Is company “Culture” a fluff statement? I used to think so. We all have a culture in our company, whether we realize it or not. The real question is, is that culture intentional and has your team bought in to it? Culture can either sink your business or turn on the afterburners of growth in your company.

Highlights

• Culture is the unwritten rules that the members have about values and beliefs in the company.
  
  
• At first, Robert discounted the importance of culture in business. He saw large companies do a poor job implementing it and thought it was a waste of time.
  
  
• Sometimes an employee just does not share the same values as their co-workers, and it can do damage to everyone around them and disrupt the culture causing low productivity and stress.
  
  
• Part of culture is letting everyone know the values so that they know what to expect.
  
  
• An intentional culture allows workers to trust each other.
  
  
• A good culture lets people feel good about their job and productivity will improve.
  
  
• An intentional culture is a great tool to help with hiring. It is easier to identify a good fit and have a successful hire.
  
  
• Every company has a culture whether one is intentionally created or not. The question is whether it is the culture that you want.
  
  
• It is always best to have employee involvement in the creation process.

I’m not that smart. Neither are you. Most of us have heard of modeling as a way to shortcut success by learning from those more successful than us. What if there was a way to hyper accelerate this modeling to go even faster and achieve success quicker?

Highlights

• A mastermind is a group of peers that are all trying to learn or improve in the same thing.
  
  
• Robert had tried some different types of masterminds and didn’t find too much value at first. They mostly seemed like support or networking events.
  
  
• Then he discovered paid masterminds and discovered that there could be great power with the proper mastermind.
  
  
• Most people do not value free information or groups. But with a paid mastermind they have some stake in the process and try.
  
  
• The more you can pay for a mastermind the more proximity you get to people that are at high levels of success.
  
  
• The brainstorming of successful people that may even be further along than you, is one of the most valuable assets to a mastermind.
  
  
• Masterminds have accountability attached to them. Knowing that you have to report to your peers applies pressure to make progress.
  
  
• It is good to have some diversity of industry in the mastermind so that there are some overlapping ideas.
  
  
• Reason number 1 to join a mastermind is that you can gain knowledge from other people discussing their problems.
  
  
• Reason number 2 to join a mastermind is the group accountability for your goals
  
  
• Reason number 3 to join a mastermind is that if you pay substantial money, you will likely get a lot out of it.

Story telling is a critical strategy in the sales process. In this episode we outline a 4 step process to building stories and give examples of ways that good and bad stories can influence a prospect.

Highlights

• A good story can get the brain to search for similarities to something in your own life.
• The brain needs things delivered in a story format.
• Without the story the brain has to search and create one and things can get confusing.
• In the absence of a great story the prospect will create their own story and they can decide whether your product or service is valuable to them.
• A story allows the salesperson to illustrate a point without directly confronting the prospect about their belief.
• Selling is emotional regardless of what some salespeople will tell you.
• Step 1 of storytelling is identifying a prospects false belief.
• Step 2 is brainstorm stories that illustrate the new belief.
• Step 3 is to catalogue the stories and organize them by false belief. 
• Step 4 is practicing telling the stories. Pay attention to the prospects reaction to see how you are doing.
• Testimonials are one of the best story telling techniques to break false beliefs online.
• Keep the story simple. 
• Stories must be relatable. Character must be like the prospect.
• The story must be authentic and must feel real.

There are 5 traits that separate a poor or average salesperson from a top producer. In this episode we go through each trait offering explanations and examples.

Highlights

• The same sales skills that make a great salesperson are the same skills that leave you feeling satisfied after a purchase.
• The skill set is the difference between poor sales and top sales people. Sales is a skill that must be learned.
• Top 5 sales skills, focused on prospecting, focused on the customer, great story tellers, intentional with language and communication, belief that they are helping.
• Prospecting: top sellers are on the phone speaking with prospects. They understand that any time not spent prospecting is money lost.
• Focus: Focusing on prospects needs, helps build a relationship and trust.
• Great storyteller: A great storyteller can help shift a prospect’s identity into someone that is a fit for the offer.
• Intentional communication: Use of specific words and mannerisms to help communicate effectively to the prospect.
• Belief that they are helping: Believing that the offer is helpful makes it easy to feel comfortable asking for the sale.

In this episode, we talk about the critical nature of understanding the identity of the prospects that you are selling to and how to think about shifting their identity in a way that aligns with your offer.

Highlights

• Sales and marketing process of Hook, Story, and Offer.
• The Hook is something that gets the prospect’s attention. 
• The Story is where you get the prospect to think about the product in some way that relates to them. Telling them that you understand their problem and you can help them solve it.
• The Offer is when you have the prospect’s interest and then help them act.
• Don’t over complicate the process. 
• Don’t try to skip a stage of the process.
• Identity is what drives most of our actions as an individual.
• Identity can affect all aspect of your life when making decisions.
• Look for ways to shift the prospect’s identity to match your identity.
• Whenever trying to sell to a prospect, we need to understand where they are, what their identity is, and how to get them to shift that identity or change.

Hollywood uses marketing techniques to promote projects far in advance of the release date and this is a great strategy for businesses to use to grow awareness and create a strong launch.

Highlights

• With most companies, their customers heard about a new product or campaign the day it was released.
• The more people that buy a product or service the more opportunity there is for word of mouth.
• Hollywood starts their pre-release campaign a year or more in advance.
• Start talking about the concept ahead of time.
• Make a lot of noise and promotion to get scene.
• Start slow and build over time to keep customers aware and interested.
• Ramp up ads and promotions the closer you get to the release date.
• Continue to promote heavily for the first few weeks after the launch.