.

It's just a great time to be able to do that, to be able to take a breath. Take a moment. Sort of think through how things went, what we liked, and what we didn't like about the past year and what we want to do better and differently in the coming year.

And for me, I think it's just a great time for planning, for making notes, and really considering the things that we'd like to accomplish. Because, there's something magical about a new year where everybody wants to start fresh and turn the page.

I mean, there's no reason you couldn't do that any day or every week. Reminds me of the expression, "today is the first day of the rest of your life." People hear that and they go, "yeah, that's right." And then we never do anything about it.

But boy, January 1st rolls around and everybody wants to do things. We've got different resolutions, and I'm going to do this better. I'm going to do that better. Lots of people join gyms and they go for two weeks. Then that's the end of it, right?

So there is this tendency to get really excited and really focused about a new year, and then perhaps let it fall away. So if we use this week to just really think through, okay, what do I really want?

What am I trying to get out of my life, my business, you know, my relationships? What is it that I'm looking to accomplish? It's just a nice sort of quiet time to consider those sort of things.

Jay: Yeah, and I think, you gave the example of the gyms. My wife goes to the gym all the time and she can't stand January and into February because she can't find an open machine to use, because everybody has set this new goal and it's going to last at most six weeks and then everybody returns.

I think that that's kind of a microcosm of our goal setting for the new year and for resolution. So it has to be important too, as you're being mindful to be specific I think, but also to be reasonable with yourself, achievable, right? And trackable are all things that I think would probably be important in this process.

David: Absolutely. There's another thing that I tend to think of, just in terms of planning and thinking things through. I refer to it as The Big Ape, A.P.E., the Big Ape. And it stands for activities, priorities, and expectations.

So what are the activities that I want to engage in in the new year? What are the activities I no longer want to engage in in the new year?

Right? And that's big.

I think the best holiday gift is to make the most of ourselves, when it comes to personal development, whether that means sales and marketing training, whether it means personal training, whether it means meditation, whatever it is for you, prayer, whatever it is that allows you to get to a place where you can really focus, really be present, and be your best for yourself, and those around you, is really important.

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host, Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the best holiday gift you can give yourself and your family. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much, David, for the opportunity to be here. And I love this question. It's a little off track from some of the things that we normally talk about. But I think as we talk about running your own business and the amount of time that it takes, taking a little bit of time out to think about your family and how you can make their holidays special, I think it's a critical topic.

David: Yeah. And of course, because of the nature of the things that we talk about, what I'm really thinking about when it comes to the best holiday gift you can give yourself and your family, I tend to look at it as "a better you," right?

If you can provide yourself and your family with a better you, a smarter you, a more motivated you, a more inspired you, that is going to really make a huge difference in your business life, in your personal life, and the life of the people that you care about.

And of course, this time of year a lot of people are focused on actual gift giving, which of course is a traditional thing as well.

But when we think about what really is going to help ourselves, our family, our loved ones most, it's going to be, you know, a healthier, happier, safer, more productive you, generally.

Jay: Yeah. I love this line of thinking because you could give them all the presents in the world, but if you're stressed out all the time, if you're angry, because of what's going on at work and those types of things, you can't buy their love or their gratitude with gifts.

Maybe they're a little bit happy in the morning, but by the end of the day they still remember what kind of circumstances you've left them in.

David: Yeah, I remember when the kids were really young and we'd have gifts in the morning and by afternoon , it was like everybody was kind of cranky because you kind of get what you wanted out of the day and have too many sweets and all that sort of thing.

But again, I think if we think really more in terms of what we're going to be doing and how we're going to be living and interacting with each other. A great example of this about a week or so ago on social media, Charity Gibson, who is involved in the promotional products industry in a lot of ways, and is just really inspiring for a lot of people.

She posted something on Facebook about what happens when, at some point, you're doing everything for everyone else and you're not doing anything for yourself. You're not taking care of yourself. And I think it's such a great point, because a lot of times people can fall into this trap of thinking, well, I don't want to be selfish.

But there is a big difference between selfishness and what I refer to as rational self-interest.

In other words, rational self-interest is what keeps us from stepping off the curb and into traffic, right? The desire to look both ways before we cross the street. That's rational self-interest.

Nobody would really look at that and say, oh, you're being selfish.

But I think a lot of times people tend to, for themselves mostly, think, well, I should be doing more. I could be doing more. They want to help everybody else. And if you don't put gas in your own tank first, you're not going to have any energy left for anyone else.

Jay: Yeah, such a good point. In fact, I saw a study just yesterday and it was talking about the high levels of anxiety in our youth,

If you're just copying what everyone else is doing, and 80 percent of the market is doing that, you're just going to be seen as part of that group. So stop following the followers! If you want to differentiate, it starts with that. How am I communicating my strengths to an audience that actually needs the strengths that I'm able to deliver?

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic, Stop Following the Followers. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Once again, a great topic for our discussion. This one is hard. Sometimes we are sheep and we're not following a leader, right? We're following everyone else who's following that leader.

Why are we doing that?

David: Yeah, great question. Why are we doing that? I know in the early stages of my business, I did that all the time. When you don't know what to do, you're basically looking around to see what other people are doing, and very often they don't know what they're doing either.

I particularly remember in the early stages of my business where I would look at somebody who I saw as a competitor in my space, and I would say, okay, well, what are they doing?

And sometimes I would do that pretty indiscriminately, not even realizing that they may have been in worse shape than we were at that point, and I'm looking at what they're doing.

Now, fortunately, I've always been able to learn as much from bad example as I have from good. And to me, that's like a superpower.

If you're able to do that, it is extremely helpful. If you look at something that someone else is doing and you say, you know what, I am not doing that. And you see something that you like and say, well, I am going to do that. That's extremely helpful.

But very often we don't know who's doing extremely well and who's not doing as well.

And we see something we like, and we may imitate it. We may try to copy it. But, it may not be working for that person, and it very well might not work for us either.

Jay: Yeah, or I think understanding what is making them successful and what you're seeing them do, that doesn't mean that's what makes them successful.

I mean, there are many people out there who are successful in spite of all of the mistakes they're making. And that really frustrates me, David, when I see that, because here I am busting my butt to try and do it right, and I see other people that are... it's like they'd have to work hard to mess things up.

They just fall in a bucket of gold everywhere they go. Drives me crazy. It's like when I was in the radio business, we had a consultant who was paid incredible money and we're like, why does this guy know what he's doing?

Well, he happened to work for somebody who achieved major syndication. Well, just because he worked for that guy doesn't mean that he's the reason that guy was successful. And that doesn't mean we should listen to everything that he says.

David: Absolutely. I've got similar radio horror stories. I think we've all had experiences like that. We've also probably had experiences where we see someone, and our impression is that that person is successful, is smart, is doing things right, and is doing things well.

And that's not always the case. Because we don't really know what's happening behind the scenes. In our work with clients, one of the reasons we have the brand we have, TopSecrets.com, is that there are things that people don't know that can help them.

Whether you want to consider them secrets or whether you just want to consider them things that somebody's never learned, doesn't really matter. But it's a fact.

And I've had conversations with people who say, "oh, there's no such thing as secrets in business." And I'm like, "I completely disagree with that."

I completely disagree because while there are a lot of things that are common in business, and a lot of things that everybody knows. For every one of those,

I don't know if you've ever heard the expression, "no is a complete sentence." have you ever heard that one? It's interesting because it's very hard to just say no in business when someone asks you something. That was an old Nancy Reagan thing, right? "Just say no." Say no to drugs. Just say no. But when somebody asks you to do something, you just say "no." I think there was an episode of Seinfeld like that...

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I discuss the need to say no in business. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I think this is one of the hardest things to do in business because we feel like we can answer every question and that we should.

And the reality is, that's not the case.

David: Yeah, and it's such an easy trap to fall into because there are so many people that we feel like we need to say yes to, right? We've got business associates, we've got clients, we've got prospects, we've got family, we've got friends, everybody coming to us with things.

And the agree type of person inside us wants to say yes to most things. We want to be agreeable. We want to do the best of our ability. But sometimes we can really get in over our heads when we don't at least start to say no to some of the things that are not going to allow us to get where we need to go.

Jay: Yeah, and I agree. It's in your personal life. It's in your business life. If you have a sales cycle, it's which customers you choose to deal with. I mean, you can let your entire life be dominated. And I know people like this and I've looked at him and I said, how do you ever get something done? I mean, I love you because you want to help everybody and you're so serving to other people, but your family might be neglected. Your business might be neglected. There's got to be balance in the force, right?

David: Yeah. And sometimes, during some stages of life, it's easier than other times to say no. But there are periods in there, man, where it's just like you feel like you have to do everything.

You have to say yes to every opportunity. You have to at least explore it. You want to try to help everyone you can possibly help, which is a great thing, but we all have a limited, finite number of hours in a day. 24 hours is fixed. It's inflexible. We can't change that.

And everything we say yes to means that we're saying no to something else, even if we're not physically saying no.

We're not giving ourselves the ability to accomplish additional things, which creates sort of a huge opportunity cost if we're not careful.

Jay: Yeah, and how many of us are careful? That word careful, right, David? What does that mean? Is it identifying the things that you have to get done? I think yes, the things you want to get done, the priorities? And I don't think we're saying no to everybody, right?

It's understanding yourself and what's most important and saying, I'm actually going to say yes. to so many people, but after that, I'm booked. I can't. I've got to be with my family. I've got to be at work. I've got to be, with these other priorities.

David: Yes, and I think for a lot of us, it's inside of work where we often have the most difficulty saying no. Because when you're dealing with family and friends, in a way, it's easier to say, well, I can't because I have to do this. I can't because I have to work, right?

We're not saying no I'm not doing it. We're saying I can't. When in fact, we're either prioritizing incorrectly or prioritizing poorly or we're just making the decision that no, I'm going to do this instead

And it's very difficult to do that to actually say no to someone as opposed to presenting the excuse instead of the actual no. Saying I can't as opposed to I am choosing to do this other thing. That's tough.

Jay: Yeah, it is tough or find what I'll do is because I don't want to use the word no, I'll put it off till later. Like, I'll say, well,

Working harder won't cut it, and breaking the Effort to Outcome Myth starts with understanding that it's not going to be a 1 to 1 thing. You're not going to put in more effort and just immediately generate a corresponding amount of result. That's why it's necessary to look for points of leverage -- in the form of systems, technology, and delegation.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the Effort to Outcome Myth. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I've got this figured out. All I have to do is spend so much time on something and that guarantees me that I'm going to have the exact outcome that I want, right?

David: Cool. This is going to be the shortest episode ever. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it kind of falls along the line of what people always say about "you get out out of life what you put into it." And I like the sound of the expression, but what I found personally in my life is that it's just not true. It's not accurate.

It's never really a direct correlation. You never really get out of life exactly what you put in. You never get out of business exactly what you put in. You get out some sort of multiple, at least that's been my experience. Now, if your multiple is one to one, okay, then you're getting out what you're putting in.

But I'm sure you've had the experience as well, where you put a whole lot of work in on something, and it didn't create the return that you wanted. You've had other things that maybe you didn't have to put a lot of work in on, but they happened to work out well and created great results.

So I think sometimes when we make that connection in our mind saying, I have to push harder. I have to work more. I have to do more things in order to get what I need out of it. We may be missing some elements there.

Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. As you know, I've studied a lot of these billionaire types. I think a lot of people do, and I was looking for some commonality. And I do see commonality in how they think about things, how they look at things, but I don't see commonality in scheduling and how hard they work.

Some people like Bill Gates, his schedule, I mean, I get exhausted just reading it. But other people are like, no, I work smarter, not harder. And I work because I want time off. I want to enjoy my life. So I don't see a correlation between how much they work compared to what their results are.

David: Yeah, definitely not a one to one correlation. Now, some of it also is common sense. If you think in terms of people engaging in busy work, as opposed to impactful actions, things that actually move the needle. There's an example of where you can start to create some leverage for yourself.

If you look at your day to day actions. And you recognize that many of the things that we might be doing are not actually moving the needle for us, then it's easy to say, Okay, well, what can I eliminate? And what can I focus more attention on so that I can get the results that I'm looking for?

Jay: Yeah, and I think it's really difficult. We talk about this a lot. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

Especially as a small business owner, the idea of working smarter sometimes is the hardest thing that you can do. Because you're putting out fires and those fires need to be dealt with. That's why they're called fires, right?

So finding a way to do that but still move the needle forward can be a very difficult process.

David: Yeah, and I think when we look at things in terms of applying a brute force solution to what could be a strategic or a planning problem, that's also where we kind of run into trouble. Thinking, okay, well, I have to do more. I have to push more. I have to push harder. And what that doesn't take into consideration is the law of diminishing returns, right?

There are more hours that we're working, but that can often lead to burnout. It can lead to a lack of focus.

If you want to reduce or eliminate cold calls, you need to recognize that there are other, and very often more effective ways of doing this. More leveraged ways to be able to do this. More ways of being more focused, more specific...

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how to reduce or eliminate cold calls. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey David, I'm so glad we're talking about this. I hate cold calls and who loves them? Right? I mean, if anybody comes on and says they love cold calls, wow.

I mean, maybe if you do it enough and it's successful enough, I can see how you would love them, but I'm not to that point yet.

David: I've always been skeptical of that too, Jay. I've always been skeptical of people who say, I love cold calls. But I know they exist. And I've had conversations with people like that, and they tell me why they love them and how great they are at them.

And when I hear that, I'm like, congratulations, that's awesome. I'm extremely happy for you.

I've never actually learned anything from them, though, that I could really share with other people that would get other people to change their minds. And so for that reason, I've never been one, at any of our trainings, to sort of teach cold calling.

Now, have we done it over the years? Absolutely. But it's not something that I feel like, oh, okay, I'm going to put together a course on cold calling because I feel that strongly about it. I don't.

I feel more strongly that there are other, better ways of getting recognized and getting noticed, and that's why nearly everything we do in our material is focused on allowing people to do that without necessarily making cold calls.

And it's not even really just cold calls. There are certain things that some people hate. Cold calls, posting on social media, engaging in paid advertising, different people hate different things.

Now, if you hate all of those things, if you're not going to do anything, then it's going to be more of a challenge to get clients.

But generally speaking, you don't have to do everything and it's very likely there are things that you don't like to do, that you won't have to do if you take the time to think things through and come up with a strategy that works better for you.

Jay: Yeah, and I think you made such a good point there. There may be somebody who loves cold calls, there may be somebody who's successful, but that's really like a character trait. That's like an individual skill set.

So if you think Oh, because this person can do it, then that means I can have five people doing it. I don't know if that's reality, finding five people who love cold calls and are successful at it.

And the other thing is that because there are so many other ways to contact people now, a cold call is very surprising to me.

It's like, if you didn't send me an email first, that's very strange in today's world. It's changed.

David: It really is. You touched on something and this is a bit of an aside from what we're talking about, but I think it's important, which is that there are some people who are wired to do things.

There are some people whose personalities are geared toward doing things extremely well. There's a sales trainer that I've known over the years. I met him in a number of trade shows. He's kind of a bigger than life character. He's tall and he's really good looking, very well spoken, very smart, makes excellent presentations.

And every time I've seen him, I thought, this guy is made for this. He is built for this. profession. But what I've also noticed is that not everybody's him, right?

Not everybody's as tall, not everybody's as good looking, right? Not everybody is, and the list goes on.

So I think for the rest of us, for those of us who just need to be able to generate clients, qualify them quickly, get them sold into our process, and keep things moving in our businesses,

Dealing with qualified prospects only is the best. Try to get rid of some people as early on in the process as you possibly can. If you found out that you invested some time with them and you later discover, okay, this person is no longer qualified. Cut the cord, move on.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing Qualified Prospects Only. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you, David. Wow, this is the dream, right? This is the dream. If you could spend all your time only dealing with people who want your services, need your services, and then, wow, that's what we're searching for every day.

David: That's it, man. We are living the dream. And I think for a lot of people, the reason they don't live the dream is because they don't make it a priority. They don't build it in to their processes. They don't say to themselves, when I am in touch with a prospect today, this needs to be one of the very first things that I do.

Is to get them qualified in or out as quickly as possible so I can move forward and not waste another nanosecond of my life energy on an unqualified prospect.

It's doable, if you prioritize it as one of the first things that you want to have happen in a conversation with any new prospect.

Jay: Yeah, and I do want to point out there's qualifying your leads and making sure that new leads fit in, but then there's what we're talking about.

Okay, you've got somebody new, you're talking to them. In that process, you don't want to spend more time with them than you have to if they're just not going to fit what you have to offer. Now, I can usually do this in about five minutes, with somebody on the phone, and it's because I've learned what to ask.

So, normally I'm like, I really don't think we're going to be able to serve your needs. And then I get to move on to the next call. And I think you're sending a message to them and they may circle back to you eventually, because you were upfront with them.

David: Yeah, and we want to be upfront with people about that. Because we don't want to waste their time any more than we want to waste our own time. One of the things that I've said to people so many times in so many conversations is, "Look, I respect your time as I respect my own, which is to say a lot."

And it is so true. And the older I get, the more true it becomes. Although it's been true for decades now, right? I've always looked at it as, I think I heard this from Brian Tracy originally, in one of his recordings, he said if you run out of money, you can always make more, but if you run out of time, all the money in the world won't help you.

And I thought that is brilliant, because it is so true. When we invest time with unqualified prospects, when we spend too much time chasing down people who don't have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend. It means we are not in front of people who have all of those things.

And I did learn this lesson fairly early in my business, but I didn't immediately implement it. It took me probably another several years before I finally got all the processes and all the procedures in place to try to strain those out, before I ended up in conversations with them.

And so often in my conversations with our clients, I'll be talking to them about their procedure for bringing new clients through the door, like clockwork, because in my mind, everybody has to have that.

If you don't have a procedure, in your business, for bringing new customers in like clockwork, then you're going to be struggling. You're going to be missing out. And during some of those conversations, I've had people say, "well, yeah, I've been trying to get an appointment with this person for months."

And sometimes I'll say, well, does this person even deserve an appointment? Have you qualified them? Have you asked a couple of qualifying questions to find out if they have any of the things, the need,

Each time we're handling objections in sales, we should get better at it. Every sales call you have, every objection you ever receive, if you're able to document the primary questions and objections and concerns that you get, and you can properly document your best responses to that -- the ones that have gotten you the best results -- now you build up an arsenal of material that allows you to stage those responses up front, make them part of the presentation, part of the reason to buy from you rather than your competitor.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss why salespeople struggle handling objections in sales. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you, David. Another great discussion. I feel like we get into just kind of the same old responses, or we feel like at the first rejection, "Oh, that's a no. So I move on to the next person."

David: Yeah, I give up when in fact, most objections indicate interest. And sometimes salespeople forget this. A lot of them know it and they forget it, but some don't even realize it.

They think, okay, if they object, they don't like it. They don't want it. They reject me. They hate me. All these types of things. Most of which are not true. And maybe none of them are true.

But when somebody objects or raises some sort of objection to what you say, it means, "okay, you have me interested enough to ask the question. Otherwise I would say, no, not interested at all. Thanks."

So that's one important aspect of it, is that if you struggle handling objections in sales, part of it might just be your mindset. If you believe that an objection means non-interest, then you kind of shoot yourself in the foot to start out with.

Jay: Yeah, such a great point. I think you have to convert your thinking a little bit and look at rejection or questions as an opportunity.

This is kind of side thing, but you know, in the restaurant business where I started out, people were always afraid of customer complaints. And I always felt like these are an opportunity. They create an opportunity to build loyalty because none of us expect anybody to be perfect. Well, some people do, and some people you can't please, right?

But they do expect you to resolve it. And so, I always felt like if I can really resolve this situation well, I build loyalty. Because they know that if they come here, they will be treated well. And I think rejections are the same depending on how you handle them.

David: Yeah, no question. And what you talk about, rejections, especially if it's after they've received the service, right? If you come to a restaurant and you had a bad experience, that's an after the fact, then it's remedial. You have to fix that.

In a sales situation, they haven't tried the food yet, right? So this is up front, this would be like, well, why should I even come into your restaurant in the first place? And that's where you've got to be able to have your messaging dialed in to the point where it makes such perfect sense for them to choose the right option, as far as you're concerned. To come into the restaurant or to take advantage of whatever it is that you offer, that they will give you a shot.

So when people struggle handling objections in sales, in some cases, it's that they haven't documented the objections they've gotten in the past. And if you don't come up with answers, to the things that come up again, and again, and again, that is really a bad sign.

I've seen this recently on TV. I try never to talk politics on this podcast, but sometimes people ask the same question over and over and they never come up with a good answer to it.

Jay: Yeah.

David: And that doesn't make sense. What you need to be able to do when you sell yourself, when you sell your business, when you sell an idea, is you need to be able to identify what are the most common questions I get?

What are the most common complaints or objections that I get ab...

If you're in a situation where you know you need to get more leads -- you need to generate more and better leads -- there are very specific ways of doing it.

One of the things that we do with our clients is we focus on, what are the different methods of lead generation that they're currently using? What are some of the methods they could be using, if they're not already using those.

And then testing those out as quickly as possible to find out what actually works and what doesn't. Some people spend months or years trying to perfect something that isn't working. And simply by switching to another method, you can get incredibly better results in a much shorter period of time.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how to get more leads. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, it's so good to be here, David. What an amazing topic. I mean, it's got to be the question on everybody's mind, how to get more leads.

David: Yeah. And I think a lot of people look at it and they think, well, they know leads are the lifeblood of our businesses.

Now, if we're not constantly getting new leads in the door, then your pipeline dries up, everything gets bad. It's not an ideal scenario. Obviously, it's a very important consideration. There are lots of ways to get more leads and there's no shortage online of people who will try to sell you different methods of doing that.

And, this is why I value your opinion on this as well, because I know that you do quite a bit of lead generation in your own business, and lots of people pushing lots of different things. I'd like to get a feel from you, if you don't mind, to start out. sort of the types of things that people have told you are going to help get you leads and which ones seem to work better and which ones didn't seem to work as well.

Jay: Yeah, you're exactly right. This is something that we rely on heavily. Our entire business model is getting people to sign up for our free consultations. And so, how do you do that? How do you make sure that they're the best leads? We started out relying heavily on Google Ads, pay per click.

But even that, can be so tricky. I don't want to spend my time talking to a lot of people who really don't need my services. So, not just leads, but qualifying leads. We're going to talk about that in an upcoming podcast. But, I'll tell you, David, we don't want to pay for every lead.

So our question has been, how do we get leads that we don't have to pay for, right? And then also, how do we make sure that we have the best close rate on leads? But, we get email marketing, we get people contacting us every day saying, we can do this for you and we can do that for you.

And you want to try some of those, but at the same time, I'm like, oh, we have a system that works. And so I have a hard time breaking away from that and spending a lot of time on those other things because you really don't know what's going to work until you try it.

David: Yeah. We've probably had a bit of this discussion in the past as well.

The idea that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So there are people who like generating leads on Instagram. And so they'll put out information on here's how to get leads on Instagram, or here's how to get leads through Facebook groups, or here's how to get leads on LinkedIn, or through LinkedIn direct messaging.

And so everybody's got their own little tiny slice that they're looking at to say, this is it. This is exactly the way to get leads. And in my experience, not only in our own businesses, but also working with other people's businesses, what I found is that it's very easy for people to get sold on the idea of like one particular, tiny niche solution that is going to be the solution to all of your lead problems.

And I mean, I spend a lot of money on my own training, my own education, exploring, what's available, what works, what doesn't work.

When I say "get over being scared of selling," that doesn't mean that you have to engage in methods of contact that you're really, truly uncomfortable with, right? That means finding a path, finding a path that works for you, finding a path that works for your people. Finding a path that works for your prospects and clients, right?

And there's always a path. There is always a path to get there.

David: Hi and welcome back. Are you scared of selling? If so, get over it. Today, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing that very topic. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, it's a great Halloween topic, right? Being scared. My kids are watching scary movies all of this month and I participate in a scary movie all day long when I have to pick up the phone and I have to talk to people who I don't know and convince them why my services are what they need. Please write me a check.

That is a scary prospect when you think about it.

David: Yeah, entrepreneurs basically are facing Halloween every day. In a lot of cases, a lot of ways, whether it's making phone calls or making payroll or making decisions, making rules, it's always about making something.

And the whole idea of being scared of selling, I hear this from so many people that I thought we needed to address it. And when I say get over it, that sounds very insensitive, and perhaps it is, but it's also very necessary.

Jay: Yeah, I mean, it's the reality. If you're in a business model where you have to sell, then you have to get over it. It's just that simple, and if you don't, then you're going to constantly be struggling.

And it's not something that you're going to do from day one, but it is something that you have to be determined to do.

David: Yes. And when I say this, I don't mean to put anybody down, right? There are a lot of really good people who have really good reasons for being scared of selling.

Certainly in their minds, they've got really good reasons for it. And I'm not taking any of that away. It's a fact. The fact that there's a term called "call reluctance" indicates that there is a level of fear based here to the point where they had to create a term for it.

So, what I find is helpful -- particularly if I'm interacting with salespeople who are running into this situation -- and a lot of times they won't even say they're scared of selling, but ultimately that's what comes out. One of the things that we have to look at first is why are they scared?

Why are they scared of selling? Is it fear of success? Is it fear of failure? And a lot of times we hear blanket terms like that and they're like, "Oh no, it's not that." But sometimes it is.

Sometimes it's variations of that. I'm afraid that if I call and they say no, it's going to hurt my self esteem. That's fear of failure. I'm afraid if I do too well, people are going to resent me and think ill of me, right? Some people think that way. So any of those preconceived notions that we have about what our sales success will do to us, for good or for bad, are going to impact our actions.

And that's why I say we need to get over those things, right? We have to get past those things and once again, deal with reality. I've been on a sort of truth quest lately in terms of let's not look at what we think about. Let's not look at what we fear. Let's look at what's true. Let's look at what's real in the market right now.

If there is somebody in the market right now who is afraid to interact with prospects or clients, it's going to impact their performance because it's going to impact what they actually do.

If you're scared to pick up the phone, you won't pick up the phone. If you're scared to send an email, you won't send the email. Or if you do, it'll take a lot longer than it should.

And then that's four other emails that you wouldn't have sent in the meantime. So we have to get over it. And a lot of it starts with the why.

Jay: Yeah, the why is important.

Change is coming... because change is always coming. And we need to try to stay ahead of it. And we're not always going to be able to do that. But we do have the ability to anticipate things that could potentially happen in the not too distant future and say, okay, if this happens, then what am I going to do? How am I going to adapt to that?

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic, Change is Coming. Don't Make it Harder. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: It's good to be here, David. Change is hard. Change is not easy in life, in business. We like comfort zones. We like to get in a groove. And I am the first to admit it. If I could find a way to not have to change in business and just cruise, I'm not opposed to just cruising.

David: Yeah, well, status quo can certainly be comfortable until it's not, right? It's very comfortable until it's not. And when I say change is coming, I mean, so much of what we've been hearing lately is about all the potential changes that could be coming. And regardless, and I'm not going to get into politics ever at all on this podcast, but regardless of the outcome, there is going to be change coming, because it always does.

It's the nature of life. It's the nature of business. Change is always coming. And so, When we try to fight it, when we try to avoid it, we make things harder on ourselves, right? The change is going to come. Now, we're going to have to change our approach very likely.

We're going to have to do things differently. We're going to have to plan differently. There are all types of things that we are actually going to have to do. But if we focus on that, rather than the indignity of the fact that change is coming, we make it a lot easier on ourselves.

Jay: Yeah, you're exactly right.

I think about a change that we all had to go through, and that's the pandemic. And how that was all a change that we wondered if we were going to survive. It was going to destroy our businesses, our workplaces, our way of life, everything. You think about, we're home office now. And we're going to stay that way.

And if you had asked me before the pandemic, I would have said, no, that wouldn't work. I look at my friends in the restaurant industry who pivoted to drive through only, and when the time came back to open up their dining rooms, they didn't want to do it. They really liked the drive thru model or the delivery model so sometimes being forced to change and being ready to change.

You're going to discover, things that you would have ruled out otherwise, and you're going to be better for it, ideally.

David: No question. That exact example, there's a restaurant that we go to in our area a lot, and when the pandemic came and you were no longer able to go into the restaurants, they started a pickup service.

And it had never occurred to us to pick up from that restaurant before. We always went in, sat down, enjoyed the meal, and that was it. But after a while, you're like, well, I could really use some of that food. We don't feel like cooking. Okay, I'm going to give it a try. I'll go pick it up. And all of a sudden, that door was open for us as well.

And so after you were able to go back into the restaurant, there were still a lot of times, and there are times now where we'll still pick things up and bring it home because now we know that it's possible. So what it gave them is a new revenue stream, right? At the time they had a new revenue stream, but they didn't have their primary revenue stream. So they were hurting.

But then after things opened up again, they got the regular business back and now they have this takeout service that people are using more and more, it actually allows things to grow. So it's a perfect example why our topic is so appropriate.

Change is coming. Change is inevitable. It's happening all the time. And the more we resist reality, the more problems we have.

Jay: Yeah,

When I say your competition isn't that good, what I mean is that a lot of them are not taking the time to learn the things that will allow them to perform better.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I say, your competition isn't that good. Right, Jay?

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. Do you even know who your competition is? Do you know what they offer? Do you know what people think of them compared to you? Maybe you don't even know if your competition is that good.

David: Exactly. And I hear, so many times, when I'm talking to salespeople, the idea that, there's a lot of competition. Competition is very difficult. There's a lot of online competition. There's a lot of local competition. There's a lot of price-cutting competition. There are all these different variations on competition.

And that's all true. But a lot of them really, honestly, just aren't that good. And if you recognize right up front that most businesses are average, right? There's an average in every business, in every industry, there's an average. And some people are better than average. Some people are worse than average.

There are a lot of average. So if you're competing with the average or the less than average, then you should be able to do pretty well. If you're a conscientious individual, if you're reasonably good at what you do, if you study and practice your profession and you get reasonably good at it, you'll be able to outperform a lot of them because to the extent that there are really exceptional competitors in your market, there are a lot less of those than there are the ones on the other side.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I've always believed this, you know, you can get caught up in the muck. When I was in radio, I worked for a radio station that had a built in listenership because it was so ingrained in the community. And what that did is it made it so they didn't have to work hard to get sales or to get numbers.

Now you would think, oh man, that's an amazing place to be. But what happened is, they started to get complacent, right? Everything was so easy, and then all of a sudden ratings started to shift and suddenly they realized, we don't know how to sell. Because we're so used to sitting at a desk and the phone is ringing. And we're just taking orders.

So you're not a salesperson, you're taking orders, right? And their competitors started to eat them alive because their competitors had to sell all the time, and they were very good at it.

So sometimes you're successful just in spite of yourself. And that may be what your competitors are in, what state they're in.

David: It really could be as simple as that and as difficult as that, in either situation. But, you know, the idea that the competition is excellent, or the competition is terrible, or the competition is average. In a sense, none of it really matters.

Because this is life. This is the world that we're in. These are the cards we've been dealt, right?

So our competition is there. We're there. The question is, how are we going to make sure that we are outperforming our competition in all the key areas of customer contact? I mean, if you were to boil it down and say, okay, let's say my competition is very good.

Let's say you completely disagree with the premise of this podcast, that your competition isn't that good, or that it's average or whatever you say. "No, I've got a lot of competition."

Okay, then that's your question. How do you outperform your competition in all key areas of customer contact?

Some people may say, "well, I don't know. What are the key areas of customer contact?" And if you're asking yourself that kind of question, that indicates that there's work to be done in your organization.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And do you even know how the competition functions to be able to compare yourself? I mean, that's got to be at least half the battle, right?

David: Yeah, that's part of the battle.

If you're at a point right now where you know you need to be selling more, but for whatever reason you're not -- and you could feel like it's the economy, you could feel like it's the competition, it doesn't really matter what it is -- If it's either of those things or if it's something else, there are ways around it. There are specific things you can do that will help you to get through to the people that you need to reach, and drive them to either a yes or no, thumbs up or thumbs down decision. Sometimes the answer is going to be no. But sometimes it's going to be yes. If you're not even giving them the option to give you a thumbs up or thumbs down, there's no way you win.

David: Hi, and welcome back. Today, Jay McFarland and I will be discussing Don't Wait for the Economy to Improve. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, Dave. As always, it's a real pleasure. You know, I've been thinking a lot about the economy, and it's really kind of unique because there are parts of this economy that are really struggling and there are parts that are really booming.

So depending upon where you're at in that spectrum, you could be getting hit really hard or you could just be celebrating, right? In our case, we're definitely feeling the effects of inflation. I can feel it in our client's willingness to make purchases. Cause things are a little bit tighter than they normally are.

David: Yeah, it's interesting. Like you said, some people are really struggling right now. Some people are having their best months ever. It really kind of depends. But when we talk about the idea of not waiting for the economy to improve, I think there are a lot of good reasons for that. The first reason I would say is that your smart competition will not, they're not going to wait, they're going to be out there, they're going to be in front of people.

And if you're not in front of people, then that just means you have absolutely no opportunity to get the business. So I've heard a number of people talking about the problems with the economy. And I've heard a number of people talking about the fact that they're waiting for things to improve. And I saw that comment online the other day, and I thought, we need to talk about this because essentially we have to be selling all the time, right?

I mean, most businesses can't afford to wait around until things get better. Reminds me of that old Zig Ziglar line where you don't wait until all the lights turn green before you head into town, right? It just doesn't work.

Jay: Right. Right, right. It's a great point. And I also think that part of any of your business strategy, you have to be prepared for the ups and downs.

Good businesses know how to pivot, they know when to pivot. So if you're a new business, this is going to be hard for you, but it's one of the reasons why you want to always be tracking, right? Always be watching because there's seasonality, there's economies of the country, of your local economies, all kinds of things that can impact your business model.

David: Yeah. And the truth of the matter is that we only ever have right now. We can't sell in the past. We might be able to sell in the future, right? Nobody knows their future. But yeah, we can plan to sell in the future, but we can't sell in the future right now. All we can do is sell now. We can make plans, but sometimes they happen, sometimes they don't.

Right now is the only thing we've got. So it's always the best time to sell. Right now is always the very best time that we have to sell, because we really have no alternative in the moment. Well, I guess the alternative is wait. But when you're waiting, you're not selling, and other people are.

Jay: Yeah, and I'll tell you, I'm not in a business model where I can just stop selling.

I mean, that's not an option, right? So, we're in the process of talking about our pricing structure, talking about the different products we offer.

We get results from social media when we're able to identify the result that we're looking to get, and identify the messaging that we need to create to be able to get in front of these ideal prospects to have them raise their hands and express interest. When we do those things correctly, then you can get to the point where nearly everybody you talk to is actually qualified to do business with you.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing getting results from social media. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. This is a big topic. Talk about opening a can of worms. It's something everybody wants, and we talked, last podcast about learning online and what great resources there are.

This is a place where there may be such an overload of information and different ideas that I don't know if you're going to find the answer online. I really don't.

David: You'll find a lot of answers online. Yeah., Right? Whether or not it's the answer you're looking for, whether or not it's the answer that solves your problem, that is the big question mark.

But I feel like this topic is so important because everyone's on social media. Everyone's trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. And the reason that I believe the word results is so important is that it narrows your focus. It forces you to think in terms of, okay, what is the result I even want to get here? What am I trying to do?

Because as we talked about in a previous podcast, you can go on social media and it's nothing but distraction after distraction. And if you just turn it on and go in there without a really strong focus in terms of what you want to accomplish, what result you want to get, you're not getting any sort of result, except you're going to get pulled into other people's experiences.

So from my standpoint, the first thing we need to do is to identify what is the result that I would like to get from social media? And then you can look at how much time that I spend on there is actually allocated to getting that result. That'll tell you a lot right off the bat.

Jay: Yeah, and I think that there is a misguided focus that you need a large audience, right?

Like if I can get up to 10, 000 followers or whatever, that's not true. it could be better to have a thousand dedicated followers who are potential clients than having a hundred thousand people who may just clog up your pipeline and who really never are going to be your clients.

David: Right. And if they're not responding to what you do, if they're not liking, if they're not replying, then the algorithm says people aren't interested in this. So you're exactly right. If you just had the hundred people or so who are going to click today's link on there. You'd be seeing everybody, everyone would be seeing your stuff. But of course it's impossible to do that.

So you're exactly right. It's about saying, all right, well, how can I get to more of the right kind of people who resonate with the material that I'm putting out? And I am not speaking as an authority on social media. Okay. I want to be really clear about this. I'm not coming to you and saying, oh yes, I'm the guy for social media.

No, not saying that. However, what we have been able to do is to identify specific things that our clients have wanted to accomplish, and we're very good at helping them accomplish it, once we decide exactly what those results are.

Jay: Yeah, I'll tell you where we're at right now in our company.

As you know, we offer Tax Services to a very specific group, so, I've told you in the past, we have spent two years identifying keywords for paid ads, and it's been a constant process where we're refining, I do the consultations, And so when I see that we're getting consultations that are not in the strike zone, I go back to our keyword, you know, the person doing our Google ads, and we refine, and we refine, and refine.

And I've told you,

David: When we talk about learning from failure, it doesn't just have to be our failures. We can learn from the failures of others.

Jay: Oh yeah.

David: We can learn from the failures of our friends, our family, our parents, our children. We can learn from any type of failure that we meet along the way. And when we do that, when we learn from other people's failures, we are saving ourselves a lot more aggravation.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing learning from failure. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Once again, it's a pleasure to be here. This one, again, another important topic. I think we have a tendency, when we have failure, to not want to try that again, as opposed to saying I don't know who said it, but fail forward. Right?

So like it or not, we're a result of our failures, and we're probably going to fail more than we win. So defining what we do in failure, I think, is very important.

David: Yeah, I think this particular topic for myself, I know, has been absolutely critical in every aspect of my development from the time I was a child.

When I was in grade school and I wasn't always the most motivated student because I wasn't interested in some of the topics, I would not do well in certain areas. And that wasn't great. I mean, what I should have learned from that is do a better job of it, anyway,

I didn't learn that at the time. And maybe that's why I'm an entrepreneur today, because I think a lot of entrepreneurs start out the same way.

It's like you're on a path. There are specific things that just really interest you that you can focus on diligently. And there are other things that you can't.

But also just an example, I know throughout my own life, you're going to be able to learn something from everyone you meet, whether it's positive or negative. So you might as well take advantage of that.

And if you recognize that you can pick up on these things fairly early on in most relationships and decide to learn from them, everything gets a whole lot easier.

Jay: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with you. Once again, I think all the podcasts we've been doing recently self awareness. So important. Personal inventories, so important.

Do you even recognize the failure? Are you deliberate about what your response is going to be? And if so, I think you can turn it around and make it a positive. If not, I think it's just by nature going to become a negative.

David: Yeah, and whenever we're going through something in business that we would categorize as a failure, and that varies widely in business, as you know, to a complete business failure, I mean, that's something you'll learn from for a really long time, when that happens.

It can be small things, it can be large things, but if we look at each of those things as an experience, there is very likely a lot that we can learn from that.

What was it that caused this problem to begin with? I know in business for myself, most likely cause of issues and ultimate failure has always been, In some way related to communication.

We weren't communicating properly with the other people, or they weren't communicating properly with us, or they weren't communicating honestly with us, or however it worked out.

But a lot of it, for me, boils down to communication failures. And when you're aware of the areas where these failures likely happen, you can then pay closer attention going forward so that you don't repeat those types of things.

Jay: Yeah, I grew up kind of in the retail industry and, when a failure happens, you have managers who want to just find the closest person and, yell at them and blame them.

But then you have others and I've learned that usually it's not like you said, a person problem. It's a systems problem.

So is it your communication that's bad? What is it? And if you can fix it, is it your training? You didn't train, you know, whatever it is,

Investing in yourself isn't always easy. It is a matter of finding the time to make these investments in ourselves and to say, "okay, if I can't go to a cabin for a week, what can I do? When can I do this?"

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarlane and I will be discussing investing in yourself. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey David. It's so good to be here. I feel like lately we've been going after things that I really struggle with. We talked about controlling your internal monologue. Now we're talking about investing in yourself.

It's really easy for me to invest in other people. That is very easy. But taking time to invest in myself... when I need something, I will go and find it and I'll learn how to do it. But being proactive about it. I'm reactive, just about in every way.

David: Interesting. So when you think in terms of investing in yourself, you mean investing what? Time, money?

Jay: All of it. you know, investing in myself when it comes to just taking time to learn new things, or I think investing in yourself can be just reading on a regular basis, or instead of watching social media, be listening to productive podcasts, or, taking a walk, those kind of things.

We talked in the last podcast, controlling your internal monologue. Those are all things that require proactivity and honestly, I don't know if it's pride or stubbornness or whatever else. I'm like, oh, I'm good. You know, I'm good.

David: That's interesting because we are actually on completely opposite ends of the spectrum on this one normally we're agreeing with each other not that we're disagreeing here, but I am at totally the other end of the spectrum.

I'm constantly reading stuff. I'm constantly investing in programs and audios and videos and courses. I can't tell you, and I'd be embarrassed if I could tell you, how much I spend on that type of thing. Just because, I don't know if that is like a FOMO element of mine, where I'm afraid I'm going to miss something, but I'm conscious of it to the point where I recognize that you don't want to invest in everything, right?

There's looking at investments that are designed to help you with right where you are now. If you need help getting over a particular challenge, that's where I find the investments most worthwhile.

And then there are investments that sort of just in case learning. I'm learning this skill just in case. I'm going to learn how to do whatever, something related to social media that may or may not help. Or that sounds like the catchy thing of the day.

Because when you're online, you will hear all kinds of people talking about all kinds of different things that are the solution to your problem.

And one person is going to tell you that it's Instagram. And another person is going to tell you that it's Facebook ads. And somebody else is going to tell you that it's organic. And somebody else is going to tell you that it's something completely different than those things.

Everybody's got a solution. And it reminds me of the old adage that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right?

So depending on who you're listening to, who you're paying attention to, you may end up investing in things that are not actually designed to get you from where you are now to where you want to be.

Jay: Yeah. And I guess I have to clarify a little bit of what I've said. If it's something I need or want, I'm a dog with a bone. For me it's the difference of, do I learn how to do exactly what I want, or do I go to college and learn all of these broad subject matters, and then focus.

I think both are important, and I'm never the broad subject matter guy, right? I mean, Over the course of my lifetime, I've learned how to make video games and released over 100 apps. I got into talk radio. I started several businesses. I have training courses. So, I certainly invest in myself, but unlike you, you're kind of like,

Your internal monologue is critical. The worst thing we can do is delegating our internal monologue to someone else. Let alone someone we might not know, like, or trust.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing your internal monologue. What's going on in there, Jay?

Jay: Hey, David. I'm not sure what's rattling around up here, but I think this is an important topic. I think that often we are a result of what we allow to rattle around in our brains.

And if we're not aware of it, if we're not conscious of it, then that can kind of define who we are and what we do each day.

David: Yeah, it really does. And I've read a lot about this topic over the years. I've listened to a lot of podcasts on the topic. Of course, we all live this on a day to day basis. I remember reading in one of Michael Singer's books, he wrote a book called The Untethered Soul and he was talking about your internal roommate and how basically you've got all these thoughts going on in your head and half the time you don't know where they're coming from and what they're saying to you.

And a lot of times we tend to interpret what's going on in our heads as us. We think that's us dictating that stuff. And he says, no, it's basically, our brain generating thoughts, but it's not really. necessarily us.

So when something goes through our minds and we're like, what on earth made me think that? It's just your brain. Don't take it personally.

Jay: Yeah, it is random, right? I mean, your mind's gonna just be all over the place. And until you kind of do an inventory of what you're thinking, And I don't know that we're necessarily talking about affirmations.

I think that some people are like, look in the mirror and say these things to yourself.

I don't know if we need to go that far, but certainly be aware of what you're thinking and take control of it. Because you are what you think.

David: Yeah, and taking control of it starts with just being aware of it. Recognizing the different things that go flashing through your brain on any given day and how that then impacts our actions.

Because in business, if we're not aware of that, if we just sort of go along, thinking we're on autopilot and just doing things as they come up and not paying attention to what's going on in there, we can find ourselves either distracted, or maybe doing the wrong things, or taking the wrong actions, or responding inappropriately.

Lots of different things can go wrong if we're not aware of what's going on in our own brains.

Jay: Yeah, for me it's a matter of demotivating myself. My brain is very good at identifying the reasons not to do something. I don't know why that is, But I think that I'm not alone, right? So, I have something that I want to do today or that I've scheduled today, and my mind will just tick off the reasons why I can't do it, why I shouldn't do it, why I should be doing something else, why I should be doom scrolling on TikTok instead.

And I don't know why that is, but I feel like my brain always defaults to the here's why you shouldn't do it mode.

David: Yeah, and it's good you're recognizing that. I remember I was listening to a podcast, the Life Coach School podcast with Brooke Castillo, and she was talking about the fact that our brain generates sentence fragments.

So it might just be a few words that go by in your brain and you internalize it. It might be that you're looking at a project and you know that you need to be working on it. And you might get a sentence fragment like, "I don't feel like it," or "I don't feel like doing that."

And if you have the kind of job where you can determine what you do and what you don't do, that can significantly impact your actions.

But when you recognize these little sentence fragments going through your brain and you identify it, you can then choose how to sort of reprogram.

So if you catch yourself saying,

For me, in identifying and attracting ideal clients, I need people who have the motivation, who have the desire, who have the discipline, and just the willingness to move forward. People who are decisive enough to be able to say, "yes, I want to do this. Let's move forward on it." Because the people who just take forever to make up their minds and who don't respond to calls and all that type of thing? Been there, done that. No longer my ideal situation, or even close.

David: Hi and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be dealing with the topic of attracting ideal clients. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey David, thank you so much. Another great discussion here. If we could all only deal with ideal clients. I think that would be ideal. See what I did there?

David: I think so too.

I love the idea of ideal clients. I love the concept of it. And in nearly everything that I do with our clients, I try to keep that the focus. It's not about bringing anyone in who can fog a mirror. It's not about bringing anyone in with a pulse. It's about saying, okay, how do I put together a situation, an environment in which all the very best prospects for my products and services know who I am and know what I do so that they can make a thumbs up or thumbs down decision about whether or not they want to work with me.

And along the way, can I identify whether this person is my ideal client or something very close to it?

Jay: Yeah. And part of that process is learning to exclude, right? Not include, but learning to exclude. I think sometimes we, especially when we're first starting out, we think I want to cast the widest net possible.

And you know, I've learned just the opposite. I want to be as finite as I can be in who I'm trying to attract.

David: Exactly, because it determines everything. It determines what you're going to say to people, how aggressively you're going to pursue them, how hard you're going to work for them, when and if they decide to do business with you and you decide to do business with them.

I think sometimes, in these podcasts, we say things like this, and it probably alienates a segment of the market who feels like, "Oh, no, you have to really do more things for customers, and the customer's always right," and all that type of thing. And I'm not saying that that type of thinking is wrong. I'm just saying that that type of thinking creates a different result.

And if your goal is to attract clients, any clients, then yeah, that can work. But if your goal is to attract ideal clients, the right clients, people who fit with the way that you do business, people who are going to respect you, respect your time, be willing to honor their investments, be willing to reply back to you when you need a response, then.

The rules become different.

Jay: Yeah. I've stepped away a long time ago from the customer is always right. I think that in certain industries, like maybe retail, that's more applicable. But so often, I'm like, I can't help you or , this has come to a point where neither of us are being satisfied, so we need to kind of cut ties.

Like you talked about in the last podcast, being direct and learning how to identify when you should be direct, you're going to help them and you're going to help yourself.

David: Absolutely. And if you want to do this, if you want to attract the type of clients that resonate best with you and that you resonate with and that are going to result in long term great experiences, the first thing we have to do in that situation is to clearly identify or define what an ideal client means to us.

And I know for me, their ability and willingness to communicate is really high. And that's one of the things that we also talked about in a recent podcast.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that this is one of those things that warrants more of your time than so many other things that you think may be important.

When we think about prospects who can't or won't say no, and we think about people who tend not to respond to us, prospects who don't reply back after they've gotten all the information, it's basically two pieces of the same puzzle. When we run into these situations, our goal needs to be driving them to the no, if we can't drive them to the yes. Because the maybes, as we know, the maybes will kill us all the time.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing prospects who can't or won't say no. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Great to be with you again. You know, there's so much to cover about how to deal with prospects. You really have to be thinking in depth about, who are these clients who can't or won't say no?

Do you even recognize that? Because that's going to affect how you spend your time. Will you be working with them? Are they worth the time? Things like that.

David: Yeah. And it ties back exactly to our last podcast where we were talking about prospects who don't respond to you.

We're actually talking about clients who don't respond to you. And then we got carried away with clients. We said, okay, we'll talk about prospects in the next episode. And this really ties together nicely because in many cases, the people who can't or won't say no to us are the very same people who end up going radio silent and just ghosting us.

When we're trying to get a sale closed.

Jay: Yeah, and I think it's, again, we need to track and keep records. We need to be able to know, like, I have a system where I get a reminder. Hey you know, it's my CRM. The last time I spoke with a potential client, I made a note. Remind me about this client in five days, if you're running through a lot of potential prospects, you're not going to remember your last conversation.

You're not going to remember, are they one of these clients that we're talking about? So tracking and, searching for this particular concept, are they saying no? Can they say no? A very important part of the process.

David: Yeah, and that's where I think the notes that we keep for ourselves inside our CRMs or wherever we document that stuff are so important, because if we're just saying follow up, follow up, follow up in our notes, that tells us nothing.

So a lot of times it's really good in our next set of notes to say, spoke with Joe yesterday, he indicated he'd have a decision by such and such a date, so that when you contact him on that day, you say, hey, listen, when we last spoke, you said you have a decision today at 1230. What are you thinking? Right.

And you can move forward from there. But when we talk about people who can't or won't say no, I think this is where I've had several epiphanies along the way, because I think in sales, our desire is always to get them to say yes. But, in reality, sometimes we are better off getting them to say no. Because these non decisions are just killers.

And sometimes people, they just can't bring themselves to say they don't want to do it. Whether it's fear of missing out, or they don't want to hurt our feelings. I don't know what it is, but I know that whenever I run into it, I find it extremely frustrating, because I'm a pretty direct communicator.

If you and I are having a conversation, I will tell you exactly what I think. I mean, I won't be rude about it. I won't be obnoxious, in most cases, right? But I'll be very direct because I feel like I owe that to every person I talk to.

If we're talking about working together, I want to make sure that people are extremely clear on what we'll be able to do and what we won't be able to do. And we can't do anything until we get to that agreement.

I mean, I say this all the time, whenever two parties to an agreement want to put something together, they'll figure out a way to do it. If one of them doesn't, they won't. And very often the one who doesn't is the prospect.

When dealing with unresponsive clients and prospects, we have to make sure that we're doing everything on our end to be as responsive as possible. If somebody takes a week to get back to me, that doesn't mean I'm going to take a week to get back to them. Because if I start to fall into the trap that they've laid out, then that's not good for anybody.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing unresponsive clients and prospects. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Once again, great topic here. I think all of us are guilty -- anyone who's involved in sales -- of thinking, this client is going to turn into something, but really, if we looked at it, should we be spending time on somebody else instead of trying to push people through who are not ready or not able to do so.

David: Yeah. And I think, as you said, everyone in sales deals with this, and that's when you're dealing with prospects, right? That's when you're dealing with people who have not yet spent money with you. This is even harder for some people when you're dealing with clients, people who have spent money with you and who are not getting back to you with the information that you need in order to do the job that they paid you to do.

Jay: Yeah, I actually have a client right now that is driving me crazy, because we're in the tax business and they were like "we need to get this done because we have an extension." And so at some moments they're like pressing me like this is so important. And then they'll ghost me for like three or four days.

So right now I'm in the ghost period. I've emailed them, I've called them and I'm like, where did they go? And I just know like tomorrow they're going to be, "Hey, we need to get this done." It's driving me crazy, David.

David: Yeah. And again, you are not alone. I think everyone in business deals with this, and every time it happens, we're like, why is this happening? I don't get it.

And that's why I think it's important for us to take the time and sort of examine this and try to determine, okay, what are the reasons behind it?

If it's a client, why are they not getting back to me with the information? So in a situation that you just described, maybe they don't have access to it as quickly as they thought.

Obviously, they're just probably distracted with other things. They're working on other projects. They know it needs to be done, but they're not able to do it as quickly as they'd like.

Every excuse in the book, some of them valid, some of them not. But when we are tasked with getting things done on somebody else's behalf, and then they refuse to live up to their side of the bargain. That's when we start to run into trouble.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that I'm guilty of as we talk about this, is feeling like if I put any pressure on the client, it's going to like affect our relationship or something like that.

So I treat people with kid gloves. And I really kind of find out, no, if I'm, I don't know if stern is the right word, but at least,

David: Maybe firm?

Jay: Yeah, firm maybe is a better term.

David: Yeah, because I think there is a difference between stern and firm. Firm is basically like...

Jay: They sound the same.

David: Yeah, exactly. Listen, I'm trying to help you here and I need this in order to move forward.

And in most businesses, when you're interacting with someone, particularly in a service business, it comes up a lot. So the rapport obviously is key. We have to be able to have the rapport with people to be able to say, "listen, this is what I need. Otherwise I can't move forward on it," and have them be able to come back and say, "yes, listen, I understand. I'll get this taken care of for you."

But it doesn't always flow like that. And that's why I think if we start to look at what are the reasons for it, we may be able to have better ammunition in terms of dealing with ...

Knowing vs. Doing in sales is all about implementation. Implementation connects the knowledge you have to the results that you're going to get. And without that key element being implemented again and again and again, you're never going to get to the results, the sales, the possibility that you have in your entire career.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing knowing versus doing in sales. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. I love this topic because I think so many of us are just doing what we think we should do, but we're like, squeaky wheel gets the grease. And so, are we really focusing and fine tuning and honing our sales.

David: Right. And doing what we know.

Jay: Yeah.

David: Because a lot of us can get trapped in input, rather than output. And I know I am guilty of this myself because I am a chronic learner. I am always reading books and studying stuff, watching videos, learning from courses, I spend a whole lot of money educating myself every year.

What's the newest, the latest, the greatest, the things that I should be paying attention to? And sometimes when we get too focused on input, we don't engage in the output necessary to get the results we're looking for.

Jay: Yeah, I'm exactly the same. Like I have all this technology. I'm always trying to hone my systems, but like we hear garbage in, garbage out, right?

I spend so much time on that, maybe I should be spending time on actually closing sales, meeting with clients, you know, those types of things.

David: Yeah, and keeping track of what we're doing, keeping track of our output, I think is really important, and a lot of us lose sight of this. I've actually created tools in my training programs that allow people to start to capture that.

Because when you boil it down, the things that we need to be doing on an ongoing basis involve bringing new prospects through the door, getting them qualified in or out as quickly as possible. Engaging in presentations with the people who are worthy of presentations, making offers, closing sales, all those things are key.

And a lot of that is just about engaging in conversations with people. So simply by tracking what we're actually doing on a day to day or week to week basis, we can have a crystal clear idea of where things are going wrong in our business.

But if we just sort of think in the back of our mind, "Oh, well, yeah, I know that, or I'm doing all that," we can really be misleading ourselves more often than we think.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And when you talk about tracking, I'm looking for the perfect software to track or things like that. And often a notebook, you know, start simple and work your way up. A spreadsheet, something and just reviewing your daily activities can be a very powerful thing.

David: Yeah, whatever you'll actually use is your best contact management system, whether that's a full blown CRM software system, or whether you're just good at being able to keep track of your appointments and notes on a calendar or in some sort of notebook. As long as you have it all in one place and you know what's next, that's huge.

Knowing what's next for each prospect and client. When do I have to reach out to them and what am I going to be reaching out to them about?

If I know that somebody has an event coming up in November and I need to be in touch with them by early October, I want to make sure that I've got a note for early October that says, be in touch with this client, early October, about their event mid November.

So that when I reach out to them, I'm not just calling and saying, "I'm just calling to check in" or "how's everything going?"

No, I'm calling, "Hey, listen, I wanted to give you a call. We were talking about this event you have coming up in mid November, wanted to see where we are with that," so that we're able to continue the conversation where the last one left off,

A lot of people just think broadly in terms of expanding their market, without asking themselves a really important question, which is why? Why do you need to expand your market? Am I not doing things well enough in my existing market that I haven't been able to mine that as effectively as I could?

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing Expanding Your Market. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you, David. Once again, I'm excited for this conversation. I know we always kind of learn from each other. We're in a process in our business where we're trying to expand from the inside, from our current customer base.

Like right now we have a great Google Ads program, but we don't have an organic program, right? So that's one area that we're looking at right now. How do we get those organic leads? So we're right in this process right now.

David: That's really interesting because there are so many different ways we can talk about expanding.

I mean, the first thing you mentioned, just expanding inside your own customer or prospect base, right? You could just look at your Excel spreadsheet of all these people say, how can I expand within the people on this sheet, right? Or you could be talking, like you mentioned about an ad campaign.

How can we expand this ad campaign to reach more of the high quality prospects that I need to reach in order to have those conversations, in order to do business together. So yeah, lots of different ways to do it. I think the appeal of a topic like expanding your market is that a lot of people tend to want to do it.

I want to have more customers. I want to have more clients. Not quite sure where that's going to come from. That's sort of the generic thought, I think, for a lot of people. I want more customers. How am I going to do that?

And a lot of it boils down to this. minute stuff that we're talking about, identifying who these people are, how we're going to reach out to them, and how we're going to get them on board with us.

Jay: Yeah. And I think that's something that a lot of people fall prey to, and I catch myself sometimes as well, is thinking that movement is doing something, right? I'm busy. I'm writing a check. We're doing something and we're just moving. But ultimately, are you getting results and are you monitoring those results and fine tuning them?

If not, you're kind of wasting your time.

David: Yeah. Confusing movement with progress and they're two different things. You don't even realize you're doing it, but you're like, Oh, I should really do this, I should really do that.

And we've also talked about the fact, in previous podcasts, that many business owners suffer from entrepreneurial ADD. Where you're working on one thing and then the whole squirrel, squirrel, squirrel! and we're doing that. And now we're off on something else.

I think a lot of us have to reel ourselves back in when it comes to that, because there are so many different ways to expand your market.

So many different ways to get in front of different groups of people, and so many different things we can say to those people. And there are too many variables. And I think when you're looking to expand your market, you can't be changing all of the variables.

You can't say, okay, now I'm going to go after a totally different group of people with a totally different message and promote a totally different product or aspect of my product, right?

Or a different approach to describing my product, because you will have absolutely no idea at that point of what's working and what's not. I mean, in some cases we can do some minor tweaking of maybe one of those variables.

If we've got a sales presentation that has worked historically for us, for a long time, then it makes perfect sense to test out that presentation in front of a different group of people who have never heard it.

When you're able to deliver what you say you're going to deliver, that will start to motivate buyers to want to do business with you. And particularly for repeat orders. Because the first time they're buying from you, they don't really know exactly what you can do. They're basing it on what you're telling them, the conversations you're having.

But then after they have that first experience with you, and they know what you're like, and they've liked that experience, then they are going to be motivated to buy again. Because at that point, they know those things. And it's not just based on what you're saying.

David: Hello and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing what motivates buyers. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Yeah. Hey, it's good to be here, David. I kind of think, why would you need to know or have a discussion about what motivates buyers?

I think it's because we assume everybody's like us. And that assumption, can be completely wrongheaded, right?

David: Yeah. I know Tony Robbins, in some of his material, talked about the fact that he's not motivational. His goal isn't to motivate people. And I thought that was a really interesting takeaway because you look at somebody like Tony Robbins and you're like, well, that's what he does.

He's motivational. He motivates people. But his goal is to educate people and to encourage people and nurture them and provide services that are going to help them in their lives. Like the rest of us, most of us in business, that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to provide products and services that help our customers.

So when we talk about motivating a customer, there are a couple of different aspects to it, because one aspect of it is motivating them to buy, right?

Once they have all the information, sometimes it's difficult to get people off the fence. So there's that aspect of motivation, but even in the earlier stages, what will motivate a customer to want to even have a conversation with you?

What will motivate a customer to even go to your website to investigate what you have to offer? So my feeling is that motivation, at lots of different levels, is pretty much critical in business and in sales.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. And also a recognition that people are different, right? I remember walking into one of my program director's offices and he had a cardboard cutout and it was divided up and all the things that he felt the listeners wanted and I looked at it and this was not based on research.

This was just, you know, what he felt. And I looked at it and I'm like, I don't think that's accurate at all. It's nice that you have this cardboard cutout, but I think you need to put a little bit more thought into it.

David: Yeah, that's a great point. And a lot of us go into every situation with our own preconceived notions about situations.

And so it's the same thing in sales. If we think that a customer is looking for X, Y, and Z, then that's all we're going to be talking about. But that's why I think the whole consultative aspect of selling is so important.

Asking questions, diagnosing, finding out what the actual need is. And when it comes to motivation, you're going to be a lot more likely to motivate people based on what they want than what you think they want.

Jay: Yeah, I think about people who create the product from the product side instead of from the customer side, right? And we just assume I like it, right? See it on Shark Tank all the time, right? These people are just so invested and they mortgage their homes and they do all these things and they don't have any sales, but they're just so convinced that this product is going to be something that everyone will love and they're shocked to find out that nobody does.

David: Yeah. It's like the old adage, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. He was like, look at this. This is the greatest thing in the world. Like,

I mean, you have a podcast called Building Trust in Sales, you say, "yeah, be trustworthy." That's pretty obvious. But it's also necessary. It's necessary to be that, and to be able to convey that, and just to be authentic with it.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing building trust in sales. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David, it's such a pleasure to be with you. Sales is a huge part of our business model, trusting that system. And, a lot of times it's like crossing our fingers that it will work.

I think a lot of people would like to have a little bit more surety than that.

David: Yeah. And trust is absolutely critical to the whole experience. If they don't trust you, there's no way they're going to buy from you. Now, there are some people who are untrustworthy and people should not buy from them, right?

So if you're untrustworthy, this is not a podcast about how to appear trustworthy. I'm assuming that everybody who's paying attention to this is coming from a place of honesty and fact of being about who we are. Because trust is going to be built on that.

The trust is going to be built on the conversations that we're having, how those conversations are taking place.

Are we being candid? Do people feel like we are providing them with honest answers to questions? And sometimes in sales, that can be hard for people.

There's a balance between wanting to put our best foot forward in sales, and being completely truthful and honest. And I feel that when we're weighing that balance, being completely truthful and honest is absolutely the way to go.

Because if you start sugarcoating things, and if you start exaggerating your abilities, and that sort of thing, that's going to end up badly. And so I think in order to build trust, it has to start with ourselves. Are we trustworthy? And if we are, then how do we convey that to the people we're interacting with?

Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. And one of the things that, you know, looking at it from a consumer that really bothers me, and we've talked about this in other podcasts, is where I'm on a website, which is often the storefront now, and they're offering me a free quote or something like that and I go through the whole process, and at the end it says enter your email and we'll send you the free quote, and I'm like You freaking lied to me, right?

And the last thing I'm going to do after that is reach out to you or give you my email address.

David: Yeah, I think if people are clear about what's going to happen up front, that's usually better. I've been in situations like that myself. Now, if I see that somebody's asking questions and I start going through that series of questions, I'm kind of expecting it at the end.

But, There are a lot of sites like that, where it'll start out and it'll just ask for your zip code, right? If you're trying to find a professional in a particular area, you enter your zip code, and then they ask what you're looking for, and when you're looking for it, and how soon, and, all that sort of thing, and they do exactly the same thing.

You get there and then they want your information, and then some of these sites will pass it on to a hundred different people, and now instead of finding the one solution, now you've got a hundred people annoying you.

To me, that's a business model problem. Which creates a trust problem because now, we don't trust anybody who's asking us for any information.

So a lot of times the worst players in the market set the tone, set the stage for what we have to go through. And when you're having an honest conversation with someone, talking to them about working with them, they're viewing us through the lens of someone who is not trustworthy. And then we all have to jump through additional hoops just to get back to zero, essentially.

Jay: I love this point, but I also think there's another way to look at it,

What do we want the overall customer experience to be like? How do we want this person to be welcomed if they happen to walk into our business? Because we want that experience to be consistent.

That's another important aspect of this. The businesses that really consider their customer experience want to make sure that it is absolutely consistent.

David: Hello and welcome back in today's podcast. Co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing crafting the customer experience. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. And I feel like here once again I'm going to learn something from our discussion because I don't think a lot about crafting the experience. For me, it's like, Hey, we had a sales call. Now you're a client and we'll just fake it until we make it, I guess.

David: Right. And that is certainly a way to do it. It's certainly valid. I believe it's probably what many businesses do, perhaps most. The thing that actually got me thinking about this was a trip that I took to Disney World a number of years ago.

And I thought about how every aspect of the experience is crafted. It is thought out in advance. It's planned. It's choreographed. There is very little, ideally, that happens there by accident. And at the time, I thought, "wow, as a business, if we were able to craft a similar sort of experience for our customers, what would that look like?"

I've done presentations on this topic over the years. It's something that a lot of businesses tend not to think about, but when I raise the issue with them, they seem to feel that it's pretty appealing and interesting.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you bring up Disney World or amusement parks. I remember being a little kid and going to an amusement park, and I thought even the staff members were installed as part of the experience.

I was amazed when I realized they actually went home after work. And then I ended up working at that very same amusement park on the backside, you know, where all the employees walk? It's so disappointing!

David: It's got to be.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely, and I think this is one of those topics where we're not talking about, boom, one day you've got the customer experience defined. I think this is a process. It's going to be very different from when you first open your doors, so to speak, because it is something that you should always be fine tuning, correct?

David: Yeah, and we can't even fine tune it if we're not thinking about it. If we basically show up for work every day and do what we do, then we're doing what we do. We're not considering what the customer experience is.

If you just take the title of this podcast to heart and say, "okay, what if I did want to craft the customer experience? What would that look like?" What happens if somebody calls our business on the phone, what happens?

Is it a person who answers? Is it an auto attendant? If so, what does that auto attendant say? Is it encouraging to help people get where they need to go? Is it discouraging? Is it likely to put them off? Something as simple as that, that's one aspect of the customer experience.

This is what happens when someone calls us on the phone. This is what happens if someone visits our physical location. This is what happens when I meet someone on a Zoom call or in an in-person situation.

Every single aspect of the experience, if it is considered, if it's even thought about, is likely to be a whole lot better than if we're just winging it.

Jay: Yeah, such a great point. And I think one of the problems, David, is self-awareness. I think about this in sports. Like when all my daughters played sports and there were players and parents of players who didn't really understand their individual skill set and they thought they were much better than they were.

Because of that, they didn't ever progress because they thought they had reached whatever marker that needed to be. They're kind of prideful about it.

Over the years, I have met some exceptional performers who still struggle to get enough customers.

It's not a function of who they are as people. It's also not a reflection of their work. It's not even a mindset issue. It's about the fact that being exceptionally good at what you do, and being able to get enough customers or clients are two completely different skill sets.

I can't tell you how many business owners I've talked to over the years who are exceptional at what they do, but they can't get enough customers. I've met:

Chefs who make amazing food, but can't get enough people into their restaurants to keep the lights on.
Real estate agents who know their markets in and out, they're great with people, can handle all the details, but can't get enough clients to pay their bills.
Artists who have amazing skills, but who never mastered the art of customer acquisition, so their actual art remains largely unseen.
Printers who have taken out loans to invest enormous amounts of money in equipment that just sits there, because they don't know how to get enough of the customers and clients they need to feed the machines.

Recently, I heard from a life coach, whose story really touched me, because she knows she could really help people, but she's struggling to get the clients she needs.

Here's what she said,

"I am a good coach but there are no clients for me. I feel profoundly sad for not being financially independent. I am a good person, I do personal growth, I am a really good coach and yet I can not pay the bills and have a lovely and happy life. Why does it have to be so hard?"

In each of these situations, the most important thing to recognize is that there is a huge difference between being exceptionally good at the technical aspects of a job -- like cooking, selling homes, creating art, printing stationary or coaching people who need help -- and being able to get enough of the customers or clients who need those products and services.

They are two completely different skill sets.

There are many exceptional writers in the world, but as Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad once said, "On the top of my books it's written *Best-Selling Author* & not *Best-Writing Author*".

Two different things.

So today I'd like to share with you, what I shared with this coach. And it applies to any business that is great at what they do, but that struggles to get enough of the customers or clients it needs to thrive.

If you're great at what you do, then you're halfway there, but this is not a mindset issue. It is a focus issue.

So if you want to make the money you need to make, then 100% of your focus and learning now need to be on 3 things. It’s what I call the MVPs of Marketing & Sales™.

If you’ve heard this from me before, but you’re not yet earning what you think you’re worth, then please, listen again.

In sports, MVP stands for Most Valuable Player. In Marketing and Sales, MVP stands for Message, Vehicles and People.

Specifically:

What is the marketing (M)essage you need to convey about your product or service?
Which combination of marketing (V)ehicles will you use to communicate your message?
And Who are the (P)eople or prospects you need to reach?

This begins with having a crystal-clear idea of exactly WHO you want to benefit from what you do. Those are your People.

When you know who your people are, then you have to consider exactly what you'll need to SAY to engage those people. To invite them in. To take advantage of everything you have to offer. That's your Message.

Finally, you need to determine HOW you'll reach them, in other words, what combination of marketing Vehicles will you use to reach them? This means things like social media posts and comments, direct messaging, phone calls, email, direct mail, networking, door knocking, broadcast ads, billboards, there are thousands of options when it comes to marketing vehicles.

Everybody has to make those determinations about their business when making sales and building brands. How am I going to do it? Is it going to be about me? Is it going to be about the customer? And how do I convey that in terms of my company name, my logo, my brand, and any slogans or taglines that you use, in order to communicate all that.

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing making sales and building brands. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much, David. And again, just a great topic. I don't know if everybody feels like they're a brand. Like, I'm a company, I offer a service, but am I a brand?

When I think of brands, I think of like Kellogg's or Tesla or things like that. I don't know if I think about my own business that way.

David: Yeah. And a lot of small businesses don't. But even though they don't, very often, if they don't know what to do from a marketing and sales standpoint, they will copy the big brands because that's what they're seeing.

You're watching TV, you see a commercial for Kellogg's or you see a commercial for McDonald's or some retail brand and you say, "Oh, okay, that's what I need to do. I just need to get my name out there." Right? When I think of branding, particularly for small business, that's what I think of. Somebody who's like, "Oh, I just have to get my name out there."

And when you've spent as much money on marketing as Kellogg's has, or as McDonald's has, or any of the big companies have, they already know what those companies are all about. They already know what they do. So they can just basically say, come in and buy from us. And they're like, okay, I already know what it's all about.

For small businesses to do that, to just put out the name of their company and expect people to want to wander in, it just doesn't happen. And that's why I think this topic, you know, the idea of making sales and building brands, I could have said making sales versus building brands, because I think sometimes people view it as two different things, but ideally we have to do both.

And even if it's not a matter of seeing yourself as a brand right now, once You're established enough in your market where people recognize who you are and what you do. That's sort of building a brand in their minds. So that when they hear the name of your business, they associate it with certain things, related to what you do and how you do it.

When you think about Tesla or Elon Musk, you have a very good feel for sort of what he's all about and how he tends to approach things. So to me, that's an established brand. When small businesses want to establish a brand, they can spend a lot of money doing it, which is why they kind of have to be making sales along the way and focused on that first.

Jay: Yeah, great point. You know, in those big companies, they have the big dollars to have focus groups and all of those things. Talking about the very beginning of your branding, again, I think we're coming up with another podcast topic here, though. People who just throw together their logos or their slogans, It drives me crazy because it's like the first impression when they meet you in public.

David: Yeah, and again, with small businesses in particular, sometimes we can be too cute for our own good, too creative, quote unquote, for our own good. We think that something that appeals to us is going to appeal to everyone else.

Personally, I think that the simpler we keep it, the more direct we keep it, the more sense it makes. Now Nike spent so much money establishing what that swoosh means that they can put a swoosh up on the screen and people go, Oh, maybe I'll go buy some shoes, right? We can't do that. And so. Unless you have that level of funding, unless you have access to that much money that you can teach people what your logo means, then you have to be a lot more clear and direct about your communication, your logos,

When we think in terms of creating persuasive communication, it's really important to consider the flow. What is the flow of the communication? In what order are you asking these questions and having these conversations? Are you leading with the pitch? Because if you're leading with the sales pitch, then that's not going to work well at all.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing creating persuasive communication. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thanks, David. You mean all communication is not good communication? I just thought sending out emails and random texts, that's the way to go.

David: Yeah, random communication is often different than persuasive communication.

I guess sometimes it can line up, but the stars have to all be in alignment for that to happen.

Jay: Yeah, I see this. I get emails saying, Hey, just following up. And I'm like, Oh, you know, I don't know that that's really how you want to approach a potential customer. There's no energy, there's no urgency, there's nothing persuasive about it.

It kind of feels meh. And, I recognize that now cause I'm in that business, right?

David: Exactly. And I think if we start from the premise that different prospects have different needs, that's a really good way to start. Because I think a lot of salespeople tend to think in terms of persuasive communication, meaning saying things that will get them to buy from you.

And that's only the case if and when we've determined that we have a good fit with the person that we're talking to, right? Persuasive communication doesn't just mean getting them to buy. It's about seeing if they buy into what it is that we do, seeing if we've got enough of a fit to have it make sense.

What I think in terms of persuasive communication, it's the kind of thing that's going to get people engaged. It's going to pull them into the conversation rather than repel them from the conversation. So while the term persuasive sort of implies that we're trying to persuade them to do something, that is true, but it's not just about that.

It's not just about trying to get someone to do something. It's about seeing if what we're talking about to begin with even makes sense.

Jay: Yeah, and I think we talked about that a lot in our last episode, getting to know that customer so that you can build loyalty. How do you expect to send out persuasive communication if you haven't taken the time to get to know them?

And for example, I'm in the tax business, which is hard for me to say, I can't believe that happened. But my communication is very different right now in the summer than it is in March, right? In March, there's a built in urgency, and so it's a lot easier to communicate to them what they need. This time of year, very different.

David: Right, and the things that you need to persuade them of now are different than the things you have to persuade them of in January, February, March, right? Because what you need to persuade them of now is perhaps thinking in advance about what they're going to need to do rather than trying to cram it in at the last minute.

So that's going to change the languaging. If you think in terms of who do you need to appeal to, that's going to be happening throughout the year. What type of prospect am I looking to bring in the door, and how can I help that person to make a decision based on what we're doing as opposed to what someone else is doing?

You know, what are they likely to want? And we can't always know that. We can assume, okay, well, I think they're going to want to pay less taxes. That's probably a reasonable assumption. And for some people, for most of them, that's probably going to be the case, but there might be some sort of extenuating circumstance that plays into that as well.

And if you're not touching on that, if you haven't taken the time to understand what it is they're actually looking for,

When I think in terms of turning leads into loyal customers, what is that first contact? And I know we've talked about that in a number of podcasts. And then from there, what is the desired path that we want them to take with us, that we want to take with them, right? Without some sort of basic path to get from here to there, the likelihood of making that happen is pretty much slim to none.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing turning leads into loyal customers. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you, David. Such a great topic again. I love our conversations cause I learn so much and I feel like there's a tendency to say, okay, I got the lead. I closed them. Now I'm going to move on to the next lead.

And I think we would save ourselves a lot of time and money, if we were able to turn that customer into a returning loyal customer.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And you raised a great point because I was thinking in terms of just new leads that come in, turning them into loyal customers.

But I think what you pointed out is probably even more important, that we already got someone and we've already turned them into a customer. And now how do we make that customer more loyal to us?

I know in a lot of presentations that I've done over the years, I've talked about these sort of different layers of recognition in terms of what do people think about us? And I've often drawn it out like a target for archery practice. And outside the target is the area where it's total obscurity. They have absolutely no idea who we are or why they should do business with us. And at the center of the target, it's complete customer loyalty.

And you don't get from, "I don't know who you are," to "I'm completely loyal to you" in one step. It's got to happen in a series of actions. So what you're talking about there, you make that first sale. That doesn't even happen very often in the first contact. A lot of times it requires intelligent repetition of contact to even get to that.

We go from obscurity. I don't know who you are, to recognition, I recognize you, but I'm not sure if I love you yet, right? I don't know enough about you. To comfort, and then once we get to comfort, once they're comfortable enough with us to place that first time order, like what you were talking about, then they're going to see how we do.

And if we did well, they might give us another chance and come back again. And if we do well on that second one, they might come back and give us a third chance. And then As long as that continues to play out, that's going to lead to that level of loyalty, but it sure isn't likely to happen in one conversation or one transaction.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. But I kind of like where you started off, too, before we dive into that a little bit more. And that is thinking about making the loyal customer out of the lead . Where do you start? Because a lot of people are like, I can't make them loyal until they've purchased a product. That's not true, is it?

David: Well, I think if you recognize that when I attract a lead into my organization or when I'm even just trying to attract a lead into my organization, the goal is to turn that person into a loyal, longtime customer or client.

So when you start with that perspective, you become a lot more discerning about even the people that you're approaching. You have more skin in the game, because it's not just about, "hey, can I make a sale to pay my bills for today?" It's about, "do I want this person as a loyal customer?"

And this goes back to a lot of what we've talked about in previous episodes about qualification and that sort of thing.

But if we start out with the idea that we want to turn our leads into loyal customers, I think it positions us better, because it makes it more relational and less transactional.

Makes it more about creating the kind of relationship that will result in a loyal cus...

With strategic networking, you can make some initial decisions about who you think you'd like to target. Then it's a matter of saying, "okay, where do these people congregate?" Identifying exactly where they are. Are they online? Are they offline? Most likely they're doing both. But if they are online, where's the best place to find them? And a lot of times, particularly with social media, we just end up interacting with whoever we happen to be connected with. But if that part of it isn't strategic, if we're not connected with the people that we could actually potentially do business with, then we're wasting our ammunition.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the power of strategic networking. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I'm really glad we're talking about this because I think, you know, sometimes I think I'm great at networking, but there's not really any plan. There's not really any, like even down to storing information and how I'm going to follow up on it. I would not use the strategic word in what I'm doing.

David: Okay. And I think you're not alone. I know that I have struggled with exactly the same thing. And even when we were thinking in terms of topics for today's podcast, The Power of Strategic Networking. What does it even mean? Right? What does strategic networking even mean? And the way that I'm looking at it is basically that strategic networking means, not just anyone, right?

You're not just looking for anyone who can fog a mirror. You're looking for the people who are going to be best suited to you and what you have to offer.

I think a lot of us tend to stumble into networking situations, whether it's with a chamber of commerce or BNI group or online in different situations, we're online, we're interacting with people.

We consider it networking. But is it networking or is it just schmoozing? Is it just interacting with other people, or is it designed to get a positive result from a business standpoint? So I think if we start with that, the idea of strategic networking being that we're doing it for a specific result, which is to meet and interact with the type of people that we can ultimately do business with, then it becomes a whole different thing than just talking to people.

Jay: Yeah. Again, this is so important because we're always talking about maximizing your time, focusing on the things that only you should be doing. And if you're just out there collecting business cards and now you have to follow up on each one of those. individuals, you're going to be spinning your wheels a lot and that's going to cost you money and time in the short term and long term.

David: Yeah, especially if you're not quite sure what to do with those business cards. In other words, if you're just thinking, okay, I'm going to meet people, collect business cards, gather information, and then follow up with them. It's too generic. I mean, what does that even mean in terms of follow up? What does that even mean?

And so for our clients, one of the things that we stress a lot is the idea of getting them qualified in or out as quickly as possible.

I know so many salespeople who have engaged in networking that was you meet someone, you exchange business cards, and then you keep contacting them. You try to schedule an appointment to meet with them, to try to find out what they need and all that sort of thing without ever bothering to try to find out whether or not they're even a decent prospect for the products and services you offer.

And it can be a huge waste of time if, in fact, they are not.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. We talk about time wasting and I think that even applies to thinking about it before you go into a situation where you want to employ marketing. Like in my particular use case, just walking into a room full of business owners doesn't cut it because I have a very niche product.

There are a lot of people who aren't quite sure where they are with the whole business growth thing vs. just maintenance. Some people are content where they are. And if you're okay with just maintaining, then none of this applies to you. Right?

You're not required to grow your business if that's not where you're going. But there are so many people that I talk to that really want to do it. They want it to grow. They want it to be more than it is.

They want to be able to create better lives for themselves, for their employees, for their families, for everybody they impact. And they know they can't do it without growing. And when they use maintenance as an excuse, that's a tough one to overcome.

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing business growth versus just maintenance. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey David, once again, it is a pleasure to be here. And it's so funny, oftentimes we choose these topics and I'm like, "man, I am right in the middle of that!" So, again, I'm excited to discuss this with you.

David: Yeah, I think the reason that I wanted to talk about it, this came to mind fairly recently because I've had so many conversations with people, business owners primarily, small business owners for the most part, some sales managers, who say, "listen, I really need to grow this business. I need to grow my sales. I need to grow my profits. I need to make that happen now. This is a priority for me."

And then we talk about some of the incentives and we talk about some of the things that they're going to need to do. we talk about some of the steps they'll need to follow and nearly all of it is designed to save them time, save them money, generate more revenue, just make everything a whole lot easier and a whole lot better.

And one of the things that I find extremely frustrating is when I'm talking to someone like that, who then says, well, I really don't feel like I have time to implement this because I have so much that I'm dealing with on a daily basis, maintaining the business, essentially.

I'm busy doing this and I'm busy doing that. And I'm doing all these different things that are allowing me to stay just underwater, a little bit, where my nose is just barely peeking up and down above the water, but I don't have time to do the things that are going to get me out of the water and make sure that things are still functioning the way that they need to function.

So in most cases, I believe that growth is the solution to maintenance, but it doesn't work the other way around.

Jay: Yeah. What is it? Winning gets rid of all the stink or, you know, whatever. Winning is the best deodorant. That's what it is. Winning is the best deodorant.

David: That's true.

Jay: Yeah, you know, it's funny, this last year, I'm kind of reliving everything that you're talking about, because of our seasonality, we have times where we have to be all growth, all the time, we have this influx of customers. We can't be worried about maintenance at that moment, but then all of a sudden, it practically dies instantly, so now we're asking the question, "How do we maintain our current base?"

Because we want them to be back and so what maintenance things do we need to do? But not only that, what about the people who we talk to who might be interested in the future? Can we reach out to them on a regular basis?

So now that we've died down, we're talking about drip programs, we're talking about newsletters to our existing clientele.

So we're kind of in this process between maintaining, we still want to grow during this time so we can pay our bills. But we're really kind of in this mode where we're trying to do both, but a certain part of the year we can't do one. We just don't have time.

David: Right. Yeah, it's hard to grow when the business is just coming in. And in seasonal businesses like yours, that's particularly true.

There are so many situations where inadequate product knowledge, damaged reputation, and inefficient or poorly executed sales processes come from having untrained salespeople.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the incredible cost of untrained salespeople. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, it's such a pleasure to be here, David. Sometimes I think I'm that guy. I'm the untrained salesperson. So, this will be very informative to me, I hope.

David: Okay. Well, you know, there's a difference between being untrained and untrainable. So, as long as you're trainable, that's a really big plus.

Jay: OK, I feel a little better.

David: No, I'm sure you're trainable, but untrained salespeople can really cause a great deal of harm to themselves, to their companies, to their prospects, to the businesses they're associated with.

It is really kind of epidemic and It's largely unnecessary. A lot of it comes from, particularly in small businesses an employers desire to delegate it quickly, to get it off their plate.

Like, "okay, I'm not doing this as well as I'd like. I better hire somebody else to do it." And they're hoping that that person is going to know how to do it.

And if you don't have protocols in place, like we talked about in our previous podcast, then of course that just makes it that much more difficult. But the biggest problems that people are likely to run into, the obvious ones are lost sales opportunities, right?

Cause I'm talking to somebody who could potentially buy, but I'm saying all the wrong things and I'm not positioning the company well, and I'm not finding the right needs that the people are actually looking for, and I'm saying the wrong things, there's no way that sales is going to happen.

It's a bad reflection on the salesperson and the company, and the prospect will walk away thinking that that company is not good at what they do because the salesperson did not do a good enough job of explaining what they do.

So, it creates a complete disconnect between what the business might be capable of and what the world is likely to think they're capable of. So that's a killer.

Poor communication is another one that when you have a salesperson who is not trained on what they need to ask, what they need to find out from the prospect, how they need to address those questions and issues, that defines poor communication, because they're just going to say whatever comes to their mind or they're going to say, "well, I have to find out, let you know."

Now there are situations in pretty much any sales scenario where that might be the case, where you don't have every single bit of information that they might need to know. So there will be situations where you might have to find something out.

But if it's happening more than a couple of times at any particular sales presentation, you might want to look at the process that you're using to make that happen.

The training that you have or have not received. Actually, this really does dovetail pretty well in our previous conversation about protocols. So if you're seeing this podcast and you didn't see that one, go back and watch that one as well because these things really tie together.

Jay: Yeah, a couple of things come to mind.

And the first is, how do you know you have an untrained salesperson? If they are not where you're at, if they're doing outside sales and they're sitting in somebody else's office, how do you know what they're saying and how they're interacting?

That can be very difficult. The second thing is if they're on the phone making those calls, how do you assess their situation there?

Like I said earlier, we have a system that records all phone calls coming in and out. So that's one way that we have to listen back to calls and give feedback. So maybe you have to go on those sales calls and listen. Maybe you have to have a hidden microphone,

A lot of the people that I work with now are exceptional at what they do, but they may struggle to get other people in their organization to be able to do it, because they haven't codified the success protocols that would allow them to say, "okay, this is how we perform this task. This is how we do this. This is how we do that." And when they start doing that, they're just amazed at how far their people can come so quickly.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing your protocols for success. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, it's such a pleasure to be here with you again. This may be a situation where I want to sit back and listen to you a little bit because I know you have a lot of experience and coming up with these protocols and things like that.

So I'm just going to say hit me and I'll see if I can learn something here.

David: Okay. Well, when I talk about protocols for success, we talk a lot about systems and processes and the work that we do with our clients. And if you want to be able to create consistent results in your business, you need to have these things in place.

Protocols is another term for it. But the reason I like the word protocols is that it sort of establishes the fact that these things aren't optional. This is what we're doing. This is how we're doing it in this organization. And when you approach it like that, everything gets a lot easier because you don't have to make a hundred different decisions now.

It's like, I know what the process is. I simply need to follow it. If you're veering from it, you know it. If you're on it, you know it. And so does everybody else. People who don't like accountability will not like that. But people who do like accountability will know, Hey, listen, I followed this procedure to the letter and this didn't work.

And then you can talk to the person that you're working with to have them explain, okay, well maybe this protocol needs to be changed or updated.

It's almost like a baseline. Most people need to start with some sort of baseline protocol that they're going to say, okay, this is how we do this.

This is how we perform this particular task. And then you have a number of people do it and they follow the protocol or they don't. If they follow it and they get a comparable or consistent result, great. That's a good protocol. If five different people try it and they get five different results and they all follow the protocol, you have a problem with your protocol.

You need to clarify, you need to identify, okay, what are the problems with each of these steps? And I need to tweak that so that when I hand it to five different people, they can all get a similar result. That's the nutshell version.

Jay: Hmm. You know, this is something that's so critical. I think a lot of managers miss this point.

Managers are afraid to hold people to the protocol or hold them accountable, and they don't realize that this actually robs your staff from feelings of success. Because if you don't have a baseline, and the baseline is basically when they fall before it, it's not a matter of getting mad at them, it's a matter of saying, okay, what was wrong with the protocol first?

And if the protocol is good, then we probably have a training issue, right? So that's underneath the expected line. But above the line means that they met the line or they did better. That's the only way you're going to feel success. If there is no line, I promise you, your employees will never feel like, man, we did it.

Because you never put a baseline on it. So that's, to me, how you consistently make people happy. And that's why I like the word protocol over accountability, because accountability always sounds negative to people.

David: Yeah. I mean, accountability is basically, did you follow the protocol or not? The protocol is the list of steps saying this is how we accomplish this task.

Indecision comes with a high price. I think most of us in business try to make the best decisions possible, but really it becomes a matter of saying, "okay, do I have all the information I need?" And if I do, then make the decision. Say yes, say no, but make the decision.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I are back with a talk on the high price of indecision. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here. And I think this is something that we all suffer with, especially in a new business, just knowing what you should do.

What are your priorities? How can you tell that? Paralysis by analysis is very common.

David: Yeah, no question. And I think some people are more wired to be decisive while others are more wired to be indecisive.

If you're decisive, dealing with indecisive people is extremely frustrating.

And if you're indecisive, dealing with decisive people can feel a little intimidating. So it's a challenge.

Jay: Yeah. And I think sometimes you need both. I mean, if you're sitting around waiting to make a decision. You could miss the perfect opportunity, right? But if you move too fast, you're probably not going to be prepared for that situation.

So we got to find balance in the force here. How do we do that?

David: Great question. Yeah. I think missed opportunities is definitely the first thing we tend to think of when it comes to indecision. But if we're trying to find balance in the force, then that would also mean talking about, well, should decisive people do anything differently?

And my guess is that's kind of a quick one. My guess would be to say, all right, if you think you're too decisive, then maybe you need to take a step back, aand consider things a little more. But in business, wow, it's much more detrimental in most cases, in my opinion, to be indecisive. And there's a great quote from Tom Watson that says:

"Solve it. Solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solve it wrong, it will come back and slap you in the face, and then you can solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business."

So there are lots of schools of thought on this. The bottom line for most of us is that you're better off making a decision, because if it's the wrong decision, you'll find out sooner, and then you can change it and make a better decision.

If it's the right decision, then you're already past the point where you would have been if you were still putting it off.

Jay: Yeah, I think part of this though is to be decisive, but to be informed in your decisiveness.

If you don't have good tracking of what's going on, like, we were decisive before, and this is how we learned, and we tracked it, and so next time we can move faster because we have some knowledge, we have some key performance indicators, those things are going to help our decisions go faster, and we're going to be more confident in those decisions.

Because for me, sometimes when I feel like we've acted too soon, I'm not at my best. I'm hesitant because I'm hoping it's going to work, but I'm not sure that there's anything backing it up.

David: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think you also sort of raised an interesting point, which is the difference between informed decisions and uninformed decisions, right? I don't think decisiveness means just making up your mind without having all the facts.

I'm saying basically, if you've got all the facts and you're failing to decide, that to me is indecisiveness. If you've got all the facts and then you ARE deciding, that to me is decisiveness.

But I completely agree with you. If you don't have all the information then it's too soon to make a decision. But in sales situations, a lot of times salespeople struggle because the people they're talking with don't have...

Particularly in the early stages, breaking through a sales plateau may just mean doing more of what you're doing. But generally, at some point, we hit a plateau that is created by the fact that we can't run any faster. We can't do any more by ourselves.

So we either need to implement new procedures and new processes, we need to get some help, or something needs to change fundamentally in the business in order to get us to that next level.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of breaking through your sales plateau. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: It's so good to be here again with you David, and as always, I'm very excited about this topic. I know businesses that hit these thresholds. It can be a monumental task to get to the next level and they're not sure how to do it. Is it, is it marketing? Is it adding new products? I think that's what a lot of them try to do. They're like, well, let's add 10 more products to the lineup and then we'll do it. And oftentimes that can just make the situation worse and not better.

David: Yeah, it's true. Most businesses, I think it's safe to say, at some point run into some sort of plateau. They hit a level of sales and they can't get past it. I believe in small businesses this is particularly true, where you're just working and pushing and you're trying to get to that next benchmark. And you just can't reach it.

And there are thresholds, I believe in small business, getting to your first hundred thousand in gross sales and then your first 250, and then you hit 500 and then a million and then 2 million and going from there.

And in the early stages, you can generally do pretty well, like to get from a hundred thousand to 250 is often easier than it is to get from a million to 2 million.

But most of us, at some point, will encounter some sort of sales plateau. You get there, you see it, you're targeting it, you're working toward it and you just can't seem to hit it.

And so it's really just a matter of getting stuck. It's like, I feel like I'm stuck and I'm here and I need to be here and I'm not sure what to do next.

Jay: Yeah. And I wonder how much of it is that they're not really sure how they got to the first plateau. I mean, they may think that they know,

David: That's true.

Jay: But it could be something completely different. And this could go back to something we talked about in a previous podcast: following up with your customers.

Find out why they purchased, how they feel about their purchase. Are they returning customers? Are they not returning customers? So if you didn't understand why they bought in the first place and how they felt about that purchase, it's going to be hard breaking through that next plateau.

David: It is, absolutely. And the biggest hangup that I see for most people is not knowing, "what do I do next?"

And as you indicated, people get to a certain point in some cases, they're not sure how they did it. What's that referred to as? Unconscious competence?

Jay: Mm-hmm,

David: Where I'm doing things and it's working, but I'm not even sure of what I've done. So I haven't gotten around to building a system around it to put that into place so I can replicate it.

But there's also the idea that what gets me to here will not necessarily get me to here. Right? So what gets me to level one won't necessarily get me to level two.

That's not always the case, particularly in the early stages, you can do more of what you're doing to get to a higher level. But generally, at some point, we hit a sales plateau that is created by the fact that we can't run any faster. We can't do any more by ourselves.

So we either need to implement new procedures and new processes. Or we need to get some help. Or something needs to change fundamentally in the business, in order to get us to that next level.

Jay: Yeah, something that can be very hard for people,

From a sales mindset connection standpoint, market domination starts with the idea that it's possible. And if you're not sure that it's possible, ask yourself this, your very best clients. When they think about who to go to for the products and services you offer, who do they think about?

Obviously, if they're your very best clients, it's you. They're thinking about you. So you've already achieved a level of mindset or market domination with your very best clients. That demonstrates that it can be done. So then it's a matter of saying, okay, well, how can we do this with other people?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of the sales mindset connection. Welcome Bianca.

Bianca: Thank you so much, David. Very happy to be here with you. And I'm just curious, what do you say to people who think mindset is woo-woo?

David: Yeah, there are a lot of people who feel that way. To some extent, I've been one of them. And in fact, Bianca is our newest addition to our team here at Top Secrets. She and I actually met in a clubhouse group years ago, and we were talking about the idea of mindset there.

And I said, well, I'm not really all that much into mindset. Most of my training is about the specifics of what to do. And Bianca said to me, well, I don't think so. Everything you talk about is pretty much mindset related. And I didn't realize it at the time, but it really kind of opened my eyes to the fact that, yeah, a lot of what we do, even though it's not geared to be about mindset, is about mindset.

So the whole woo-woo thing really kind of touches a nerve with me because I felt that way in the past. It's like, oh, mindset, well, no, you just need to do the stuff. But the reality of the situation is that if you don't have the right mindset, if you're not willing to take the necessary actions, then you're not going to be able to get there.

So it seems to me there's always a mindset element that has to be there, whether or not you really want to think about it.

Bianca: That's so true. And you know, for me, it's great to see that. I mean, you have this ability to connect with people on another level and that's, you know, congrats to you for having this mindset. Fantastic.

David: Well, thanks. And so do you. And that's actually how we started communicating was in this clubhouse group and so when we connected again recently, I just thought it would be so great to have you on our team because I know that that's an important aspect of what you do and your communication with people has been great.

So I'm really glad we've been able to put this together. But for most salespeople, it seems to me that mindset may be in the back of their mind. They may be thinking about it, but for the most part, they're probably just thinking, How do I make this next sale? How do I make this next contact? And so while I don't think you have to spend a ton of time thinking about mindset every day, just recognize that if you don't at least have it going on somewhere in the back of your mind, you're probably not going to do the work you have to do in order to get it started.

Bianca: Yeah, that's so right. And I know you talk a lot about the first contact and what that means, but please tell me, you know, why do you think the mindset is so important when having the first contact with your potential client?

David: Well, first contact is difficult for a lot of people, and a lot of people think of first contact as just being cold calls. And that's one example of first contact. And in those situations, mindset is really hard for some people. J just the idea of the fear of picking up the phone is an issue for people, which is all a mindset thing.

If they can't get past that, if they can't Overcome the mental blocks that are involved in having to pick up the phone and initiate contact with a stranger, then it's definitely going to impact them.

Staying in touch with prospects is required, and creating value in your communication is certainly something that will keep you from being a pest in sales. Because if what you're saying to them is going to help them to accomplish a result, they'll be a lot more likely to pay attention to it.

But ultimately it's required. You can't just skip it.


David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of staying in touch without being a pest. Welcome back, Bianca.

Bianca: Thanks so much, David. And wow, such a topic. Please tell us, why is it so critical to stay in touch?

David: Well, I think for anyone who is in sales, you recognize that you're probably not going to sell something in one call.

You're going to need to have multiple points of outreach, multiple contacts with a prospect or client before you're going to be able to make that first sale, let alone the second or third or fourth. So staying in touch is obviously a critical part. of the process, being able to reach out to them on an ongoing basis without coming across as annoying or without coming across as what most people would describe in sales as a pest.

I think this is something that more salespeople tend to think of than prospects or clients. I mean, unless you're really annoying, right? In which case they may think you're a pest. What I've heard from a lot of salespeople is this exact thing. How do I Remain in touch with the people that I need to be in touch with without being a pest.

And so again, I think that's why this topic is such an important one.

Bianca: Now that's, that's absolutely so right. And that leads me to my next question, like what do you think people mean when talking about being a pest?

David: I think the concern is what's going on in their head, what they're thinking about.

If I'm a salesperson and I'm going into any interaction with another human being with the idea that I want them to buy something. If that's my motivation, then it's likely I may be thinking in the back of my mind, oh, I hope I'm not being a pest about this, But, If you can make it about the person that you're interacting with, then it's totally different because now you're not just there to sell them a product. You're there to try to help them with whatever it is that they're trying to do. So if you're selling custom imprinted promotional products, you're not just selling them something that has their logo on it, you're selling them awareness or you're selling them more sales in their business, or you're selling them the idea of being in front of more people.

So when you think of it in terms of what it actually delivers for them, it makes it a lot better for you.

Bianca: Well, that's so true. And yes, absolutely right. But what about, you know, because this is a sensitive topic as well. And what if you're afraid to make those calls? What if you're afraid to send that first message or you just think you can do it?

David: That goes back to mindset, which I know we've talked about in previous podcasts as well. But I think if you're in sales, you recognize that you have to do it, right? There's no alternative. You have to be able to reach out. Now, it doesn't have to be a phone call. It doesn't have to be a networking event. It doesn't have to be an ad on social media. It can be lots of different things. So I think if you recognize that there are different things that you can do, and you can find out something that is more comfortable for you, that will certainly help.

If you also think about the concept that we've talked about in the past about creating value in your communication, that is certainly something that will keep you from being a pest, because if what you're saying to them is going to help them to accomplish a result. They're going to be a lot more likely to pay attention to it, but ultimately it's required.

You can't just skip it.

There are steps involved with making prospects and clients comfortable with you. You can't go from, "I have no idea who you are," to "I'm completely comfortable with you and I trust you implicitly" without steps. It just doesn't happen.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of making prospects and clients comfortable with you. Welcome back, Bianca.

Bianca: Thank you so much, David.

Definitely one of my favorite topics. And please tell us, what does it take to make prospects comfortable with us?

David: Yeah, that's sort of a magic key, isn't it? What does it take? Well, I think it takes desire, certainly starts with the desire to want to do it, because a lot of times we're just so focused on selling what it is that we want to sell that we don't really think about that too much.

We just think in terms of introducing ourselves and letting them know what we do and hoping that they're going to want to buy it. But so much of that, can never really happen until and unless we get to the point where they're comfortable enough to even want to hear what it is that we have to offer.

Bianca: Well, that's absolutely great. And yeah, I definitely agree with you. So who do we need to do this with?

David: Pretty much everyone, pretty much every prospect, every client we ever interact with, we need to create a level of comfort.

In some of my early training, I talked about sort of four levels, if you picture a target with archery practice it's a series of rings and outside the rings, there's this area outside the target. That I think of as total obscurity. They don't know who you are. They don't know what you do.

They have no idea why they should do business with you at all. So that's sort of outside the target. And then the first level inside the target is recognition. They recognize that you're alive. They recognize that you're taking in air on the planet, but they don't know exactly what you do or how you do it, or if they should use you at all.

They just recognize you. Okay, I recognize you. So you move from obscurity to recognition. That's sort of the first step. And then after they recognize you, then you can start to move to comfort. Because until I even know who you are, there's no way I'm going to feel comfortable with you. So there's that next level.

So you move from obscurity to recognition, and then recognition to comfort. And then from Comfort, you can eventually, if you do your job well and consistently, you can get to loyalty, right? We didn't even talk about loyalty in the topic today, but ultimately that's kind of the goal.

And Comfort is one of the steps we need to get through in order to get to any sort of level of customer loyalty. But when we talk about making prospects and clients feel comfortable with us, it really is a process.

And in our total market domination training, we talk about different methods of interaction. In other words, we have entry level awareness.

So entry level awareness is designed to make someone aware of the fact that we exist and we do what we do. From there, we can then move on to that comfort level awareness, which is designed to expand the relationship a little more.

Okay, I know who you are, I know what you do, and now I feel comfortable enough with you to place that first time order with you.

And then once that happens, if I deliver well and consistently, and then you order again, and I deliver well and consistently, then eventually that can lead to loyalty. But I think a lot of it goes to recognizing that there are steps involved here. You can't go from, I have no idea who you are, to I'm completely comfortable with you and I trust you implicitly.

It just doesn't happen.

Bianca: Wow. And that's a great answer, but I know for some people it may be like a lot. So how do we really do it?

David: How do we create that level of comfort?

Bianca: Yes.

Once you outperform your competitors in terms of the way that you do things, the way that you make your presentations, the way that you interact with your clients, the way that you follow up and service them -- when you're already outperforming your other competitors in that area, then the only thing you can really do is focus on how can I outperform my previous performance?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of outperforming your top competitor. Welcome back, Bianca.

Bianca: Thanks so much, David. So happy to be here with you. And what are we talking about? And what does that mean to outperform your top competitor?

David: Yeah, great question. For a lot of people, we kind of feel like we need to do it. We want to do it, but we're not quite sure how or what or even who they are. So, what it means to me is that we are doing a better job at the things that need to be done to be able to deliver a positive result for our clients.

So outperforming a top competitor means that we're doing it better. We're doing it differently. And we're able to convey that to people in a way where they understand it. They understand that there's a difference between the way that we deliver things and the way that other people deliver things.

Bianca: Wow, that's absolutely fantastic. And, you know, thanks for bringing so much awareness because yeah, it's a lot of confusion around this topic. And you mentioned something about who our competitor is. So how do you even determine who that is?

David: For a lot of people, when you're out there in the market and you're talking to people about buying your products and services, they'll say, Oh, well, I deal with this person or I deal with that person.

So that's a good way to find out who your top competitors are. Because if you keep hearing the same names over and over again, that's a pretty good indication that they're a top competitor.

Also, very often when we're starting out in a market, we may be aware of sort of the big dog in the market, the person who is already recognized as a leader.

So, you may just know when you're going in the person who does the most advertising or who seems to be the best known in the marketplace. That's also a good way to determine, okay, this might be one of my top competitors.

Ultimately, we need to decide who we see as our top competitors. But that's really just the starting point. Because I think that people make a big mistake when they focus on outperforming other people as their top competitors versus getting to the point where they ultimately have to outperform themselves, right?

So I think ultimately we want to get to a point where we are our own top competitor that we're trying to outperform.

Because once you've outperformed your other competitors in terms of the way that you do things, the way that you make your presentations, the way that you interact with your clients, the way that you follow up and service them.

When you're already outperforming your other competitors in that area, then the only thing you can really do is focus on how can I outperform my previous performance?

Bianca: Wow, that's absolutely a great answer. And I heard there a lot of hows. So how do you really outperform your top competitor?

David: Well, a lot of it has to do with determining what is it that we're saying to people.

How are we saying it? How often are we saying it? So it really boils down to a lot of our interactions with our clients. How often we're communicating with them, the very specific things that we're saying. The way that we're performing.

Are we able to deliver what they're looking for in a timely manner? Can we provide better quality products than our competitors? So a lot of it is really looking at the specifics of the job itself that needs to get done, and the way that we do those things.

So,

Brute force selling usually comes about when someone feels like they have to sell their product or service, regardless of the needs, wants, or desires of their prospect. The alternative is better understanding, relationship building, and effective qualification.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of brute force selling. Welcome, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I know we've talked about a lot of different issues, you know, generating leads and those types of things. I'm very anxious to talk about this brute force. When I hear it, as a customer, I'm like "brute for selling? What exactly do you mean here?" Because I might want to run away from it.
The Case Against Brute Force Selling
David: Yeah, well, I'm not really here today to advocate for brute force selling, okay? So, definitely not my first choice, but it seems to me like there are so many people, so many industries that tend to engage in it, that I thought we should probably have the discussion.

Jay: Yeah. I mean, nothing could be worse than chasing potential clients away. I think there's a fine line between brute force and still trying to help customers understand the importance of your products and using good sales techniques. It's really a fine line. Isn't it?

David: It is. There's definitely a balance. And I think there's a big difference between persistence and brute force selling. But to get to the core of it. I think one of the biggest problems that a lot of small business owners and salespeople have today is that they think in terms of selling.

I have to sell this product, or I have to sell this idea. I have to sell this concept. I have to sell this customer. "I have to sell," being the main thing.

When you're approaching someone for the first time with the idea of, "I have to sell," it's easy to slip into the wrong gear about trying to push what you have onto them before you've even identified, whether they have a need desire, money, budget, willingness to spend, any of those things.

When I think in terms of brute force selling, to me, it's often about people who have gotten into sales. They've been given maybe a lead sheet or in the old days, it was a phone book by their manager who said, "Go make sales. Knock yourself out."

And when you don't know how to do that well, then trying to sort of push or bully or cajole people into buying from you becomes the default.

So when the focus is just on sales as the first, middle, and end of the process, it's kind of a lose/lose for both the salesperson and the prospect. Also for the company. So it's a lose all the way around.
Effective Qualification is the Key
If we can train salespeople on the idea of first determining need, identifying whether or not this person is a good candidate for what we're selling. I mean, we're really just talking about qualifying. And a lot of salespeople and even a lot of sales managers fail to make the distinction between qualification and selling.

When we're qualifying somebody, we're not trying to convince or persuade them to buy our stuff. We're trying to find out if our stuff even makes sense for them.

And what I've seen over the years is that there are a lot of salespeople who waste enormous amounts of time pushing and trying to sell to people who have absolutely no capability even to buy what it is that they're selling.

Without taking that step back and saying, okay, let's do a little qualification first. Let's find out what this person is dealing with, and what sort of help they need. And if I can even help them, if you do that first, then you can find out pretty quickly if somebody is a good prospect for you or not.

And if they're not, then rather than trying to push them into buying something that they don't want or can't afford you can thank them for their time. And you can actually move on and get in front of somebody who has a much better li...

Just the idea of initiating first contact versus cold calling is a lot more exciting. It's a lot less intimidating in most cases. I started using that phrase after I saw an old Star Trek movie where they referred to first contact as being your first contact with an alien species. And I just thought, wow, that has a lot of correlations with sales. Where you're approaching somebody and you really don't know what you're getting into. Strange new worlds and all that sort of thing....

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of initiating first contact with a new prospect. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: I'm so glad to be here, David, and I'm excited to talk about this issue because to me, personally, this is one of the hardest things to do.

I'm fine once that first contact has been made. I feel like I'm really good at building relationships and closing.

David: Mm-hmm.

Jay: But I'm terrified about making that first contact and I'm not really sure how to do it. So I find myself shooting in the dark all the time trying to figure it out.

David: Yeah, well, you're certainly not alone.

I've certainly felt that way myself, and nearly everybody I've ever met in sales has had issues with it. And we talked about this in a previous podcast. We were talking about cold calling and the idea that cold calling is really just one form of first contact. And so the reason I thought it would be good to have a discussion on the topic of First Contact itself is to first of all, recognize that, yeah, it's more than just cold calling.

There are lots of different aspects to it. And if you realize that, then you also realize that you can get comfortable with first contact, generally by engaging in a first contact method that is more comfortable for you. So if cold calling is not your primary thing, you have other alternatives and that should maybe give you a little bit of hope.

Jay: Yeah, that does give me hope and I think the key is to know what the possibilities are. Because like I said, sometimes I'm like, okay, my only option is to cold call, and that's not working. So really understanding what are the other options available.

And the other thing I found is, lately I'm better at cold calling because you force yourself to do it enough and you can build a skill and you can get over the hump at least I'm finding that.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And when you are good at cold calling, and there are a lot of people who are very good at it, there are a lot of people who actually really like it. They don't even struggle with the call reluctance and that sort of thing, but for those who do struggle with it, I think just discussing this idea of first contact is going to be helpful.

And if we think about why first contact is really so important, in my mind at least, it's because it really helps to set the stage for the entire relationship. Whatever it is that they're going to learn about us or think about us down the road, it's all going to come from what that first contact is.

If it's a great experience, they're going to have good feelings about us. If it's less than a great experience, then they're not going to feel as great about it. Since it sets the tone, it's really important that people become comfortable with it, or at least come up with a form of first contact that they can be reasonably comfortable with.

Jay: Yeah. It's such a great line of thinking.

I hadn't really thought about it that, that first moment, maybe the first five minutes,

David: Right.

Jay: That could determine the whole lifespan of the relationship. How they view you. How they respond to your sales pitch. Everything. It's kind of like we do it in life. First impressions, we know, are everything. Right?

David: Exactly. And now there are so many different forms of first contact. For somebody you've never met, their first contact with you could be something they saw...

Most marketing messages and business communications are bland, directionless, and dull as dishwater. They lack a clear marketing voice.

If you're sending out emails that don't get a response or leaving voicemail messages that are largely ignored, take a look at what you're putting out. I can virtually guarantee it's missing one or more of the Five Elements of a Compelling Marketing Voice.

If you've ever wondered what's missing from your marketing -- what causes it to be ignored rather than acted upon, It may very well be one of the 5 things we're about to discuss.

First is a clear target: Knowing exactly who you're reaching out to and why.
Every communication you put out should be written as if it's to one person, even if it's going out to dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people.
Think of one particular prospect or client you know well. Pick someone you communicate with most authentically, who could be representative of this group, and then write as if you're writing to that person. Go back over it before you send it, of course, and make sure it applies to the entire group, but if you write as if you're writing to just one person, it will be far more effective.

This leads right into the second thing which may be missing, which is "you" centered communication.

Have a look at the messages you're putting out -- the emails and texts you're sending. Listen to yourself as you're leaving a voicemail message and see how many of your sentences start with or contain the the word "I" vs. the word "you."

"Hi, I was just calling because I'd like to set up a time to get together and go over some ideas I had for you."

You may not realize it, but that simple sentence had 3 I's before it ever got to a "you."

That ratio, 3:1, is completely off. Whenever possible, your communication should lead with them, be centered around them, and refer to them... a lot. That means using the word "you," more than "I" or "me."

A third thing that might be missing is good, old fashioned, conversational English. Many marketers and salespeople, for some reason, slip into formal "corporate speak" the moment they start writing a letter or email.

Dear Mr. Phillips, pursuant to our conversation of Thursday, March 1st, I herewith enclose a detailed proposal incorporating my primary, secondary and tertiary suggestions, recommendations and guidance for your impending client promotion of April 15th.

That's one side of the coin. The other is those who are too informal. If you've ever received an email with no punctuation, no sentence structure or capitalization -- either all lower case or even worse, all upper case (which is seen by most as shouting) -- you know what I'm talking about.

In both cases, the solution is the same: conversational English. While some clients prefer a more formal approach and some a less formal approach, you can always adapt your conversational English to their preferences without taking it to either of the two extremes we just discussed.

Fourth is a personality or point of view. Each of us is unique, so whenever possible, it's good to convey the most positive aspects of our personality in our communication. This further humanizes our message and creates a better bond with the person who's receiving it.

The Fifth element which may be missing is interest or passion. How can you make what you're saying as interesting as possible to the recipient?
Are you excited or passionate about your ability to help your client?
If so, be sure to allow some of that excitement to show through in your choice of words in a written communication and your tone of voice in spoken communication.

This element is very compatible with the previous points, because when you infuse interest or passion, conveying your own personality, into a "you" centered communication, in conversational English to a clear target, it makes all of your communication more clear, compelling and authentically your own.

In today's episode in our professional profile series, David Blaise and Bianca Istvan discuss business growth strategies designed to improve results, including sequencing your communication with Carlos Mestas, CEO of Thrivebox, which specializes in helping entrepreneurs establish business credit to access funding solutions, Alan Watts, known as the Love Engineer, who offers dating and relationship coaching services, and Paul Loubao, owner of PCL Housing Commerce, who focuses on investments, sales, and education in the real estate industry.

After sharing what's working well and what's creating challenges, the focus turned to the importance of sequencing communication as part of your sales and marketing strategies.

Reaching and impacting potential clients has evolved over the years, making it necessary to engage with prospects differently than before, using the communication channels they prefer.

Some of the topics discussed include:

The effectiveness of marketing strategies in connecting with the right clientele
The importance of a multi-faceted approach, utilizing social media, face-to-face, and online networking to engage with clients
The difficulty of gaining trust with new prospects
Changing the mindset of people who may have previously been burned in other transactions

We also discussed adaptation, trust-building, and proactive engagement as pivotal factors when navigating the challenges of business growth.
Ready to Communicate More Effectively and Improve Your Sales Results?
If so, go to TopSecrets.com/call or check out some of the other ways we can help:

Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.
Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.
Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.
Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.
Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

Most people I know in business want to get results. But how do you get your desired results fast?

They’re always thinking about new things, focusing on new ideas, determined to get the results they’re looking for, and sometimes it takes a lot longer than they’d like.

When you consider the business people you know, it’s likely that some of them might have achieved amazing results since you last spoke with them, while others seem stuck or unable to move forward.

In each of these situations, their results probably have a lot less to do with their goals, mindset, plans, or ever their determination than you might think.

Instead, it’s largely about their speed of implementation. How quickly are they making things happen?

Speed of implementation is about how quickly we can iterate, reiterate, try things, fail and then try more things so we can get to the actions that work.

How fast can you get from an idea to an action to a result that can be measured? The faster we do these things, the faster we find out what works and what doesn’t.

In a previous podcast, we talked about the three primary stages of this. Starting with the idea, moving to the action which then generates the result.

Each time we generate a new idea, we either go through that process to take an action and get a result, or we kill it off in the idea stage. We fail to take action on it, and then our results are determined by the actions we didn’t take. The FTDs. The things we failed to do.

Of course our speed of implementation applies to our activities, but it’s also dependent on outside factors, like the response of others.

In sales, we can provide someone with a quote today, but we can’t control when or even if they’ll respond. But even in these cases, we’re far better off doing our part now, rather than later, because we’re getting the wheels of action in motion.

And the sooner we take action on our ideas, the sooner we see the results of that action, so we can determine our next steps.

Also, when I talk about speed of implementation, I’m not talking about rushing through things. Instead, I’m just talking about tightening up the time between the idea and the action. Reducing the gaps between ideas and implementation.

And even with this, we have to be careful. I’m not suggesting we should be impulsive and just act on every idea that pops into our heads.

Of course, we need time to evaluate those ideas, determine which are worthy of action and which aren’t, and prioritize them, so we’re acting on what we believe are the best ideas first. But very often, this can happen a lot faster than we think.

We each have a certain tempo, a speed at which we do things.

I grew up on the east coast of the United States. We have a bit of a reputation for speaking fast and acting fast.

When I’m excited about an idea, I tend to speak even faster.

It’s not always an advantage.

So once again, I’m not suggesting we rush through things.

We still need to take time to listen, think, and deliberate.

But once we’ve made that decision to move forward on something, our speed of implementation will be a huge determining factor in our results.

Sometimes procrastination plays a role, sometimes it’s fear, or dread, or indecision, and each of these things can significantly delay the amount of time it takes to get to the things we want.

Have you ever put off doing something for a week or a month that literally ended up taking maybe 45 minutes to an hour to complete?

Sometimes we spend more time dreading something than it takes to complete it.

Of course, just taking action doesn’t mean we’ll get the desired result. But if we don’t, we’ll know that sooner, so we can evaluate our options and take a different action.

When we start to get good at this – at reducing the time between our ideas and our action – we can literally get results from four, five, or even ten or more different actions,

Today I'd like to talk to you about the three most likely points of failure in a sales process.

First is Almost Always Targeting.
This means trying to go too big, or too wide, or too deep, too fast. If you think the world is your market, okay, but the problem is it's very unlikely that you have enough money to market to everyone.
For that reason, you have to get your targeting dialed in. It's like what Benjamin Martin said in the movie The Patriot. Aim small, miss small, because when you think you're targeting everyone, it's really more likely that you're not targeting anyone. Like the old proverb said, he who chases two rabbits catches none.
Another issue with targeting everyone is that not everyone is a good prospect for you. Many people have no need, no desire, no money, no budget, no willingness to spend. So if you're targeting everyone, or you're targeting poorly, you'll have to kiss a lot of frogs, as the saying goes, to find your prince or princess.

But that's qualification. We'll discuss that another time.
The Second Most Likely Point of Failure in Your Sales Process is Your First Contact with a Prospect.
And a lot of people confuse their first contact with their actual sales process. For example, in live seminars, I'll often ask an audience, What's your sales process?

How do you get new customers through the door like clockwork? They'll often shout out things like, Networking, Cold Calling, Facebook, LinkedIn. But the ones who are almost always more proud of their answers than anyone else are those who shout out the word, Referrals. They often look with disdain on those who offer other answers.

And yes, referrals are fantastic, but referrals, just like all the others, are just a method of lead generation for your first contact with a prospect. Like networking, cold calling, social media, and all the other forms of first contact, none of them are a sales process. At best, they're all just the first step in a sales process.

Now, since your first contact will very likely set the stage as the basis of your relationship with the prospect going forward, you have to make it count. You only get one chance to make a first impression, right? Because so little time, effort, and training are ever focused on it, first contact remains one of the biggest points of failure in the sales process.
The Third Point of Failure in the Sales Process is The Path.
What happens after you initiate first contact with a new prospect? What's step two? What's step three? What's step four? Do you just wing it? Because many salespeople just wing it. They refer to their winging it as following up, and it's usually about as rudderless and nondescript as it sounds.

Often, it just means staying in touch.

Naturally, staying in touch is necessary in business. But how much more effective is it when you have a plan, when you actually have a path, when you have objectives, benchmarks, or a process to follow along the way?

Of course, every prospect is different. Every single conversation you have is different.

So it's not like you're going to be able to control every aspect of the sales process.

But if you have a path, at least you know what you need to accomplish and you have something to return to if and when your prospects start wandering off in another direction -- which they inevitably will.

Without a clear path, without those benchmarks that you know you need to hit to complete the sale, you can end up lost and walking in circles for a really long time.

That's why a clear path is so critical to your success. And it's why not having one is often a critical point of failure.

These are just the first three, but they're big. So if you need help fixing any or all of these in your business, or anything that might be causing you trouble, go to TopSecrets.com/help to see how we can help. That's TopSecrets.com/help.
Ready to Eliminate the Primary Points of Failure in Your Business?
If so, go to TopSecrets.

Ready to get and qualify leads in your business? If so, be sure to check out this episode in the Professional Profile series.

In today's episode, David Blaise and co-host Bianca Istvan discuss business growth and qualification strategies with real estate developer Daniel Wick, financial services provider Joseph Lombardi, and content creator Sufian Malik.

Topics include effective strategies for building a personal brand, nurturing client relationships, and streamlining the qualification process in sales. The panel also make the following recommendations:

Utilize short-length content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels to effectively build a personal brand and connect with audiences.
Implement a strong qualification process in sales to quickly identify qualified leads and avoid wasting time with unqualified prospects.
Leverage CRM systems and nurturing processes to expedite sales processes and build long-term client relationships.
Focus on creating value-driven communication and automating follow-up sequences to maintain persistence without being perceived as overly aggressive.
Prioritize building personal connections with clients in order to foster trust and loyalty, especially in industries like real estate where relationships are paramount.
Embrace technology and automation tools such as AI chatbots to streamline business operations and enhance customer engagement.

In addition, the panelists shared valuable insights and practical tips for managing client relationships, handling difficult clients, and maintaining persistence without being perceived as overly aggressive. They underscored the importance of creating value-driven communication, automating follow-up sequences, and focusing on long-term client relationships.
Need to Get and Qualify More Leads in Your Business?
If so, go to TopSecrets.com/call or check out some of the other ways we can help:

Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.
Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.
Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.
Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.
Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

Over the years, I have met and talked to many broke experts. People who are exceptional at what they do, but struggling to pay bills because they can't get enough customers.

This is not a function of who they are as people. It's not a reflection of their work. It's also not a mindset issue. Instead, it's entirely about the fact that being exceptionally good at what you do, and being able to get enough of the customers or clients you need are two completely different skill sets.

I can't tell you how many business owners I've talked to over the years who are exceptional at what they do, but they can't get enough customers. I've met:

Chefs who make amazing food, but can't get enough people into their restaurants to keep the lights on.
Real estate agents who know their markets in and out, they're great with people, can handle all the details, but can't get enough clients to pay their bills.
Artists who have amazing skills, but who never mastered the art of customer acquisition, so their actual art remains largely unseen.
Printers who have taken out loans to invest enormous amounts of money in equipment that just sits there, because they don't know how to get enough of the customers and clients they need to feed the machines.

This week, I heard from a life coach, whose story really touched me, because she knows she could really help people, but she's struggling to get the clients she needs.

Here's what she said,

"I am a good coach but there are no clients for me. I feel profoundly sad for not being financially independent. I am a good person, I do personal growth, I am a really good coach and yet I can not pay the bills and have a lovely and happy life. Why does it have to be so hard?"

In each of these situations, the most important thing to recognize is that there is a huge difference between being exceptionally good at the technical aspects of a job -- like cooking, selling homes, creating art, printing stationary or coaching people who need help -- and being able to get enough of the customers or clients who need those products and services.

They are two completely different skill sets.

There are many exceptional writers in the world, but as Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad once said, "On the top of my books it's written *Best-Selling Author* & not *Best-Writing Author*".

Two different things.

So today I'd like to share with you, what I shared with this coach. And it applies to any business that is great at what they do, but that struggles to get enough of the customers or clients it needs to thrive.

If you're great at what you do, then you're halfway there, but this is not a mindset issue. It is a focus issue.

So if you want to make the money you need to make, then 100% of your focus and learning now need to be on 3 things. It’s what I call the MVPs of Marketing & Sales.

If you’ve heard this from me before, but you’re not yet earning what you think you’re worth, then please, listen again.

In sports, MVP stands for Most Valuable Player. In Marketing and Sales, MVP stands for Message, Vehicles and People.

Specifically:

What is the marketing (M)essage you need to convey about your product or service?
Which combination of marketing (V)ehicles will you use to communicate your message?
And Who are the (P)eople or prospects you need to reach?

This begins with having a crystal-clear idea of exactly WHO you want to benefit from what you do. Those are your People.

When you know who your people are, then you have to consider exactly what you'll need to SAY to engage those people. To invite them in. To take advantage of everything you have to offer. That's your Message.

Finally, you need to determine HOW you'll reach them, in other words, what combination of marketing Vehicles will you use to reach them? This means things like social media posts and comments, direct messaging, phone calls, email, direct mail, networking, door knocking,

In today's episode, we discuss the idea of moving from stealth mode to intimidation mode in business.

In this episode of the Professional Profile series, David Blaise and co-host Bianca Istvan are joined by a panel of growth-minded business professionals, including David Boyd from Down to Earth Cuisine, author and speaker Oksana Tsimpoaka, Jeff Mount, business development officer from Tactive Wealth, certified brain health coach Stanley Dietrich, and Jaime McCormick, founder & CEO of Skate Angry.

The panel discuss the importance of topics including SEO marketing and website optimization, clear targeting, the use of conversational AI and automation, and time management.

Throughout the episode, David and Bianca facilitate engaging discussions with the guests, exploring their successes, challenges, and growth strategies.

Be sure to check out this episode to see how many of the recommendations you can apply in your business.
Ready to Move from Stealth Mode to Intimidation Mode in Your Business?
If so, check out the five primary ways we can help:

Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.
Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.
Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.
Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.
Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

If you're ready to grow sales and profits, it's time to take a look at your DKYA Prospects.
??

If you are struggling to reach the level of sales and profit that you need to grow and scale your business, I want to urge you to start thinking about and keeping track of an important metric that you have probably either not considered, or have not focused on addressing on a consistent basis.
It’s a number that directly impacts every business in business, and this number either works in your favor, or it works against you.
For brand new businesses, this number always starts out high, and much of your early success in any new business venture will come from your ability to reduce this number as quickly as possible.
But some businesses, particularly those who are bad at what they do -- those who have a terrible reputation -- are actually better off making sure this number remains high until you get your internal issues squared away.
So what am I talking about here? I’m talking about the very specific number of DKYA Prospects who current exist in your market.
Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, I’d like to introduce you to the very important topics of DKYA Prospects. If this topic is brand new to you, then I encourage you to pay very close attention.
Even if you’re already somewhat familiar with this concept, I want you to consider the direct impact it will have on your own success and the success of your business.
In either event, I will say this, ignore this number at your own peril.
First of all, this number is important and relevant whether you’re selling B2B, B2C, B2G, online, offline, some combination thereof, if you’re selling anything to anyone, you need to be aware of this number.
Second, this number is a direct reflection of your success or your failure at creating awareness of your business solution inside the market or markets that you have specifically selected.
So whether you’re a micro-business, targeting a really small number of customers, or global powerhouse targeting every human on the planet with a pulse, this number will provide a snapshot -- like a mini-report card -- to tell you how well or how badly you’re doing when it comes to creating awareness of your business, brand or solution.
As I indicated earlier, if you’re great at what you do, if you have an excellent reputation, then you will want to focus your efforts on reducing this number as much as possible, as quickly as possible.
This means most conscientious business owners who are serious about doing a great job for their customers or clients, are going to want to approach this number like your golf score. Try to get it as close to zero as humanly possible.
But if you are not yet doing a great job for your people, if you don’t yet have all of that dialed in, then you’ll want to fix that first.
So what am I talking about here when we refer to DKYA Prospects?
I’m referring to the very specific number of prospects in your market for the products and service you provide who do Don’t Know You’re Alive: DKYA.
For a local restaurant, this would be the number of people within driving distance of that restaurant who might like to eat there, but they don’t know know the place exists. DKYA.
For a real estate agent, it’s the number of people inside your target market who might consider engaging you to buy or sell a property, but they can’t because they don’t know you’re alive: DKYA.
For a print shop or promotional product business, it’s the number of people inside your own self-identified market – whether you define your market by geography or industry or program specialty or product specialty or some combination thereof – however you define it – it’s the ones who can’t buy from you because they DKYA, don’t know you’re alive.
In our work with clients, much of our focus is about creating awareness.
It’s about letting the people who could potentially buy from you, know who you are, know what you do, and know you’re alive,

Targeting new clients is about more than just identifying the market or markets you plan to sell to. If you want to grow sales using the three levels of targeting, it requires digging deeper to move from an overall idea of your ideal client, right down to the specific individual that you plan to initiate contact with next.

In this episode of the Professional Profile series, David Blaise and co-host Bianca Istvan are joined by a panel of growth-minded business professionals, including Rosa Toribio from Power Up, Baz Porter, an entrepreneur focusing on business growth, Chris Weiher from video production company Cleaver Creative, and real estate developer Mohamed Awal Sanis.

The guests share insights into their businesses and discuss their approaches to overcoming challenges and targeting the right audience. Topics include raising standards, adapting to economic changes, and personalizing approaches to connect with the right audience.
Ready to Leverage Your Targeting to Sell More?
If so, check out the five primary ways we can help:

Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.
Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.
Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.
Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.
Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

​

Your First Contact with a new prospect will set the tone for the relationship, which is why it's so important to make it count. In this first episode of our Professional Profile series, we'll discuss business growth strategies with our panel.

Need to know how to stand out when initiating your first contact with a new prospect, customer or client in sales? Cold calling, networking, and referrals are not your only options.

In this episode, co-hosts David Blaise and Bianca Istvan discuss business growth strategies with insurance broker Taylor King, digital marketing expert Frank Demming, and real estate title account executive Brad Demint.

The conversation kicked off with each guest sharing insights into their backgrounds and business specialties. Taylor emphasized the importance of networking, both in-person and online, showcasing her diverse approach through platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Frank shed light on the power of LinkedIn as his secret sauce for business growth, emphasizing the transition from online connections to offline relationships. Brad, with his expertise in real estate title, highlighted the significance of effective networking, showcasing his unique approach of planning and hosting events while becoming a connector in the industry.

The podcast delved into the critical topic of first contact in business interactions. Taylor stressed the significance of collaboration over competition and the importance of continuous networking. Frank shared how LinkedIn became a game-changer for him, facilitating the transition from online to offline interactions. Brad, known for his effective networking strategies, discussed the value of planning events and becoming a connector to offer value to others.

Throughout the episode, the hosts and guests blended insights with real-world experiences. The focus on networking as a central theme highlighted its role as a key growth strategy for the diverse businesses represented on the podcast.

To get more ideas on how to increase sales, improve profit margins, and grow your business, be sure to listen or watch this episode of the Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales Professional Profile series.
Ready to Multiply Your Sales?
If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.
Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.
Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.
Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.
Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

​

Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will continue our discussion about the AI Approach to Multiply Your Sales. This is part four in our series, and today we'll be talking about learning, segmenting, and the Three Ds. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David.

I really, really enjoyed this. I know I've said that in previous podcasts, but it's true. After each one, I've gone into my own business and I'm like, okay, I got to apply this and apply that because these conversations are of such value. So I appreciate your time. I love this. And hopefully it's been helpful to everybody else.

David: I'm glad, I feel the same way, and I'm really looking at this almost like a mini-course. If people were to put together these four episodes and say, "How much of this stuff am I doing in my business?" You can probably implement some things very quickly that can probably help you get some great results.

Jay: 100%.

David: All right, so let's do the quick review. And again, what we're talking about here is we asked AI what will help you to multiply your business because that's been a focus of our conversations recently. AI came back with some different responses, and then we're talking about what AI says and how we're able to help implement those things in business with our clients.

And so let's just recap. Number one was refine your target audience. Number two, develop a compelling value proposition. Number three, optimize your marketing channels. That was our first episode on that topic.

In episode two, we covered points four, five, and six. Number four was enhance your customer experience. Number five, implement a referral program. And number six, leverage the power of content marketing.

In episode three of this series, we hit utilize upselling and cross selling strategies, which was number seven.

Analyze and optimize your sales funnel, which was number eight, and invest in customer relation management software, CRM, which was number nine.

Now we're going to be doing 10, 11, and 12. Eleven and 12 are really bonus because originally I asked it for 10 and then I realized that doesn't break out well if you're doing three in a podcast.

So I went back to the AI and I said, give me two more. And it did. So we'll be talking about numbers 11 and 12 in this podcast as well.

So number 10 in the list of things that AI says will help you to multiply your sales is:
10: Continuous learning and adaptation. Stay updated with industry trends, attend relevant workshops or conferences, and be open to adapting your sales strategies to meet changing market demands.
Well spoken AI! Continuous education. It's a good call!

Jay: It is, and some professions actually require it. But again, that continuous education is often on a service or a specialty or things like that. It's not really on customer service or the technology or things like that.

I feel like in that regard, so many of us are a hamster on a wheel. You know, we're just trying to keep up with what today is giving us. We're putting grease on the squeaky wheel and we don't have time to really think about staying up on, you know, all the latest trends and those kind of things.

David: Yeah. And a lot of people just don't like continuing education, because they feel like so much of it is platitudes. It's like, I already know this stuff. I already know it, right? But knowing what to do is very different than knowing how to do it. And that's really what I've been trying to differentiate in this series of podcasts is that, yes, these are great statements.

Continuous learning. That sounds great. But what are you learning? Are you learning things that you can implement immediately?

Are you putting in place processes that will allow you to start getting results right away so you can gauge those results and then adapt, change, or tweak the process as you go to make sure that it's working for you?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will continue our discussion about the AI Approach to Multiply Your Sales. This is episode three in our series, and it's about upselling, sales funnels, and your CRM.

David: Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you, David. This has been fascinating for me as I look at what AI recommends.

And even just apply some of those basics to my own business but also realizing that these are kind of general, and figuring out how to apply them to everybody's individual circumstances is no easy feat.

David: Exactly. And one of the things that I've really liked about this series is having the opportunity to talk about the "how" of a lot of this stuff, because as business owners, as salespeople, we've heard these recommendations forever.

But the question is always, "well, how do you go about doing it?" And so what I've been trying to do in this series is to say, okay, here's the general what you ought to do, but then there's the, how do you go about doing it? And this is exactly what we help our clients with. So it's been really fun for me to be able to go through these and say, okay, there are probably lots of ways to do these things, but this is how we do it.

Because our goal is to simplify it for our clients. So you don't have to say, Oh, well, should I do this? Should I do that? Should I do this? It's like, okay. Implement this, gauge the results, see how it goes, report back, if we need to tweak it, if we need to do something different, we can, but you have an instant starting point, and that allows you to get actions taken, get results back quickly, and then be able to adapt as you go.

Jay: Yeah, I love that, that you're able to kind of cut through all of the noise out there because there's so much noise, and help them identify for their individual situation what they need because they may have asked AI and we have some of those lists here and items from AI, but again, it's just a starting point.

David: Exactly. So let's take a look at the things that we already discussed in the previous episodes. And once again, what we're doing here is we asked AI, what are the things that will allow us to multiply our sales? It came back with number one, define your target audience. Number two, develop a compelling value proposition.

Number three, optimize your marketing channels. We covered that in previous episodes. Number four was enhance your customer experience. Number five was implement a referral program. Number six was leverage and the power of content marketing.

So now in this episode, we're going to tackle numbers seven, eight, and nine, which is upselling, sales funnels, and your CRM.

So let's get to number seven.
7. Utilize upselling and cross selling strategies: Offer complementary products or services to increase the average transactional value and maximize customer value.
What do you think?

Jay: Yeah. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I will tell you this was much easier to grasp in my mind when I was in the restaurant business, right? It's like, you want fries with that? You know, let's make it a value meal. Let's make it a, you know, a combo, whatever.

I will tell you, we've spent a lot of time in my current business identifying what are the other things, other products that we can offer that our customers will want, not things that we can shove down their throat, but what other things can we add that they may be looking for because they came to us?

David: Yes, exactly. And I think people hear about upselling and cross selling and they're like, Oh yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Most people are familiar with the restaurant, the McDonald's example, "want fries with that." So it makes sense, but it's like, okay, how do I apply that to my business?

And one of the ways that we help our clients do that is to identify, okay, well, what does this mean? What is upselling versus cross selling and all that ...

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be continuing our discussion on the AI approach to multiply your sales. This is part two in our series, and today we'll be discussing service, referrals, and content marketing.

David: Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much, David. I'm really enjoying this discussion about AI because I think we've already established there are some great tools and resources with AI, but it's not exactly to the point where it needs to be.

But more specifically, can it really speak to your individual situation? How do you pick through that and know what's right for you?

David: Exactly, and last week we were talking about the first three recommendations it made, which were define your target audience, develop a compelling value proposition, and optimize your marketing channels.

This week, we're going to be talking about its next set of recommendations. And it starts with number four on its list is:
4. Enhance Your Customer Experience. Focus on delivering exceptional customer service and creating a positive experience at every touch point to build loyalty and encourage repeat business.
That sounds nice.

Jay: It sounds fantastic. Again, just do that. You know, but how do you do that? I think I mentioned in the last podcast that so often people go into business not because they're great at customer service, but because they have a great recipe, or they have a great product. And they don't really think about how to offer that in a great way.

I'm in the accounting field now, which kind of blows my mind and is a different conversation. But I find generally, David, that accountants don't know how to give good customer service. And they kind of feel like they have a captured audience and so they don't even try to give good customer service.

David: And a lot of accountants also really struggle with marketing because they feel like it's

Jay: Yes, yes.

David: Kind of, if not beneath them, they feel uncomfortable with it. They don't want to come across as a salesperson. They're very good at what they do and they're less good at finding the people they need to do that sort of thing.

And that's why a lot of them, a lot of small business accountants struggle, because they're great at accounting and not so great at the things that we're talking about here that will actually allow them to service more customers.

Jay: Yeah, you're exactly right. Where I've come from, the retail side, the customer service side, that's been my whole background.

So, we're kind of owning our little space in the marketplace, because we're focusing on that up front, and people recognize a difference immediately.

David: Yeah, exactly. So, one of the things we talked about in the previous podcast related to AI telling us how to multiply sales is that some of these recommendations come across as rather general. Okay, so enhance your customer experience is not really the kind of thing you would think of as "okay, this will allow me to multiply sales."

It's a necessity. You have to have exceptional customer service in your business if you want to survive, let alone thrive, let alone multiply business. But it doesn't seem to me to be a multiplier in and of itself.

However, when we think about this idea, what can we do to make the experience better, what can we do to expedite the experience, make these things happen better and more consistently, that will allow us to get the velocity we need, in my opinion, to be able to then Multiply your sales.

In other words, it's not enough to just do a great job with customer service. We need to be able to do it with a cadence of accountability.

We need to be able to do it in a way where it's happening consistently. People are able to move through our process, get what they need, feel like they've been extremely well taken care of, and then we can move on to the next person.

Jay: Yeah,

Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the AI Approach to Multiply Your Sales. This is part one in a multiple part series, and we're going to start off with targeting, communication, and reach.

David: Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David, it's great to be with you.

I'm really excited about this series because I think a lot of people shy away from AI. Or they're getting into it and they're hearing a lot of the things that it can do, but they're not sure how to approach it or even if it's the right thing to do for their business.

David: Yes. Agreed. And the way this actually came about is that we've been talking for a while over the course of the past several weeks in particular about multiplying your sales.

And some people really struggle with this concept. And I thought, well, what does AI have to say on the topic, and how does what AI says about it relate to what we do, and how we help our clients, and do these things line up? So I thought what I'd do is I'd take the answer to the question when we asked AI, "What are your best recommendations in terms of multiplying sales," to see what AI says and then compare that with what we're doing.

And so the first three recommendations that it had were based on targeting, communication, and reach. Those are my words, not AI words in particular. But that's pretty much what it broke down to, so I figured that's what we'd start with.

Jay: I love it. We're going to do a podcast on AI, and we've asked AI what it thinks first, and now we're going to psychoanalyze AI to see if it's in line.

David: Well, to see how it lines up. Because one of the things that I found interesting was that when I asked it about multiplying sales, it was coming back with responses that talked about increasing sales.

And so I asked it specifically to come up with recommendations based on multiplying sales. And at first it seemed resistant to that.

So it talked about growing sales and multiplying sales. But this is where it landed. So I figured we'd start with this.

Now, I had asked it to prioritize these things. I'm not quite sure if it did. But this is what it came back with. So the very first recommendation that it had in terms of multiplying sales.

I'll tell you specifically what it said first and then we can discuss it.

So the first thing that it recommended is it said:
1. Define Your Target Audience. Clearly identify your ideal customers and understand their needs, preferences, and pain points.
So, that's how it started. What do you think of that take?

Jay: It sounds very, very traditional, very typical, common knowledge. The first thing that I learned in a sales class years ago, identifying your target audience.

But I feel like that's so basic, and when you talk about multiplying sales, I tend to think that's more about taking the existing clientele and getting them to spend more. That's what I think about.

David: I tend to think that way as well, but I thought it's a pretty good jumping off point because whether your target audience means your existing clients and the new clients that you want to go after, I think it makes a whole lot of sense to lead with, determining who it is that you're going to be going after.

I relate a lot of this to what we do in our Total Market Domination course. One of the very first things we do in our course is we have a three level system of targeting.

So what AI is recommending here in sort of a general sense, in terms of defining your target market, is something that we really dive into pretty heavily with our clients.

Because without that targeting up front, if you don't know exactly who it is that you're going after, who your ideal client is, the likelihood of bringing an ideal client through the door is Is generally slim to none.

Jay: Yeah. And you know, we've talked a lot about this in the past that knowing who your target audience is,

Don't expect to grow your business if you can't multiply sales. Most people love the idea of multiplying their sales. But many don't know how to do it, and some just have a really difficult time getting their heads around the whole concept.

So today, I'd like to show you how everyone who's starting out, DOES multiply their sales. And I'd like to share a clip from one of our training programs that explains a key concept that is critical if you ever want to grow, or yes, multiply your sales.

And that concept is Your Next Desired Benchmark.

Recently, I released a video talking about how one of my clients grew her sales from $250,000 a year to over a million. People love her story. They think it's great. But quite a few said that they didn't think it applied to them, because the numbers were too big.

So instead of her story, let's talk about yours.

Unless you buy or inherit an existing business, you start out at zero. If you stick with it, you'll go through a series of stages, or benchmarks.

For example, your first benchmark might be to get your first sale.

That's a good one! Congratulations! Well done!

Your second benchmark might be to get your second sale. And if your second sale is the same amount of money as the your first sale, then guess what?

You just multiplied your sales by two.

Easy math, right?

So you go from two sales to four sales, and you've doubled again!

Four to eight? Same thing!

In business, everyone multiplies! We just forget that we already know how to do it.

This is nothing new. It's been true forever.

And to prove it, here's a clip from one of the lessons in my $100K coaching program, which is all about getting to a hundred thousand dollars a month in promotional product sales. And while this was made specifically for promo people, this lesson applies to every business in business that needs to grow.

Now, if these numbers seem too big to you, or too small to you -- just substitute your own!

This is about YOU setting YOUR OWN next desired benchmark.

So now, here's Baby Dave, a younger version of myself explaining this concept a long time ago...
Hi, I'm David Blaise. In this video, I'd like you to set your next desired benchmark on your personal path to $100,000 a month.
Your next desired benchmark should be a significant stretch from wherever it is you are right now. So this is generally not going to be the place for 3 percent to 9 percent increases.
You definitely want to amp it up. You want to think in terms of at least double digit increases, and depending on where you are right now, triple digit increases.
Naturally, the larger you grow your business, the more difficult it becomes to double, and double, and double again. But, for most businesses in our industry, particularly those doing less than a million dollars a year in gross sales, targeting at least a double is probably a good idea.
In fact, most of the people I've worked with who have hit a million dollars a year or more, started out doubling year over year, over year for their first few years in business.
So, if you're currently doing $100,000 a year, you might start by targeting $250,000. If you're doing $250,000, you may target $500,000. If you're doing $500,000, maybe target a million. Or at least $750,000 to $800,000.
In nearly every case, you're much better off targeting higher, and potentially not hitting it, than targeting lower and hitting it.
Small goals don't do a lot in terms of motivation.
They also don't do much in terms of convincing you that you'll need to take significantly different action in order to achieve them. So set your goals high.
If you're already doing more than a million dollars in annual sales, I would encourage you to still make your next desired benchmark a significant stretch from wherever you are now. If you're doing a million dollars a year, maybe target at least 1.5 million.
Go with your gut, and don't drive yourself crazy with this exerci...

If you’re not generating the level of sales you’re capable of in your business, the real cost of inadequate sales is a lot more than you think.

And it’s not just the cost of the sales you’re missing out on.

When you operate a business that consistently generates inadequate sales, revenue, and income, you’re effectively starving your business of the oxygen it needs to survive. Inadequate sales chokes a business, stifles its growth and can threaten its survival.

So today, let’s take a look at some of the real costs of inadequate sales in your business.

Generating significant sales in your business, or at the very least “adequate” sales is critical for many reasons.

First and foremost is the financial stability necessary for survival.

When you generate significant sales, it gives you the stability necessary to cover all your operational expenses, pay your vendors, pay your people, invest in growth, and make sure the business remains sustainable in the long term.

Your sales growth directly impacts your overall business growth, which allows for reinvestment, product development, expansion into new markets, and hiring additional talent.

It also gives you an edge that many competitors find hard to overcome.

In previous podcasts, we discussed the concept of moving from Stealth Mode to Intimidation Mode, and this depends on your ability to attract, qualify and convert more clients than your competitors.

Inadequate sales makes it nearly impossible to build infrastructure or even attract investors who could help you make it happen.

When you’re generating adequate sales and stable revenue, you can build effective processes, improve productivity, and negotiate better terms with everyone from your suppliers and vendors, to your lenders and potential partners.

It contributes to a stable work environment by giving you the ability to hire, motivate and retain the right people.

And whether you’re a small business or even a solo entrepreneur with no desire to add a lot of people or build infrastructure, having adequate sales, along with the processes necessary to be able to generate them consistently, will ultimate determine how much your business is worth.

...because no one wants to buy a business that’s unable to generate adequate sales and revenue. And most solo entrepreneurs don’t really want to run that kind of business themselves.

So regardless of your growth plans, adequate sales are key.

With all that said, some small business owners figure that even if they’re not generating adequate sales right now, it’s no big deal. They’ll figure it out eventually, or get around to it at some point.

As a result, they can plod along for weeks, months or even years bringing in just enough revenue to make themselves either mildly comfortable or not quite uncomfortable enough to do what it takes to generate the sales they need to run a fun, exciting, sustainable business.

And shouldn’t that be the goal? If it’s not fun, lucrative, or ideally both, then what’s the point? If you just want to earn a steady paycheck, you can do that with a regular job.

So if you’re still with me, let’s take a look at just Three of the Real costs of inadequate sales:

Real cost #1. Lost revenue. This is the obvious one. If you’re not generating adequate sales, then you are losing out on revenue every business day. Some people don’t think of money that they didn’t make as being lost.

But isn’t it, though?

If there are sales you could have made today, but you didn’t make them. Didn’t you lose out on that revenue? Especially if they ended up buying it from someone else?

Sure, you may sell something else tomorrow, but that doesn’t make the sales you lost today any less real.

Now if you think that mindset is too negative. If you believe in an abundance mindset and you feel like there’s plenty of business to go around for everyone. Then we’re on the same page. I totally agree.

David: If you want to multiply money, it means you have to figure out the very specific steps that you need to take in order to make that happen.

Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the topic, Can You Multiply Money? Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey David, of course you can. I have a tree in my backyard. Money grows on it and I just have to water it every year. What else do I need?

David: Nice. No, that's great. You got a money tree. You're in great shape. When I think about the abilty to multiply money, I know that in the early stages of some of my businesses, and in the early stages of trying to figure out how to make them work, I was able to multiply money. But I was multiplying it by fractions, you know. So...

If you multiply money by 0. 5, you now have half the money you started out with. So I think we're all able to multiply money. But, ideally, we want to multiply by whole numbers.

Jay: Yeah, I agree, but we also subtract money. I'm not sure what the terminology is. Bbut a lot of times in an attempt to multiply money, if you're not careful, you're actually losing money.

David: Yeah. And you will have to invest. You'll have to make investments up front. I think a lot of times people go into business, particularly small business owners, will go in with the idea of, "well, I'll just bootstrap it."

And it's certainly what I've done, I did that a number of times and when it works, it's fantastic. And when it doesn't, it's disastrous.

So as long as you recognize that going in, it's all okay. But having that focus, what will it take to get this going? How much will it cost? How long will I have to work for nothing, if I bootstrap entirely? A lot of those questions come into play.

Jay: Yeah, otherwise it's kind of gambling. You know, starting a business is kind of a form of gambling, but the better the idea is, the more help you have along the way, the more financially stable you can be in the process, the more you increase the odds that your gamble will pay off.

David: Yeah, and it really is a gamble in the truest sense of the word. Because you don't know if it's going to work. It might work and it might not.

You may have a really good feel for it. You may have done it before and say, okay, I feel really good about this. I think this is really going to work, but it's still a bet. You're still guessing and betting that it's going to work based on what you know. You think you can multiply money, but you can't be sure until you try.

I've never really been a gambler in terms of casinos and things like that, but I guess people who do that well and know how to do it, they can go into a situation and say, "okay, I have a pretty good feel for the fact that I'm going to make back a multiple of what I lay down on the table.

And sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. And it's exactly the same in business.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. Only in business, you may put a lot of things on the line, your family's future. You may quit your job. You really put yourself out there in many ways.

I found success in making sure my family is supported with a day job and then I pursued other things on the side.

Meanwhile, I had other family members who have said, "no, I'm going all in" and they put everything at risk. And that didn't turn out so well, but you know, it depends on the individual and the idea, I think.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And I know in the early stages I tried doing sort of a sideline thing for a while and I could never personally make that work.

Jay: Yeah, yeah.

David: Because it was hard for me when somebody else was paying me money to do a job, I didn't feel like I could walk away to do my thing, so I was torn in that way.

When I was working on my side project, I felt like I should either be working on the work that was paying me or when I was at real work, I felt like I should be working on my business.

Ready to multiply your sales in the simplest way possible? In a recent podcast, I was talking about a client of ours who multiplied her gross sales from $250,000 to over a million dollars.

And while many people are impressed with that sort of growth, others are, quite rightly, skeptical.

How do you literally multiply your sales revenue in a relatively short period of time?

The truth is, there are a LOT ot ways to do it. But let's focus on the simplest approach. The one that seems to work best for the majority of people in general, and certainly the majority of our clients.

And it starts with maximizing revenue from your existing client base, while supplementing with new business.

Simple right?

In fact, it's the simplest!

Easier to say, a little more challenging to do.

But in a nutshell, here's how it works:

Let's say you sold $250,000 to your existing client base over the course of the last year, but you feel confident that you could get those same people to spend $300,000, or maybe $350,000 or maybe even $400,000 with you, with the right approach of course, over the next year.

Cool! So now you go from $250,000 to maybe $300,000 or $350,000 or $400,000. That's great!

But if your goal is to be at a million, that still leaves a shortfall of $600,000 to $700,000. Which is a big number if you're currently doing $250,000.

So if you want to hit your goal, you're going to need to focus on maximizing revenue from your existing client base, to get them to the $350 to $400,000 mark that you estimated, while also adding or layering in another $600 to $650 thousand in gross sales from new business to get you to your million dollar number.

Now, can you do that in a year?

Well, if you use the same approach that got you to $250, then probably not. Especially if you've been using that $250,000 approach and languishing in that sales range for a long period of time.

But what if you were using a different approach? A better approach?

Even better than that, what if you were using different and better approaches in Four Key Areas?
First: Client Reactivation:
Having a system to get your former and lapsed clients to reengage with you, reorder, and spend more money. Because when you multiply the number of returning customers, it helps you to multiply your sales.
Second: Account Penetration:
Getting more of the people inside the organizations you're already working with to place more of their business with you. Because when you multiply the number of people you're dealing with inside an organization, it becomes a lot easier to multiply your sales revenue with that company.
Third: Customer Acquisition:
This is the most obvious one... getting more of the prospects, essentially meaning all the people you interact with, to choose you over your competitors and place more orders with you. Because when you multiply the number of prospects convering into clients, it also allows you to multiply your sales revenue. And...
Fourth: Market Multiplication:
This is where it really gets fun. This allows you to pull more business from people, industries and markets that have never spent a single dime with you.

Think of it this way. If you're currently pulling most of your business from one primary market, whether that's a geographic market, or an industrial market, or even just a program or product specialty, what's likely to happen if you start pulling business from two markets? Or four markets? Or eight markets? You get the idea. When you multiply the number of markets you're selling to, it's easier to multiply your sales.

Of course, some of those markets might spend a lot less than the ones you're used to working with.

But... some of them might spend a whole lot more. Especially, when you're proactive about who you're targeting.

And most businesses are not.

So obviously, when you're focused on the right things, it becomes a whole lot easier to multiply your sales.

Million dollar ideas are just the beginning. I remember the day that I got a phone call from her and she said, "Hey, we hit a million dollars in sales for this year. I'm really excited." it's a huge thing because when you're looking to grow like that -- when you're talking about multiplying your revenue in a relatively short period of time -- there are very specific things that have to happen. Most people don't know what those things are, and even if they do know what those things are, they don't take action on them consistently enough to make it happen.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing million dollar ideas. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you, David. I have to tell you, this is a running joke in my home that I constantly have million dollar ideas. But I never do anything about it. And so I'll have them.And then years later, my wife's like, you told me about that, you know, five years ago, why don't you do something about it? And I'm like, I don't know.

David: Yeah. And you're not alone. I do the same thing. I think pretty much anyone I know who's been involved in business in any capacity has had ideas. And then they see that somebody else did it later.

And they're like, "Oh man, I thought of that years ago." And it's like, yeah, well, unfortunately, as you indicated, thinking about it does not actually get it done. But it's a fun topic because since we all pretty much have had them, we all have million dollar ideas, the question becomes. What are you doing with it?

Or are you doing anything with it? And as I was thinking back on this in preparation for this podcast, it occurred to me that of the million dollar ideas that I might've had, and who knows, the ones that you don't pursue, you have no idea what they're worth, especially if nobody else then comes along and turns it into a billion dollar idea, but it occurred to me that I only took action on a few of them, and the ones that I took action on actually yielded some really good results.

And the thing about a million dollar idea is... There's a time component that really plays an important part in that, right? You could say, all right, my million dollar idea is to make $25,000 a year from the time I'm 25 until the time I'm 65. So if you multiply $25,000 by 40 years, it's a million bucks, right?

But if you're earning $25,000 a year and it costs you $35,000 a year to live, then that plan is not going to work for you. But it is a plan. It's an idea. It's a million dollar idea. And so as we're thinking about things that can actually get us from where we are to where we want to be. It's a good idea to consider that.

All right. Well, what's the likelihood of generating revenue from this and how much on an ongoing basis so I can have an idea of where it's going to take me?

Jay: Yeah, it's such a great point. I think for me, the fear of putting myself out there is one of the reasons why I haven't pursued.

And I've taken, some of them were good enough. I've taken a little stabs at them and I want to be successful by just stabbing at them and not really diving in a hundred percent.

And it's not until I said, "okay, I'm all in." It wasn't the idea that was bad. It was my desire to actually put any work and effort.

I've just, I've always said, I want to have a company where all I do is come up with ideas and sell them. I don't want to have to actually put the effort into, working on them. Why can't I just earn the money from the idea?

David: Right. Yeah. It'd be great if it worked that way, but somebody has to do the work that actually generates the revenue.

But when I think about million dollar ideas, particularly as it relates to business. If somebody's doing $250,000 a year in their business in four years, that became a million dollar idea. Now, again, if that's your gross sales, it doesn't mean that you're making that much, right?

Scary issues for business owners and salespeople often boil down to what you're trying to do versus what you're actually able to do. Those gaps are really the things that are going to make the biggest difference. And a lot of what we do with our clients is help them to identify, "all right, how can we help you plug these holes, overcome these fears, so that you can generate the revenue you need and the profit you need to have the business that you want to have."

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing scary issues for business owners and salespeople. Happy Halloween and welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Yeah, Dave, it's great to be here with you again. And I love the Halloween theme. A lot of times starting out a new business can be very scary. But also, for me the biggest thing is the unknown and how do you plan for that?

David: Yeah, that is a great one. It covers a lot of territory too, doesn't it? The unknown, because nearly everything that we think about that scares us in business is probably because we either don't know what it is or we don't know how to handle it when it comes along. So yeah, that's a really nice big umbrella one to start out with.

The unknown, which in business includes a whole lot of stuff.

Jay: Yeah, I think part of that is having your systems in place so that you're prepared for the unknown. I mean, we talk about the unknown, but in business, I think you can generally deal with those issues. If you've been in business over time, you kind of know annually where the scary times are going to be, but just starting out, it's hard to know.

David: It really is. And as I was thinking about this episode and discussing this episode, I took some time, not always a great thing to do, but I took some time to think about what were some of the biggest scares I had over the years in business and what did they generally relate to?

And I didn't actually come up with the word unknown. You came up with it, but it really does take into a lot of different things. When we think about unknown, my thinking goes back to the time when you're a child and you're scared of the dark, right? And the reason we're scared of the dark is not because of the dark.

It's because we don't know what's in there. It really is about the unknown. It's not our fear of the dark. It's our fear of what could happen in the dark that could potentially be a little scary.

So as I was thinking about this in terms of business, and it goes for salespeople, anyone in business, and even people who are employed and just get a salary, there are a lot of things that can come along and make life a lot scarier.

A lot of them have to do with money, especially not having enough of it. If you're a business owner, the question, can I make payroll comes up? Can I pay my tax bills? Am I able to afford the things I need to do? Can I pay my mortgage, right, for my home or rent for my business, whatever it is So I think money is a big one and the unknowns that are related to that

Jay: Yeah, I agree. Money is the hardest one. And people, especially starting out, they don't really know and understand the term cash flow. Right?

So you may be making great money, but people aren't paying you up front or they're not paying you on a regular basis. I've worked for a company where you work for insurance companies and you had to harass them constantly in order to get your receivables paid.

And in the meantime, how do you pay for the electricity? How do you pay for your staff? How do you pay for those kind of things? It can be a very difficult situation.

David: It really can. And I think a lot of times the default is to say, okay, let's cut costs. What can we cut? And a lot of times that comes with, whatever, it can come with manpower. It can come with overhead.

And the problem with cutting overhead, or cutting costs in some cases are first of all,

Beating Inflation means you have to maintain profits, despite higher costs. In this area where I live in Pennsylvania, the cost of electricity has gone up probably 10 to 12%, just from one billing cycle to the next, because they said "we need more money. We’re jacking up the price."

It’s like death by a thousand paper cuts. It’s the situation where you’ve got this little increase here and this little increase here and this little increase here. And you don’t realize it until you go to pay the bills and you look at the numbers at the end of the month. Wow. We’re generating the same sales or even more, but we’re not making as much money.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of being profitable even with higher costs. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much, David. What an important topic. So many businesses are experiencing this right now. Their costs have gone up. Inflation is affecting everybody right now. So I love that you're taking some time to talk about this topic.

David: Yeah. I saw an article recently where they were discussing the fact that in the promotional products industry, in particular, what a lot of businesses are noticing is that even when their sales are even or potentially higher than they were last year, they're not as profitable because their costs have increased. So keeping at the same sales volume is not going to cut it anymore.

Jay: Yeah. And, we all hope that this is a temporary problem, but in the meantime, people have got to learn how to pivot. And I think that is one of the hardest things for businesses to do, especially quickly. The quick pivot. Like, okay, what are we going to do in the short term while our costs have gone up?

David: Yeah, and I think that word, "pivot," has probably gotten more use in the past 18 months to two years than it probably got in all of human history before that. Because everybody realized we have to do things differently. And what are we going to do and how are we going to do it? And when it comes to increased costs, the options are relatively limited.

I mean, basically, you either have to be able to increase your overall sales and make up for it with the profit that you're already getting, or a reduced profit. Or you've got to be able to reduce your cost so that you can get that spread back. You've got a cost to do things. And you've got a cost associated with what you're going to sell it for.

And the gap is where all the money is made. Without the gap, we're out of business. And so keeping your sales at a certain level is not going to do it if your costs are approaching that same level.

So a lot of it is really about identifying the primary costs in my business. And unfortunately, it's really a matter of also being rather relentless about the idea of cutting back on the things that are not currently working.

And that can be really difficult because one of the biggest expenses in a business is very often personnel. And so what that means is looking at the people that you're working with and saying, okay, who's pulling their weight? Who is more than pulling their weight? And those who aren't, what can we do to help them to pull their weight or more than pull their weight so that we can continue to grow to be able to simply offset the costs that have increased so much?

Jay: Yeah. I think the knee-jerk response from most businesses is let's find a way to increase sales. But you know, they have to understand that depending upon their profit margin, if you increase your sales by $10, that may be $1 to the bottom line.

But if you save a dollar in costs, that's a dollar to your bottom line. If you save $10 in cost, that's $10 to your bottom line. And so increasing efficiency, like you said. Maybe help train or implement better systems. I think all of those things go a long way to saving. You know, a dollar saved is a dollar earned, right?

The truth about the law of attraction is different from the book and movie. If you're feeling frustrated in your business, ask yourself, you know, am I really clear on exactly what it is that I'm building here or the thing that I want to build here?

And to the extent that it's not coming together, how's your vision? Are you very clear on what that means?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the truth about the Law of Attraction. Now, this applies to business, it applies to life.

If you're familiar with the movie The Secret and the book The Secret, there's been a lot of talk about this concept, the Law of Attraction. It basically says that we attract into our lives the people and circumstances we need, based on essentially the vibes that we're putting out.

Jay: Well, and I was just sitting here thinking, I must not be putting out very good vibes.

David: I'm sure it's not that. But... I think sometimes when people get into this mindset, they can get frustrated, because if you think that all you have to do is really want it and it's going to come to you, it's not quite the whole story.

And I think the movie and the book called The Secret probably caused some people some problems with this. And part of it is because that movie, a lot of it was based on a book called The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. And if you read that book, you recognize that there's a whole lot more to it than just trying to attract it with your mind.

I mean, you actually have to follow up. You have to do some things afterwards if you want to try to get the results that you're actually looking for. So I feel like what they did in the book and the movie was kind of a disservice to the whole concept, which I think can be valid, if you follow up with it.

Jay: Yeah, I've always kind of felt, you know, talking about this, that it's more about a change in mentality than it is that you'll speak into the universe and the universe will grant you this wonderful thing out of the kindness of its heart. That because you've said these things, it's just like setting a goal.

Right? And so, when you hear things spoken, when your mind hears them, when you speak them with your mouth, it's different than just thinking about them. And so, over time, I think it changes your behavior, which leads you to that thing that you, quote, spoke into the universe.

David: Yeah, I believe that entirely as well.

I think that when you are focused on a goal, when you're focused on trying to accomplish something in your life, when your mind is going in that direction, it is a lot more likely to get you enthused about it, get you thinking about it more and get you taking action on it, which ultimately is what is going to lead to the success.

Now one aspect of it that I think is really important, on the front end of that, is that you have enough belief in what it is that you want to accomplish, that you continue to look for the ways to make it happen.

Because if you don't believe you can do it, obviously you're not going to do it. I think that's pretty much a given. If you don't think you can do something, if you don't think you can accomplish something, then you will very likely not take the actions necessary to make it happen.

So in those circumstances, it's kind of a given that you won't succeed. But if you've got the consummate belief in what it is that you want to do and what you're pursuing, then in a lot of cases, it will allow you to start to see the things that will make it possible.

So when people talk about the idea of attracting the people and circumstances into your life, I definitely believe there is truth to that, but I also think a lot of that might've been there to begin with.

But when you're aware of it, you're going to be more likely to see it, you're looking for it, you're going to be more likely to find it, you'll take action on it,

One of the real benefits of ChatGPT to grow sales for our clients is being able to utilize that technology to create something that will get you to be able to attract clients rather than having to chase them down yourself.

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing using ChatGPT to grow your sales. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey David, I'm really excited about this topic today. You know, I figured ChatGPT and AI is either going to help with your sales or it's going to become self aware and try to destroy us all. Hopefully it's Just the first one.

David: Yeah, I agree. I don't know if we talked about this in a previous podcast, but whenever I'm using ChatGPT, I always make sure to say please and thank you. And the reason for that is I figure when the AI comes to take over and destroy all the humans, maybe they'll kill me last.

I don't know if that'll work like that, but that's my thinking.

Jay: Well, very important, but I'm blown away by this technology. We've talked before about not having to reinvent the wheel. I think that that's what is available here.

When you can ask a computer to do something and it recognizes what you're asking it to do and then it goes out and it, accesses all of this information that has been downloaded over time.

It's a mind boggling tool, but once again, if you don't know how to use it, if you don't know what its potential is, then it's not going to be of any value to you.

David: Agreed. And one of the things that I noticed in the early stages, if you just start playing around with it, you type things in and you're like, wow, this is like magic.

And then as you start to use it and ask it questions, particularly when you're looking to maybe flesh out an idea or something like that, you've got a basic concept and you want to use it to help flesh out an idea. For me, that's when I really started to see its limitations in the sense that it can only provide you information that it has.

It can only provide you with information that it's either seen somewhere before or that it's found on the web. However, it identified that information. And so what I've noticed is that when you're trying to dive into something, if you've got an idea, that's relatively unique, something that you're thinking about that you'd like to flesh out, you can go to ChatGPT and start asking it questions about that.

And it'll give you some stuff that's helpful, but. I've never found it able to give an actual breakthrough. I still think a lot at this particular point in time. It seems to me that the breakthroughs still have to come from us. And then if we talk to ChatGPT about some sort of concept that we're developing, I'm sure it'll start picking up on it and then it may start disseminating it again.

But I think that's one of the limitations. And so when we think in terms of using it to grow sales, My view is that it's a great starting point when you're just looking at a blank screen and a blinking cursor and saying, okay, where do I get started with this? I think that it's a great starting point.

And even when you start asking it questions and it comes back with responses, a lot of the responses that it comes back with, you might have to dig deep until you find something else that's worth asking it about.

So in the early stages, I think we tend to view it like we're going to ask it a question, it's going to give us the answer and we're all set. In reality, I have not found it to work that way, unless you really don't have a clear idea of what you were looking to begin with.

Because basically I believe that if you think that ChatGPT is doing a better job of creating content than you do, then you probably want to work on your own skills in terms of coming up with ideas, because I have found that some of it is sort of recycled content.

Jay: Yeah, I've had that very same experience. I think it's a great tool.

Your process for goal achievement is key, because you're doing a lot behind the scenes before anyone even knows that you're alive. And so we're essentially moving from that -- being invisible and working hard behind the scenes -- to ideally, at some point, bursting on the scene and being recognized as a force in your marketplace. But none of that happens by accident and it doesn't just come from setting goals. It requires having those processes in place.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing your process for goal achievement. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to be with you. I'm going to be brutally honest here. I'm really good at setting goals, but I'm not very good at mapping out how I'm going to accomplish those goals.

I think it's good that I've taken that first step, and I kind of have a mental idea, but I never really go back and say, "yeah, I accomplished that thing."

So I think I'm missing some of the motivation to set more goals because I think that's one of the key things about goals is once you've checked 'em off, you should feel good about yourself and then do more goals. And I don't know if I ever reached that point.

David: Interesting. And I think a lot of people feel the same way. I know I've certainly had that situation over the years and still do to some extent. And we had actually talked about goals several weeks ago, but what I really wanted to get into this time around is the idea that it's great to have the goal, but it's like looking at the top of a ladder and you say, okay, that's where I want to go.

Or it's like looking at the sky, that's where I want to go. But ultimately, the goal isn't what's going to get you there. The goal may motivate you, but the goal is not going to get you there. Ultimately, it's the process that's going to get you there. Assuming you have a process.

So if the goal is to generate a certain amount of revenue in your business, or have a certain amount of money in your personal bank account, or start a business, whatever your goal is, the next step is to say, okay, what are the specific steps?

What are the combinations of tasks and projects that are going to be necessary to help me achieve that goal? Because the tasks, the individual things I have to do, and the projects, essentially the things that are composed of a bunch of tasks, are what's going to get us there. And the combination of these things is essentially the process.

If my goal is to generate a certain amount of sales revenue, and I'm not there yet. A process that I generally want to start with is to say, Okay, let's take a look at exactly how much your existing clients are worth to you. What did they spend with you last year? Okay? And then, do I think they're going to spend more than that, less than that, or about the same this year?

And generally, you'll have a reasonable idea of that. Whether it's going to be about the same, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. You won't know for sure, but it's a great place to start. So then you say, "Okay, if I figure I can count on my existing Customers for this level of revenue, and I'm looking to get to this level of revenue. Then how do I fill that gap?

Because if this is the goal and this is where I am now, then we have to look at the process that's going to get us there. What's the combination of tasks and projects that will allow us to reach that revenue goal?

And when we focus on that, everything we do, during any given day is now leading toward the goal, as opposed to just having scattered focus, just doing a bunch of different things, kind of thinking about our goal, but not exactly sure how we're going to get there.

But when you start to think of it in terms of these types of steps: tasks, projects, and ultimately your process, that's what's really going to make the biggest difference.

Jay: Yeah,

When we talk about the idea of effective follow-up in sales, what does that mean? It’s effective in terms of making sure that we’re on the same page with the person, making sure that our conversations are moving forward, making sure that their questions are being answered, and ultimately getting to a decision.

Are we going forward with this? Are we not? And if so, when is that going to happen?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing effective follow-up. How much is too much? Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you, David. Such an important question. And again, something that I struggle with. You know, I have a customer management system, and it shows me I talked to them three days ago.

And it comes up on my tasks and it says it's time to talk to them. And I find every time I go through this emotional thing. Are they going to think I'm bugging them too soon? And a lot of times I'll say, let's give them three more days or let's give them two more days because I guess I'm not ready to talk to them or I'm afraid I'll be a bother.

David: Yes, and you're not alone. Because it's pretty much impossible to know exactly how often to call any one given prospect, let alone all of them. It's not like there's one rule where you say you must call every other day or you must call every three days or every week or whatever your thing is. I mean, there are rules that have been put in place for salespeople to do that, and maybe it's not a terrible thing, but a system like that pretty much guarantees that you're going to be wrong as often as you're right.

And so, if you understand that going in, one of the things that I think it's important to recognize is that people are going to sort of telegraph how annoying you're being, or how often they want to be in touch, want to have you in touch. And if you ask them more directly, they'll be a lot more inclined to give you an honest answer.

If we make up our minds that we're going to contact this person every so many days, and that person doesn't want to hear from us that often, then obviously we're setting ourselves up for failure.

So a lot of times, if we can find out from the prospect roughly how often they would like for us to be in touch with them, and it's easier to do with established clients, where you know them, they know you. With prospects, it's not as easy.

But in the early stages with a prospect, we need to be in touch more frequently in order to get to decisions about qualification levels. Are they actually qualified to buy from us? Do they have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend, the interest?

Do they have any of those things? And if we can't determine that in the first conversation, we need to have a second conversation. But of course, their level of interest in that first conversation will also help us to determine, well, how much time should I give this person?

And when I think about how much is too much, one of the things that I've seen a lot, and I saw it myself, in my own behaviors in the earlier stages of my sales career, and then in a lot of other people along the way, is that since we can't know how much is too much, many of us in sales tend to err on the side of too little contact rather than too much.

And we talked about being a pest in a previous podcast. I don't want to be a pest. Therefore, I'm not going to pick up the phone and call. And the problem with that is that if we're not in touch with them, when they're ready to move forward, then someone else is going to get that business.

So we have to find this balance of, yes, I don't want to be a pest, but also I'm not going to abandon this person so that somebody else can get in there and get that business while I've been working to cultivate it over a long period of time.

Jay: Yeah, and it could be that depending on what type of product, there's a time limit as well.

If you want to create desire in sales, it has to be about them. Their wants, their needs. The things that they're looking to accomplish from the relationship, because that's where all their desire comes from.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing creating desire with your communication in sales. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. It's great to be here, as always. read this title and I've been thinking about it, but I'd love to hear your perspective up front. What do you mean creating desire with your communication?

David: Well, I think if we're In the business of conveying value and providing products and ultimately selling something to someone else, the only way that happens is if there is enough desire created in the other person to make them want to move forward. Without the desire to move forward, it's never going to happen.

It's kind of a funny word, particularly in sales. We tend not to use words like desire a whole lot. We tend to think in terms of qualification and segmentation, and we keep it all very clinical. But without the component of wanting it, if the prospect or client does not want what we're selling, then absolutely nothing is going to happen.

And the only way that desire is either created or channeled is generally with our communication. Now, if we're offering something that they already want, then the desire is already built in. But if not, if they don't see all the benefits, if they don't see what it can do for them, then they might not be feeling it enough yet to pull the trigger.

And at that point, it becomes our job to say, all right what do I need to do in terms of my communication with this person to help either create some of that desire or ideally uncover the desire that's already buried inside there?

Jay: Mmm. That's great. I think about my own sales process. One of the things we do in our company is we offer a free consultation, and that's my job. I give the consultation.

And there's nothing I hate more than when somebody says free consultation, and what they really meant was free sales call, right? And so the minute you get them on the phone, they're pitching you their product, and I don't.

I listen, I ask questions, I tell them about their circumstances, I tell them what steps they can take to make their life better. And I always start the call saying, "just so you know, this is not a sales call. My goal is to give you the information that you need."

It never fails. I've never had a call in my life, and I've done probably a thousand of these. At the end of the call, they say, "well, how much do you charge for these services? And I'd like to move forward with you."

I never, never tried to sell them on anything. And to me, if you can do it, you can't do it with every situation. But to me, that's just ideal. They're asking me how much I charge. I've created that desire in them without one word that sounds like a sales pitch.

David: Right. Because if you go immediately into sales mode, if you start out with that, if you lead with a sales pitch, it's not going to create desire in anyone. Because a lot of the desire that we're going to be able to uncover in our prospects is going to come from the answers we get to the questions that we ask them.

And so, you know, the whole diagnostic approach to sales, just like the diagnostic approach in medicine. First, you have to examine the patient to find out where it hurts. Examine, and then diagnose, and then and only then can you prescribe, right?

So you have to examine the patient, find out where it hurts, find out what their needs are, find out if they need what we have to offer. If they don't have a need for what we have to offer, then yeah, there's no need for a sales pitch, right?

And once we've done that examination, then we make the diagnosis. Based on what you've told me, it sounds like you're looking to accomplish this,

David: Even if we accept the idea that we're going to interact with people who are not ideal clients, I think one of the other things that causes salespeople trouble is when they're afraid to disqualify a prospect. To say, okay, I'm no longer going to follow up with this person.

I've always viewed it a little like the game musical chairs that you played as a kid? You got a certain number of people going around, a certain number of chairs, and when the music stops, everybody scrambles to get a chair. And if you don't have a chair, you're out, right?

And I view prospecting that way in some respects. Where you have to, at some point, start to prune the list. You have to start to get rid of the people who are not likely to become clients. And if you're afraid to do that, then you will continue to leave the same number of chairs and the same number of people.

Jay: Yes.

David: And if none of them are buying, it's not going to work well.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing letting ideal clients know you're alive. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, so good to be here, David. And I think this is, again, such an interesting topic. I find that I'm so caught up in the daily, just taking the calls and squeaky wheel gets the grease, and some of those ideal clients kind of go by the wayside sometimes.

David: Yeah, and a lot of times we don't even know who they are until we first try to identify them. So, in a sense, the topic itself goes kind of deep because you can't know they're an ideal client until you even know that they're alive. And then you have to let them know that you're alive, and then you have to determine if they're an ideal client.

Jay: Yeah.

David: So there are actually a few steps in this.

Jay: Yeah, and I think that's such an important thing to know, kind of have a system, like you always have, of identifying those ideal clients. It's hard for me to really figure out if they're ideal up front. But I'll tell you one thing I can tell is when they're not ideal.

I was on the phone call with somebody yesterday, he's going to become a client, but I'm regretting the relationship I know I'm going to have with him because he's already so demanding. And I'm like, this guy's not ideal, but he's a customer. And so, how can I not sell him the product?

David: Yeah, that's a great question.

And it's harder for some than others, I think. You get to a certain point in your business or a certain point in your career or whatever and you weigh it. Well, I guess we all do that. We have to weigh it. How much of a pain is this person going to be? And what's my tolerance for pain essentially, right?

Jay: Yeah. Yeah.

David: But you're exactly right. You don't really know that necessarily upfront. So a lot of times when we're working with our clients, what we'll do is start with the people they think are likely to be their ideal clients. And whether that means in a certain geographic area or in a particular industry or in a certain sized company, if they're selling B2B, You can make some initial judgments based on who has been a good client for you in the past, and then say, okay, how can I get more people like that?

And then when you're introducing yourself to those people who meet those similar criteria, as you're having those conversations, you can then start to make those determinations about whether or not they are an ideal client, or if they just sort of fall in that general ecosphere of people who could potentially be ideal clients, but maybe aren't.

Jay: Yeah, exactly. And not just finding new ideal clients, turning your existing ideal clients into more business. Because if they were ideal the first time, if you can keep that to be a generating ongoing revenue source and relationship... Man, I'd rather do that every day than deal with the other type of customer.

David: Yeah, no question.

Jay: I'm not lying when I tell you that I struggle with this idea that I'm being a pest in sales. So I think it'll help my sales, I think it'll help my daily attitude towards what I do.

David: Well, I'll tell you something, Jay, many of the most conscientious human beings feel this way. I mean, if you're one of those sales guys who, "Hey, everybody loves me," you're not even going to think of that. It's never even going to occur to you. So the people who are most likely to struggle with this are people who just want to help. They're there to provide a service.

Jay: Yeah.

David: They don't want to be a pest. And so really, most of the people who feel this way are the ones who are least likely to be a pest because they're not arrogant to begin with.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast in today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland, and I'll be discussing the topic of how to avoid being a pest in sales. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Oh, thank you for having me, Dave. This is a real problem for me. I always feel like a pest in sales, whether it's an email, whether it's a text, I always feel like they don't want to hear from me.

And. it's been an ongoing problem. I'll just be honest with you when it comes time, okay? I got to sit down and reach out to people. I'm like, oh, do they really want to hear from me? Am I going to bug them? How do I get over that?

David: Yeah, it's a great question. A number of years ago, I was doing a speaking presentation and Mary Lou Retton, the gymnast, was also speaking at the same event, and she told this story.

It was just so great. I don't know if somebody asked the question, but it came up in her presentation where people were saying to her, when she was doing her routine, the person who went on before her did a really, really good routine. And so at that point, the pressure would really be on her to deliver a flawless performance if she wanted to be able to get the score that she needed.

Jay: Mm-hmm.

David: And so the question was how do you deal with that when this person delivers a great performance and you have to go on next? Don't you feel nervous after that? And her response, I'll never forget it. And this was easily 10 or 12 years ago this happened.

Jay: Yeah.

David: Her response was, "you know, I watched her performance and it was great. And I looked at it and I thought to myself, wait till they get a load of me!"

Jay: Mmmm.

David: And I was like, "wow, how much does that apply in sales?"

Jay: Yeah,

David: I mean, I think it applies every bit as much in sales as it does in gymnastics. If you go in with the idea of, oh, that person's better than I am, or they're not going to like me, or they're going to think that I'm annoying, or I'm rude, or I'm obnoxious, or I'm a pest, or whatever.

If you go in with that mindset, then what you are likely to say, the way that you're likely to position yourself, all of those things are going to reflect that. But if you're able to go into a situation with the idea of "wait 'til they get a load of me," or at least "I have something valuable to offer."

Now, any salesperson who doesn't feel like they have something valuable to offer should be either in another line of work or selling a different line of product. Right?

Jay: Yeah.

David: You need to be able to feel good about what it is that you're selling. And if you know that what you're selling is, ideally, better than the competition. If you know that you're going to deliver better than your competition, you know that you're going to be more responsive, you're going to be more concerned, you're going to be more caring. If you know all those things, then you owe it to the client to convey all that. And if you don't convey it to them, then you're doing them more harm than good, and you're doing yourself and them more harm than good.

So, If you look at it from the standpoint of, "I'm here to provide a solution, I'm here to help,

Where are your best leads coming from? It's an important question, because if you don't know, then it's impossible to know where you can go to get more.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the topic of where are your best leads coming from? Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you. And I'm just going to answer the question. I don't know. (laughing) I'm just...

David: Short podcast. Thanks for listening.

Jay: Yeah, I'm just going to say it straight up.

I mean, I do have some systems. We do try and use Google Analytics and things like that, and that helps a little bit. But I've never done a deep dive yet on this is the source, this is the well or the font of where my best leads have come from. So I'm looking forward to this discussion.

David: This is really a good one to look at and to dive into a bit, because I've always maintained that if you don't know where your best leads are coming from, then you don't know where to go to get more of them, and when you are able to identify it, everything else gets a whole lot easier because now you can go fishing in the same ponds, rather than just trying to put stuff out to anyone and everyone, which is very expensive to do.

You can really tune in and focus in on what people are doing, where they're coming from, how they're hearing about you so that you can go find more of them. In addition to... well, a number of the businesses that I've been involved in over the years, one of them was a retail mail order catalog business that I owned.

And in a business like that, it's absolutely critical to know where your best leads are coming from.

Jay: Mm-hmm.

David: We would run magazine ads and we would get people out of different magazines. We had ads running on television that were designed to get leads for our catalog business.

And every single one of the ads we ran had some sort of mechanism to let us know where they were coming from. If it was calling an 800 number, we had one primary 800 number, but we would give them an extension to ask for. So we'd say, call this 800 number extension 214. Right? And 214 meant that it was coming from this particular TV station or whatever.

If they were seeing something online, there would be specific links that they would click through that would tell us where it was coming from. If it was a magazine ad, it was a similar kind of thing on the back of the magazine, it would say, call this number, dial this extension, or go to this web address, and there would be a slash with a suffix on the url..

Jay: Mm-hmm.

David: And that would tell us where it came from. And when people would call in, one of the first things that our people were required to ask them is, "where did you hear about us?" And there was a box there that they would fill out. Where did you hear about us? Oh, I saw your ad on such and such a magazine, or, I saw your ad on such and such a TV station.

And so we would have the data that the computer said based on what they came in and said, and then we would also have the data corresponding with whatever the person said. So I was pretty pathological about it, and to this day I'm still very pathological about determining where leads come from. Even now when, you know, at the end of this podcast, when you say, how do people find out more?

And I give out a link that link tracks back to the podcast, it lets me know that the people who register on that link, Came from the podcast. And if they're coming from some other ad, then it's going to have a different code and that sort of thing. So it's not that hard to do when you discipline yourself to do it.

And most people don't do that until and unless they realize how much it is actually worth to you when you do that right.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And in today's world, honestly, there is no excuse. It is so easy. There is so much data out there. If you want to target a specific group,

To increase the value of your business, consider this: If your business burns down, you don't want that to happen, right? But if your business burns down and you've got whatever, desks and furniture and things like that, that stuff's all insured. You should be able to come back from that okay.

But if your book of business burns down, right? If you still have all this overhead, but you don't have that book of business anymore, you are really in trouble. Because if you've got desks and you've got furniture, and you've got technology and everything, and you don't have the ability to sell to the people that you need to sell to, at that point, what's that really worth?

All of that becomes overhead.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing building the value of your business. Welcome back Jay.

Jay: Hey, I'm so glad to be here, David. And once again, you hit me with another term where I'm like, do I really know what the value of my business is? And value has such a different meaning for so many, right?

Value could be. Well, it gives me free time. I hate my business, but it gives me free time. So it's of great value. Or it's of great value because I have all these shiny toys, you know, those types of things. So I think value could be very different for different people.

David: Yeah, it absolutely can. Particularly when we're thinking about business owners versus salespeople.

I mean, when I was thinking about the topic, the value of your business, meaning what would it be worth to someone else if they wanted to buy it from you? And what that means for a business owner is what someone would actually pay for the business. What it means for a salesperson is what is your book of business worth?

If you're building something up and somebody wanted to buy your book of business, what would that be worth? That's what I was thinking of in terms of value, but you touched on a lot of other great points regarding the term.

Jay: Yeah, like I said, there's so many other things. And I've talked to people who have said, yeah, I'm thinking about selling my business.

And I ask them, well, what's it worth? And they look at me like I have no idea whatsoever. In fact, I was working for Kinko's way back when, when they wanted to sell. And they wanted to go public first, and the SEC came in and said, you don't know what you own. You don't know what you owe. You don't know anything about your business.

You have the worst paperwork system we've ever seen in our lives. You're not going public. And so they went and found a private buyer, which was FedEx, who went and bought FedEx Kinko's. So just in how you manage your business can affect the value of that business.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And for a lot of people, the value of their business isn't going to be FedEx Kinko's worthy, very likely.

Jay: Yeah.

David: But still, it's good to know. And, for some it might be worth more than that. But for most people, particularly small to medium sized businesses, when they're looking to sell, they really don't have any idea of what the business is worth or what it could be worth to someone else. And in different industries, there are different metrics and multipliers that people use.

They say, okay, well, we're going to take a multiple of your net value. In other words, what is, bottom line, after owner's compensation and things like that. They have a number of different metrics that people use. But in a lot of cases, that's what it boils down to. What's it likely to be worth to someone else?

And Glen Holt, who was a professional in the promotional products industry for a long time, one of my mentors in the early days, I remember he was talking about that when people are looking to buy a business, really what they're paying for is the likelihood of future business. Because the only way I'm going to want to spend a dime on a business is if I know it...

When you want to qualify your leads and you approach it from the standpoint of looking for relationships that are going to be mutually beneficial, then it does become a lot easier. Because it's not just about me saying, okay, I'm going to disqualify this person because of A, B, and C.

If part of that equation is I don't feel like I can help them, then you're really acting with integrity. Because you're not wasting their time and you're not trying to sell them something that they can't use, don't need, don't want, can't afford.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be asking the question, how do you qualify your leads? Welcome back Jay.

Jay: So great to be here, David. And another great important discussion for people in sales or any type of business. You know, we had this process in our company where we had set up a situation where, man, we were getting the phone to ring like crazy.

We were getting leads. We were like so excited. And then we started looking at the close rate, the conversion rates and who these leads were. And you know what, probably 10% of them were looking for the product that we had to offer. So in having what some would call a successful marketing campaign, we were actually costing ourselves a lot of time and money.

David: Yeah, and in a situation like that, but also in pretty much any other sales situation, there is a process of elimination that has to happen. Now, if 90% of the leads that you're generating are really wildly unqualified, then yeah, you definitely want to tweak your marketing to try to improve those odds. But depending on the value of the client, the value of the sale itself.

The long-term value of the client. If they end up doing business with you again and again and again, then even numbers like that could potentially work. As long as the rest of the math works.

Jay: Yeah. and actually what we did is we just kept tweaking, right? So we just kept changing our keywords and our searches, and we got to the point where I would say 98% of our calls are right in that zone.

Now, clearly we don't convert all of those calls, but if you can really build a funnel where you can know that you're at least talking to people who want what you have to offer. Wow. You have jumped ahead in the game.

David: Absolutely. Now, for purposes of our discussion today, when we talk about qualifying leads, 'cause actually that would be a great subject for another podcast where we talk about what we can do when we're trying to bring in the right people.

But regardless of who you're bringing in now, there is very likely a conversion ratio, like what you mentioned, whether it's 10% or whether it's 20% or 40% or 60%, whatever that percentage is. If you're dealing with similar types of leads, there is probably a reasonably consistent conversion ratio that you're working with.

Jay: Mm-hmm.

David: And if you want to improve on that, without diddling with the front end, then a lot of that is going to boil down to your lead qualification procedure. What am I saying to people? What am I asking them to determine whether or not they are a good fit for us?

Jay: Yeah. And are you even doing that or are you, like we talked about in the last podcast, are you just jumping right into the sales process or are you taking some time to really find out if you're a good fit? Because that's going to be better for them and it's going to be better for you in the long run.

David: Exactly. And it also ties back to a an earlier podcast we did where we were talking about people who are worthy of our time and attention, right? So that also gets down to this level of qualification. And each of these things that we're talking about are sort of slices or pieces of the same thing, which is why I like these podcasts when we're having an opportunity to talk about these different pieces of the puzzle.

Because having a bunch of them right,

Most people don't consider the idea of creating value in their communication. So if you're doing this, obviously, you're not telling your customer "well, I'm here to create value in our communication," right? You're just doing it. You're adding value in the conversation. You're thinking about, "what can I say when I reach out to this person the next time to make this communication more interesting, more beneficial?" By doing that, you're going to create that in their brains and they're not even going to know why it's happening.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing creating high value communications. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David, once again, great to be here with you as we talk again about a topic that I know in my business career, we probably haven't had this conversation a lot.

Communication is just something that happens. And it may depend on whether you're old school or new school. Old school, we're just making phone calls and picking up the phone. And that's high value communication. And if it's new school, we're texting and emailing. And that's the extent of the thought process.

David: Yeah, and I think the adjective here, the high value part of it may be what we're bringing to the discussion today. Because you're right, communication in business is expected. It comes with the job.

Mm-hmm.

And we're always going to be communicating. But the fact of the matter is that particularly now, as people are more and more likely to skip over communication, if they don't like what you're saying or if they don't feel like it's worthwhile to them, it becomes more important for us to ask ourselves "am I creating value in this conversation?"

Am I creating value in this email, this text, this phone call, this podcast, right? Because if we're not communicating value in the discussion, then we're doing our listeners a disservice. We're doing whoever it is that we're calling a disservice. Whoever we're emailing, we're doing them all a big disservice.

So, If we consider the idea that we need to be engaged in high value communication as much as possible, it will very likely change what we're saying at any given time.

Jay: Yeah, such a great point. I think that most people now are engaging these new technologies that make the communication part automatic, right?

Like drip campaigns, newsletters, automatic texting or whatever. So that part of the equation is fairly easy to implement. But then the real question, as you're bringing up, is if I'm not providing value in that communication, I am training the customer or the potential customer to block me out.

Because that's the other thing that's so easy. It's so easy to automatically communicate. But on the other end, it is so easy for me when I hit delete in my messages. It says, do you want to block this sender? And that's it. It's done. It's over. So that's why you want to focus on that word value.

David: Yeah, and particularly now when people are using AI to help generate communications. And my belief is that's going to cause a lot of communications to start looking like other communications.

Mm-hmm.

And everybody's going to be saying pretty much the same things. But if you are operating with the intent of creating value in the communication that's going to be a component that you might be adding that other people aren't going to be adding into their algorithm, whether it's with AI or whether it's what they're doing themselves.

And you also raised a great point, which is the idea of if you're not doing this, you are training people essentially to ignore you. And wow, that's not what we want to train people to do.

Jay: Right. my email service now, I use Mac right at the top now, they put the unsubscribe button, like that's the first thing I see.

So it is so easy, and I just think about it. There are newsletters that I keep, that I allow to keep coming,

When you are choosing worthy clients and making decisions about whether or not a prospect is worthy of your time and attention, whether or not they're worthy of follow up, you are bound to make some mistakes in that process. And so when you do this, you have to recognize that some of that is going to come with the territory. You may make a wrong decision that will cost you some business down the line. So you have to weigh that against quality of life issues.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing choosing worthy clients. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you, David. It's such a pleasure to be back on again. And once again, I love this topic. I feel like, personally in my experience, there is a tendency to believe that you have to take every client. And you know what? In some businesses that is true, you're going to take every customer who comes through the door. In other cases, you can be more selective and it could make your life a lot easier. It can make your business a lot better.

David: Yeah, that's one of the reasons I thought this would be a really good topic, because I believe that in many businesses they don't even consider this.

I think that in many businesses we feel like, okay, we're going to serve whoever we can serve. We want to take whoever comes through the door, and we just want to serve them to the best of our ability. And while that is noble, it's not always great from your own standpoint, from your own business standpoint.

And I wish this was something that I knew from the beginning, but it was not. As most things, we learn it the hard way and this is no exception. And at some point along the way, the idea of pursuing worthy clients, choosing worthy clients, tracking down worthy clients just really started to appeal to me. And when I started using that term with some of my clients, they were like," wow, that never even occurred to me. and what do you mean by worthy? You know, things like that. So we can dive into all of that in today's podcast.

Jay: Yeah. I think that there are some things that we hear over the years and they start to sink in. We just don't ever challenge 'em in our mode of thinking.

Like I think of the customer's always, right. I've come to believe. No, no, that's just not true. Do I want to do everything to satisfy the customer? Yes. Yes, I do. But there are customers who can never be satisfied or I can't provide what they want. So, no, they're not always right. So I love that we have these discussions. So let's start off with this word worthy. What in your mind is a worthy customer?

David: Well, I think we have to decide that for ourselves, what we determine to be a worthy prospect or client for ourselves. And some of that can go back to what you talked about, in the customer's always right or the customer's not always right.

But you can have a customer that is absolutely right about things and you can have a good relationship with them, but they may not still be a worthy client if they are taking up more time than they are costing.

So if they're not really focused on buying from you to the extent that you need them to in order to be worthy of your time and attention, it may be something as simple as that.

And in those situations, I'm not suggesting, okay, well you're just going to bag all these people. If you've got a relationship with someone and you like the relationship you have and you're okay with it, then you can deem that prospect or client worthy. You can say, "all right, well, I like dealing with this person, therefore they are worthy of my time and attention."

But for me, I believe that's where it starts. We each have to decide. Is this prospect or is this client worthy of my time and attention? Because obviously our time is the most important asset we have, and when we fail to recognize that, we can invest a lot of it,

The idea of The Four Mores is to recognize that if you want to maximize profit but you're just focusing on bringing in more clients -- you are very likely missing out on 75% of the available profits that are going to come from these other three quadrants.

Maximize Profit with The Four Mores
David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be talking about The Four Mores: More clients, more money, more margin, more often. Great to see you again, Jay.

Jay: Yeah, it's good to be here. And I feel like there's one more more, if you can get all of those. More happiness and more peace of mind, right?

David: Yeah. That's true. There are more than four mores.

Jay: Yes.
Quadrant #1: More Clients
David: I think that what we're thinking of here is that these four mores are designed to increase the value of our clients and increase the value of our businesses. A lot of times when people are thinking in terms of growing their sales and profits, they think in terms of the first more. They think in terms of more clients.

“I need to get more clients, “I need to get more business.” And so many business owners focus their time and attention exclusively on bringing in more customers. And sometimes what ends up happening is they forget about the ones that they have. And they start to lose track of the fact that they could be drifting off.

Anyone who's been in business for any length of time has heard the old adage that it costs a whole lot more to bring in a new customer than it does to resell an existing customer or to satisfy an existing customer.
Stop Missing Out
But it's easy to lose sight of. And so the idea of The Four Mores is to recognize that if you're just focusing on one thing -- bringing in more clients -- you are very likely missing out on 75% of the available profits that are going to come from these other three quadrants.

Jay: Wow. That's very good. And kind of like we talked about last time, moving people into that center zone, that loyalty zone. Right?

David: Yes.

Jay: And then, if they're reoccurring, I mean it just makes life so much better. If you have a loyal base and then you're bringing in more clients, to me it's just the perfect pattern, right?

David: Yeah, it does. So now we've got sort of conflicting visual images, however. Because last time we were talking about a target. Now we're talking about quadrants, but it's all designed to accomplish the same thing. Which is to get more of our clients buying from us more often. Spending more money with us at higher profit margins so that we can continue to grow the business, service those people. And without the profit part of it, you're dead in the water. I mean, you cannot continue to operate without that. So each of these four components is absolutely critical to being able to grow the business the way that we want to do it.
What About Quality of Life?
Jay: Yeah. A good, healthy business that is making money, is growing, has loyal customers. And hopefully giving you peace of mind and maybe some quality of life. Right?

David: Exactly. Yeah. Quality of life is a nice bonus for some people . 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,

The best way to get more responses from your prospects and clients is to sequence your communication. If I've got a sequence in place that says, all right, when I get a lead from a networking function, what I'm going to do is I'm going to initially, either same day or next morning, send out this email message, which essentially says, "it was great meeting you at the networking function. Nice having a chance to talk."

And then. you've got something that is said in that email that is designed to elicit a response. Some will initiate a dialogue, some of them won't.

So from that point, if you don't hear back, you could have another one that goes out a couple of days later saying, Hey never heard back you on this, but something else occurred to me that I didn't mention and then you add something else to the conversation that could potentially be of interest to them. So you're not just hitting them with "call me, call me, call me, call me." You're actually creating value in the communication, which is also particularly key when you're doing sequencing like that.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of sequencing your communication. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Great to be with you again. I really love that we dive into these things that can have such an impact on your daily business.

Oftentimes people will focus on the large things, not understanding that sometimes the smallest tweaks can make all the difference.

David: Yeah, and things like this really are kind of diving deep. And many times I know other people in podcasts or in stuff that's actually going out to the public, they'll just keep it all high level and not really get into too much.

I think we've done a reasonably good job over the years of diving a little deeper and getting into things in a little bit more detail. Because it's important for people who watch this or listen to this to recognize that there are a lot of aspects to all of this.

And we touched on this in the previous episode. We were talking about sort of the high level goals, we were talking about the high level concepts versus the nitty gritty of what do I have to do on a day-to-day basis. And this really gets more into the idea of the nitty gritty.

But sequencing is something that I don't hear many people talk about in business. And I think it's a real game changer for people in the sense that when you get this and you start implementing it, it changes the way that you interact with your prospects and clients to make what you are doing better and more appealing than what your competition is probably doing.

Jay: Yeah, such a great point. And back to the idea of focusing on the smaller stuff.

I'm weird. I call myself lazy because I want to avoid steps and reduce steps, but in the name of that laziness, I will spend weeks trying to create a system, whether it's a software system or a planning system or something, just knowing that over the long run, it's going to have such a dramatic impact.

And I can be lazy about that thing after that. And I'm focused. I mean, if I can reduce one little step, I'll spend weeks trying to figure out how to do that.

David: Yeah. But that's smart. I don't think that's lazy. I think it's far lazier to just go into each situation, not knowing what's going to happen, not knowing how to respond to the common objections you get, not knowing how to create a system that will allow you to bring clients through the door like clockwork.

And when you do that, you're basically going into work every day with no idea of what's going to happen. So I think that's really lazy and really sloppy and I don't think what you described is lazy at all.

Jay: Well, I don't, you know, I think you're probably right, but it is something that drives my wife crazy and it's really bad.

Like when we go grocery shopping, I have a route,

Achieving goals is quite different than just setting them. So while the first step may be to set the goals you really want, then we have to prioritize our actions from high to low. What is the most important thing that I need to do in order to get there? Because generally, you can come up with a dozen or a hundred different things that you're going to need to do to reach your goals. But there's probably one to three things on there that are going to be more important than the other 97.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing achieving your goals. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, so glad to be here, David, and once again, I'm looking forward to this discussion. We hear people talk about goals all the time, and I know for me it's something that I struggle with because what will happen is I'll set those goals.

I really haven't defined how I'm going to get there, and then when I don't achieve them, it becomes something that deflates me. So I think for a lot of people, goal setting can work against them.

David: I think it can too, because I believe there is a lot of focus on goal setting, and it's something that we do, particularly at the beginning of a new year.

A lot of people focus on their new year resolutions, which are their goals. And while there's been a lot written about goal setting, the importance of goal setting, writing things down, reviewing it regularly, having your affirmations and things like that.

All of those things are certainly helpful, but they don't actually, directly connect to the idea of achieving the goals. And that's why I wanted to title this the way that I did, because setting your goals has been done to death, but how do we go about achieving it? And I think it's interesting to explore that aspect of this topic.

Jay: Well, yeah. And one of the things that frustrates me is, when people talk about goal setting, they tend to assume that everybody's the same.

Oh, just follow this and you're great. It's like, I read seven Habits of Highly Successful People and what was never mentioned or considered in that was, it was also seven habits for highly organized people already.

You had already achieved a level where all you had to do was put these things in place and you're good.

Well, what about me? I wasn't raised with systems and those kind of things, so what about me? I didn't feel like there was any place that I could implement that.

David: Yeah. And that is very common. I mean, I think everyone probably deals with that because unfortunately, when you're writing a book that's going to be on a shelf for a long period of time, you have to include things that are essentially timeless.

And the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I mean, it's such a great book. It's a very inspirational read. But when you've got rules, like "Be Proactive," that's a big, broad rule, right? And. In many cases you can be proactive, but what does that mean? It gets down to the nitty gritty.

And we've talked in the past about Michael Gerber, the author of the E-Myth. And I love that book.

The E-Myth, The E-Myth Revisited. I read the original copy a long, long time ago, and I just loved it. I'm like, okay, because this was all about processes. And that book talked primarily about the fact that you have to have processes.

But then what are those processes, right? Because that's the part that people like you and I need. It's like, okay, well what are the processes and how do I do that and how do I make that happen?

And so, so much of my career has been focused on that. Okay, how do I turn this great recommendation, "be proactive," you know?

Jay: Yeah.

David: "Work on your business, not just in your business." How do I take broad statements like that? To some extent, they become platitudes, and how do I turn that into something that is actionable?

Because that is the only way we're going to be able to ach...

I know people who have been in business for decades and they've held onto clients 5, 10, 15 years longer than they should have, because they never got this simple thing down. Declare independence from poor quality clients. If you've got a way to generate new clients consistently, like clockwork, you don't have to deal with that. You can become independent from poor quality clients, but you have to have that plan in place.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. It is Independence Day in the United States, and today co-host Jay McFarland and I will be declaring independence from underperforming business tactics. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much David, and happy 4th of July to you and everybody else, and once again, I love this topic because I think there's a lot of things that we're all doing that we really haven't stood back and assessed. Is that productive? Do I just do it because I've always done it. A good analysis of these things could probably save you a lot of time and effort.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And personally, I just love the 4th of July. I love Independence Day. I love the idea of independence. I think a lot of people do. And whether or not it's actually achievable on a personal or a business level, because it's probably not. I mean, we're all dependent on other people to some extent or another.

But to the extent that it is possible, I like to sort of look at what are the things that I would like to become independent of? What are the things that I'm dependent on that I'm not comfortable with? And then say, "alright, what can I do to change that?"

So I feel like that's a reasonable starting point. Understanding that, are we really going to be completely independent? Well, no, we're going to have to get our food from somewhere. We're going to have to have customers. There are a lot of things that we're dependent on.

In most industries, I mean, we're going to be dependent on suppliers, prospects, customers, supply chains, availability of cash or credit. That's not going to change. We will be dependent on some of those things, but what are the things that we can become independent of?

That's what I think starts to get interesting.

Jay: Yeah. I totally agree with you and I've, had this experience where somebody from the outside has come in, and maybe they're just new to the company or maybe they're a consultant and they look at what we're doing and they're like, why are you doing this? And I sit back and I go, Well, I'm not really sure.

And then I've had the same thing where people have asked me to come into their business and within seconds, sometimes I can identify things and we get in that tunnel vision, and we don't take time to step back and say, you know, why are we doing those things?

I would really like independence from this thing, but I feel like it's necessary. And maybe it's not.

David: Yeah. And if you consider the things that you really want to sort of separate yourself from, the things that you really want to become independent of.

Like when I think about that, for me, it's like, okay, I know that I'm going to be dependent on suppliers to some extent, but can I become independent of poor quality suppliers, right?

Jay: Mm-hmm.

David: I know I'm going to be dependent to some extent on prospects. But can I become independent of poor quality prospects? Poor quality clients, right? If there are clients that I'm interacting with because they're in there and I'm afraid to let go of them, what do I have to do to change that?

What do I have to do to become confident enough in my ability to generate new clients that I'd be willing to let go or sacrifice some of the old ones?

And that's where I feel like this conversation has value.

Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And you know, it just occurs to me how many people got into business, started their own business because they wanted independence. And now the question is,

Getting from Obscurity to Loyalty in the mind of the client is all about building relationships, and I'm all about that! Until I sell you something and then I'm off doing the next thing, and I forget about you completely, until and unless you call again.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how you get from obscurity to loyalty in the mind of a new prospect. Welcome back, Jay. Great to have you here...

Jay: Thank you, David. And once again, I'm super excited about this.
How Do You Move from Obscurity to Customer Loyalty?
Jay: I feel like customer loyalty is the holy grail of having a business. But I'm not sure if people know how to get their customers to that point. So I'm very excited. Where do you even start with that? From obscurity to loyalty. How do you begin this process?

David: Yeah, it's a fun topic because I think again, most people don't think of it like this. It sort of ties back to what we were talking about last week. But the idea of getting from total obscurity to blind customer loyalty for most people just seems impossible. You know, "how do you do that?"

But if you think about it, one of the things that I normally do, if I'm explaining this to an audience, I'll draw a target on a flip chart. At the center of the target, the bullseye is blind customer loyalty. This is just loyal. I would never consider doing business with anyone else, but you.

And then, a couple of rings out -- outside the circles -- you have obscurity, total obscurity. I have no idea who you are. I have no idea that you're taking in air on the planet. I have no idea why I should do business with you, right?
Intelligent Repetition of Contact
And so you're not going to get from total obscurity to blind customer loyalty in one step. It's going to require intelligent repetition of contact, which is something we talked about last time as well. So when you think about it, there are stages you have to go through to get there.

The first step is to move from obscurity, "I don't know who you are," to recognition, "Oh, I recognize you." I recognize that you're here. I don't love you. I don't hate you. I don't know you well enough to do either of those things. But I recognize that you're alive. So recognition is that first step.

Jay: Okay.
Moving from Obscurity to Recognition
David: And when we think in terms of communication, the type of communication that you will engage in to let somebody know you're alive is very different than the type of communication that you'll engage in to get them to be more loyal to you and to get them to place that first-time order. So that initial step -- moving from obscurity to recognition -- that's step one.

Then from recognition, the next thing we have to get it to is some level of comfort. They have to be comfortable enough with you to have additional conversations, to place that first-time order with you. And then once they're comfortable with you, that first order happens.

From there, if you perform properly, if they place that order, and if you deliver the way you're supposed to and everything works out well, then they might say, "okay, I'll give you another chance and we'll do it again."
Getting from Recognition to Comfort
At that point, they're in that comfort ring. They're in that comfort level. You can operate in the comfort level for quite some time. And if you continue to perform in the comfort level, then eventually you start to move into that bullseye area. You start to move into that area of loyalty where people essentially say "Okay. I'm going to continue to come back to you... unless you mess up."

Jay: Mm-hmm

David: So now at that point, I'm pretty loyal. I'm kind of loyal. But then if you continue to deliver and you continue to maintain that relationship, then you move closer and closer to the center. And then eventually up right there in the middle where they just wouldn't consider doing business wit...

If our storytelling allows us to build trust, build credibility, build a bond, and increase sales, then we're telling the right stories. If it's just designed to be manipulative, then save your breath.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the power of storytelling in sales. Jay, tell me a story.

Jay: Listen, I am a storyteller. I love to tell stories and I like to build when I tell stories, right? And so this is something that I use on a regular basis when I'm talking to people and it's not just telling a story.

I think it's putting people in a story and what character are they in that story? And I think most people want to be the hero in their own story, right?

David: They do. which gets to the whole idea of the hero's journey and all that kind of stuff for anybody who follows that sort of storyline or that

Jay: mm-hmm.

David: type of story arc, The Hero's Journey by Campbell, I can't think of his first name. But it's a book and it describes essentially the plot of most of the most popular movies of all time.

Jay: Yeah,

David: Right. Star Wars, Rocky, anything where you've got this person who is initially kind of beaten down and not winning, and then they come in contact with a mentor and then they learn new things and they have a confrontation and it might not go well, and then they learn some more things and then eventually they come out triumphant.

There's a whole arc. And you're right, a lot of people want to be the hero, and the challenge as a salesperson is, in our storytelling, we can't be the hero.

Mm. Right.

We need to make sure that the person we're talking to is the hero and that we are the mentor or guide. We're not Luke Skywalker. We have to be Yoda. We have to be the one who's helping Luke to destroy the Death Star.

Jay: Yeah. This is a really hard thing, I think for a lot of people. Because we want to go in and think we're the hero, right? I'm coming into your business. I'm going to provide something that is going to save the day, and then I'm going to walk away and you're going to praise me and you're going to pay me.

But that's not what really is supposed to be happening, right? It's that I have the tools and the resources that you need to be the hero.

David: Yes, and it's easy to forget that, particularly when we're trying to read ourselves in as the hero to each story. But one of the things that I've noticed in sales is that many, if not most of the very best salespeople are also the best storytellers.

You can say. "Hi, do you know what time it is?" And instead of getting the time, you will get a fantastic story that might weave the time into it.

Jay: Mm.

David: But you're going off in all kinds of directions, and when they do it right, it's captivating enough that you sit there and pay attention.

Jay: Yeah. But you pointed out "when you do it right."

David: Yes.

Jay: Right. so let's talk about that a little bit. Let's talk about your feedback on doing it right.

David: Well, number one, as we already touched on, it can't just be all about you. You can't make the story about yourself. You need to make it about them, and a lot of that upfront comes from finding out about them, which means you're asking more questions, then you're answering, hopefully in the early stages.

Jay: Yes

David: Because customers always just want to know what it's going to cost upfront, and you don't generally want to lead off with that. So a lot of our storytelling will actually have to come from the conversations that ensue after we've gathered enough information.

Jay: Yeah.

David: To know what those stories need to be about. If we just go in and we meet somebody for the first time and we start telling them stories, that's probably not ideal. We need to still initially do some sort of diagnostic upfront to find out what their interests are.

Now, of course,

When I think in terms of upselling versus cross-selling, what's the difference? Upselling to me means selling a better or a higher priced version of the thing that they're looking at. Whereas cross-selling is making a recommendation of something that's compatible.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of upselling and cross-selling. Are you doing it? Welcome back, Jay

Jay: Yeah, hey, thank you, David. Listen, have these bad memories when I was a kid and I was working in a fast food place and the manager was always pressing me, "ask them if they want a Coke, ask them if they want fries."

And I got to a point where it's hard to upsell and I think this has grown into my adulthood. You know, I just barely got the sale and now I'm asking them for more. It's not an easy thing to do for people.

David: You know, it's interesting you should mention the fast food example because it's the perfect example. It's the one that everyone can relate to. "You want fries with that?"

Jay: Yeah.

David: Or the shortened version that you hear a lot of times, "want fries with that," as the four word upsell. And it works extremely successfully for people in that sort of industry. Because it makes sense. Somebody's coming in, they're ordering whatever, a burger or something, or they're ordering a burger and a drink, "want fries with that" makes perfect sense.

And some percentage of time they're going to say yes. And whether that is 1% of the time or 80% of the time, it's probably maybe 30 to 60% of the time, I would guess, they're going to say yes. Because it's like, "oh, all right, sure. Why not? I'm already here."

Jay: Yeah.

David: And you hit on a great point, which is that we can feel funny about upselling, if we feel like the purpose is to simply get more money out of a person. If it feels like it's completely one-sided, if it feels like it's manipulative, then we're not going to want to do it.

So I personally believe that the times that we should upsell and cross-sell are the times when we truly believe that we have an additional solution that is going to be better for them.

Now, in the fast food example, are french fries better for you on top of the Coke and the hamburger?

Jay: Yes!

David: Probably not from a, health level, but certainly from a satisfaction level, yeah, it's better. People are likely to want that. But in business, if you're selling something, and somebody comes to you and they have something very specific they want to buy, and you have something that would be complimentary to that, or something that would go with that really well and would increase the value to the buyer, then you kind of owe it to them to at least ask them if they're interested in that.

Jay: Mm, I love that. I love that idea that if you are feeling uncomfortable, maybe you should ask yourself why. And how do you feel about your product? Are you really providing a value to them or are you just trying to sell something and get a paycheck, right?

And I think we all have to ask that question about our own careers and what we're doing and what we're selling. But, you know, if you can just feel great that what you're providing them is going to improve their situation, then you're just passionate about what you're doing and that's going to come through.

David: Yeah. So when you are talking to somebody like that, if you've got something that is actually going to be a benefit to them, if it's going to help them, then it's a lot easier to do it. So that really just boils down to motives.

What is the motive? And unfortunately, I think sometimes managers, like in the situation you described in the fast food restaurant, the manager says, "just do this. Ask them if they want this. Push it, push it, push it. Sell, sell, sell."

When instead, if the manager had said to you, Hey, listen, when people come in here, they're hungry.

To convert more sales and turn leads into customers you need to be dealing with qualified prospects. If somebody is not responsive, you can decide, do I want to continue to pursue this person, or do I want to leave them to my competitors? Let my competitors chase that person. If they're disqualified, you don't have to spend time with them at all.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of converting more sales: turning leads into customers. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Such a pleasure to be with you. This is kind of the secret sauce, right? I mean, if we could all increase our conversion rates and bring down our customer acquisition costs that's where the rubber meets the road.

David: Yeah, in a lot of cases it's a really critical part of it, and I think some people make a mistake upfront when it comes to conversion, and that's that they want to convert everyone. You know, they just meet somebody for the first time and they immediately go into sales mode.

And I think that they can really save themselves and other people a lot of time and a lot of aggravation if they actually start where it really should begin with a little bit of qualification. Trying to find out if they have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend, those kind of things.

Because a lot of times there are salespeople who will spend weeks, months, years pursuing somebody, just to find out once they get an appointment with them that they weren't qualified to buy to begin with. And you can eliminate that right up front. Save yourself a world of heartache.

Jay: Yeah, I love this point, David. I can't tell you I've had this happen, you know, I'm on the phone with somebody and talking about the product and things like that, and then after asking some questions, I realize this is not a good fit. I don't have the services they're looking for.

And I could have saved us both a lot of time if I had done a little pre-qualification before we got started.

David: Yeah. Or if that's happening on the first call, then you're pretty good at that point. But literally, I know there are people who have gone to networking functions for a long period of time, and they're talking to people and trying to get them to agree to an appointment, and then they finally agree to the appointment, and then you get out there and you're talking to them.

I had this experience myself early in my career. I'll never forget it. There was this guy and I thought he was going to be a great prospect, so I tried to get an appointment with him. He agreed to the appointment. I showed up at his place.

His place was a dump and he didn't show up for the appointment, and I was sitting there looking around and I was thinking, "okay, why am I here?" And so a little bit of diligence upfront and a little bit of qualifying goes a long way.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. And I also think technology can do a lot of that pre-qualifying, right? We had the experience where our Google ad buy was not targeting the right people. And so I was getting all these calls and I'm like, "wow, look at these leads we're getting."

And it turned out I was just wasting time. So I'm wasting money on the Google ad buy. And then I'm wasting money fielding all of these calls. That's just, you're spinning your wheels at that point.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And when you think about it, pitching unqualified prospects is the single biggest time waster on the planet. So if we can avoid that, we're going to be a lot better off.

Jay: Yeah. I think there's a tendency though to think, "oh, we can sell anybody." Or I think the other side of that is if you're not pre-qualifying, then you don't have a really good idea of how effective you are as a salesperson, because you're comparing it to every person you talked to.

Like, I've talked to a hundred people, my close rate was 20%. Well,

To fix your messaging and improve business communication with the TBDs, consider this... If nothing that you convey in your communication, instills any sort of belief in the other person as to why they should take the action that you're requesting in the third step, then it's not at all likely they're going to take that action.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the TBDs. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, it's such a pleasure to be here with you again, David. We're talking about communication here and I'll be honest, oftentimes we'll discuss a podcast that we want to do, or you'll send me the topics and I sit here and I think, you know, I've never once thought about this type of thing, how to improve communication. I just kind of fall in the trap. You know, I talk to people, I send them emails. I'm guessing that that's good communication, but I've not really thought about it, David.

David: Yeah. I sort of introduced this topic backwards, I guess, at the top of this podcast. When I say we're going to be talking about the TBDs, what we're really talking about is improving our communication with the TBDs.

And for those of you who are saying, "what are they talking about?" Allow me to elaborate. A lot of times when I'm working with clients, one of the things that they'll ask about is how to improve the results that they're getting with the communications they're having with prospects.

That could be anything from the messages they're leaving on people's voicemails. It could be not getting responses to emails. It could be the things they're posting on social media, any form of outbound communication, whether it's one-to-one or one-to-many. What you say in those communications is going to determine what happens.

We touched on this a little bit in the previous episode. But if you want to really think about what is going to likely get you the best results, what I ended up boiling it down to for myself and for my clients is what I refer to as the TBDs.

Now, when people think of that abbreviation "to be determined," that's often what's used there. That's not what I'm thinking in terms of. When we're looking to communicate with other people, particularly when we're looking to get a result, we want to ask ourselves:

"As a result of this communication, what do I want this person to think? What do I want them to believe, and what do I want them to do?

Okay? And so if you structure your communication in a way where it addresses those three points, you're going to be a lot more likely to get at least closer to the result that you're looking for.

If I'm sending somebody an email and there's nothing in particular that I want them to think, believe or do, there is no reason for me to send that email.

Jay: Mm-hmm.

David: If I'm making a phone call, if I'm leaving a voicemail message, if I'm doing anything that is initiating contact with another human being, if there's nothing in particular that I want for them to think, believe, or do, then there's no point to having the conversation.

Now, if you're calling a loved one, Okay. You know?

Jay: Yeah.

David: You want them to know that you love them, you want to know that they love you, all that sort of thing. But, in business in particular, in our communications, if we don't have a reasonably good idea of what we want the other person to think, believe, or do, then there's not a whole lot of reason to communicate.

Jay: Yeah. That's so powerful because how often or is the temptation I'm calling a client? Hey, just checking in, seeing how you're doing give me a call back. It's like, that's the trap. I think so many of us fall into.

I'm not thinking at that moment, what I want them to be thinking is, please call me back because you need me.

But I sound kind of desperate and not like there's a priority. There's no urgency, there's nothing really being conveyed. Right?

A lot of people think the goal is to get likes and engagement, but when it comes to the best use of social media in business, conversations and conversions are the metrics that matter. That's what results in sales. The rest are vanity metrics. Those who think it's all about views and clicks might be missing the point.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the best use of social media in business. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David I feel like this is one of those areas where I don't feel confident in myself, but I'm not in a position yet where I'm going to hire somebody to do it.

And so, it's hard to get motivated every day, because I know it's an important part, especially in my business. Most of our leads come from the internet and social media, so it's like I don't know that this is something I should be handling myself.

David: I think a lot of people feel that way, and for many of us, social media can be a huge distraction.

And in some cases, like, well, the best use of social media is to keep it turned off if you have to actually get things done. But there are benefits to it when it's used properly, and part of our Total Market Domination course involves working with our clients to help them through the best forms of first contact with a new prospect.

And one of those methods is social media. I mean, you can be doing it via cold calls, you can be doing it via networking events, direct mail, lots of different ways to initiate first contact with a new prospect. But many people like the idea of using social media, particularly because it is a one-to-many method of reaching people.

You can post something on social media one time, and hundreds of people could see it, or thousands of people could see it. And so it allows you a great deal of leverage much more than if you're making one phone call at a time or meeting one person at a time. So there are definitely benefits to utilizing it.

And of course, with the benefits come the flip side, the detriments that go along with it in some cases. And so one of the things that a lot of people seem to struggle with is that they go onto social media with one purpose and they end up doing 10 other things that they didn't plan on doing when they got in there.

And they don't end up doing the thing that they actually wanted to do. And so a lot of it, I think, boils down to the fact that we're not sure what to do. In a lot of cases. We're not sure, well, what should I post? What should I say? What should it be designed to do? And there's so much talk among so many people about creating content, and I've done classes on this.

The fact that content is kind of a misunderstood word. If you think about what is content? Well, content is whatever's in something, right? If you've got a bag, whatever's in that bag is the content. Could be something good, could be something very bad, right? But whatever's in the bag. So if you think of it like that and you say, okay, I have to create content.

Well, yeah, but you need to do more than just content. You want to make sure that whatever it is that you're dispersing to the masses has enough value for people that they say, wow, that was actually worthwhile. That was worth my time. So a lot of what we focus on in the communication aspects of what we do with our clients is related to how do we do that?

How do we create value in our communications? And I know I'm sort of rattling off all kinds of different things that could be entirely different podcast subjects. But coming back to the idea of the best use of social media, if you think about what it is, I mean, I've got an idea of what I believe it is.

Do you have any thoughts on that before I spill the beans on what I think here?

Jay: Well, I think it's going to be different for everybody and what type of clientele you have. I'm guessing a key part of this and we've spent a...

Are your priorities BS? Well, focusing on that area in particular, looking at what are the things in my life that really are important to me? What are the actions that I want to take and need to take that are important to me? Even if they're not urgent, how can I get those things scheduled so that they have a better likelihood of getting done?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the topic Are Your Priorities BS? Welcome, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David, as always, such a pleasure to be with you. And another great topic. I think that it's so easy to just do the squirrel thing or the squeaky wheel gets the grease and we don't really know what our priorities should be a lot of the time that's half the battle I think.

David: Yeah, I think that's true. Knowing what our priorities are and recognizing that a lot of times they're not really what we think they are. And most of the time when I talk about stuff on these podcasts, it's not because I'm particularly smart, is because I feel like I've made every stupid mistake that anyone can make.

And so if I can help our listeners and viewers to avoid doing some of those things, then that's a pretty good service. And when I think about priorities and I reflect on the priorities that I've had over the years and over my life, I recognize that we have priorities that we really put out there.

We say, okay, this is what's important to me. What's important to me is my family. What's important to me are my friends. What's important to me is, whatever, losing weight, like if we have goals, my my priority is to do this and to do that, and all these different things.

And then when we look at our actions and we realize that our actions don't really line up with what we say our priorities are, it raises the questions are our priorities BS?

And I think in some cases, even when we don't realize it, they might be.

Jay: Yeah. First of all, I'd say there's nothing wrong with learning in the school of hard knocks. I mean, sometimes those are the best lessons we can learn. But I also think it, we can spin our wheels a lot trying to reinvent the wheel, so learning from other people can help expedite that process.

Right? Which is why I'm glad you're so willing to share the trials that you've had. I think that that's so critical. But I think you're right. We've talked a lot in the past about self assessment. Can you really look at yourself and know what your weaknesses are and what your strengths are?

And oftentimes, I think you're right. We think something is a priority for us, but in the grand scheme of things, and according to our own actions, it's really not. And we're kind of fooling ourselves.

David: Yeah, and the way that I've actually sort of worked through some of this is recognizing that there's a really big difference between our stated priorities, the things that we say are priorities to us, and then our actual priorities, meaning the priorities we act on the things that we do, the actual steps that we take or don't take.

Because if our priority is to spend time with our family and our actions are that we're working all the time and we're not spending time with our family, then we have two different sets of priorities, our stated priorities that always sound good, and then our actual priorities, which is what we're doing on a daily basis.

Jay: Yeah, I see this all the time in like TV reality shows. I don't know why this comes to mind, but you see people saying, my family is the most important thing to me, and they're working 80 hours a week at their career, or their job.

And I'm sitting there thinking, Hmm, no, I don't think you really understand what your priorities really are.

David: Yeah, and most people are sincere, I think, when they say those things. It's just that in many cases, life interferes. And when we allow life to interfere, then it turns out that our actual priorities are diffe...