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, but also in adulthood.

And they said, you know, anxiety is something you don’t want to have to deal with, but it’s a warning sign. It’s your system telling you something.

Something’s going on. And we tend to just want to medicate it instead of saying, you know, what’s going on in my life that’s causing that? And one of the things they identified is what you’re talking about.

We’re not taking time for ourselves. We’re putting so much pressure on ourselves that we’re never taking a break. And our body is telling us, look, this is too much. You can’t handle it. And instead of listening, we’re going “just drug me up and I’ll figure it out.”

David: Yeah. I think the whole idea of making 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.

And so, just taking some time to ask yourself, okay, what do I need to do to get myself to a place where I’m feeling better about myself? About my work? Those around me?

I mean, we’ve done podcasts recently where we were talking about quiet quitting and things like that. And if you’re at a point in your life or your career where you’re just not really happy with the way things are, the way things are going, now is just a great time of year to be able to say, “okay, what do I really want?”

And I think next week we’re going to be doing a podcast on the week between Christmas and New Year. That’s usually a good time for planning and that sort of thing. So we’ll sort of continue this discussion next week. But in the meantime, I think for people who are just looking to make things better, it’s a good time to just sort of evaluate, take stock, try to figure out what we want so that we can start to put together some plans to achieve it.

Jay: Yeah, and one of the things that comes to my mind is so many people get into entrepreneurship because they have this picture of quality of life. Right? That’s what we want.

I’m going to start my business. I’m going to have this income stream. I can take vacations. I can be with the family. So I got this quality of life coming on.

And what they really did is they created a full-time job. Maybe double what a full-time job would take. They now have less time away from the family, less time for themselves. And it’s a very easy trap, as you know, to fall into.

David: Yeah. And of course I know that from personal experience. Because I’ve fallen into a time or two myself.

And it’s interesting, too, because I mean, people who love what they do have a tremendous advantage in the sense that when they do end up overworking or doing more than they should, they’re still pretty happy about it.

I consider myself one of those people where I really just love what I do. So It’s work, but it’s the kind of work that I really enjoy.

This year is a great example. I could have taken a lot more time off than I did, and I kind of forgot because I just really enjoyed what I was doing. I love the people that I work with. I love interacting with them. I love helping them grow their businesses and grow their sales and get the results they’re looking for.

So I think, as you look back on the year, you say, okay, well what was great? What wasn’t so great? What could I have done better? What could I have done differently?

And what do I want to do for next year? And again, we’ll get into that next week. But just thinking in terms of what we can do for ourselves and our family, as it relates to being better, being more present. I think that’s a good place to be.

Jay: Yeah, I love that. Being more present. But I also think about all the podcasts we’ve done over the last months, and we’ve talked about systems and ways to make your business run better, to make it grow better. To have these systems in place. I think having a plan, implementing a plan, having goals, all of those things.

Those things, if they’re implemented properly, are going to de-stress your life and ideally allow you to be present with your family. Because you’re not sitting at the dinner table, if you still eat dinner together, because I know that’s a rarity today even with the way things are going on.

That you can be present and instead of, you know, having your wife saying something to you and you’re thinking about a client at work and you’re just going, uh-huh, yeah, sure, whatever, you know?

David: Yeah. If you have your cell phone turned upside down on the table while you’re eating with your family, that doesn’t count as being away from work, it really doesn’t.

Jay: Yeah.

David: And again, I know there have been times where I’ve done that. It’s like, what’s the point? As if it’s upside down, like it’s not really there, like it’s not really going to impact you.

Jay: Yeah. I think just maybe reminding yourself why you did it. You know, why did you start this and what were those initial goals?

And if you’re not able to translate that down to time with your family and being present with them, then maybe it’s time to reassess your priorities.

David: Yeah. I think that thinking also is something that we really need to focus on. And again, it’s a good time of year to do it. Thinking in terms of what we want to have happen, learning from the mistakes of our past.

So I think another gift that we can give to ourselves and our families this holiday season is to really think ahead in terms of how we’re going to do what we’ve done in the past better and differently, so that we can get the results that we need as the environment changes.

Jay: Yeah, and the other thing I love is that you don’t have to do it alone. I mean, you offer tremendous resources for people that already have plans and actions that they can take today, even as they go into the holidays.

So how do they find out more about that?

David: Well, you can go to TopSecrets.com/call, that’s TopSecrets.com/call. Schedule a call with myself or my team and we can literally just have a conversation about what it is that you’re looking to accomplish for the remainder of this year and into the new year.

Any concerns that you have about recession or the types of clients you’re going to need to be able to attract to get around some of that stuff. We can just have a conversation and if it makes sense for us to work together, we’ll figure out a way to do it. And if not, hopefully you’ll still get a lot of great value from the call.

Jay: Well, and I know for a fact sometimes just talking to somebody is enough to get those gears turning, make you feel like you’re not alone, and de-stress you a little bit. So I highly recommend it.

David: Yeah, especially when you’re in a particular industry, you’ve got very similar concerns. You’ve got very similar issues, and just to be able to talk to someone else who has been through it and say, “Hey, listen. What did you do in this situation?” Or “how do you deal with that situation?”

It’s just a great opportunity. And a lot of our clients, we participate, we have a mastermind group, a discussion group where they interact with each other via email and that sort of thing.

And it’s great to have a community of people who understand you, who understand where you are, and who are committed to help you to get to the goals you’re looking to reach.

Jay: Yeah. I love it. Such a great resource. David, thank you for joining us today.

David: Thank you, Jay.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

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, there are probably three things that only a small percentage of the population know.

And when you’re able to engage in those activities, when you’re able to follow those types of approaches, it dramatically changes the results.

If you dismiss the idea that those type of things even exist, then you’re not even looking for them anymore. And it sort of dooms you to have to continue imitating whoever you happen to come across and It’s a matter then of trying to either reinvent the wheel and hope that it works or copy what other people are doing and hoping that works.

But even in those situations, if the person that you’re copying is extremely successful, but you’re only copying the part of the iceberg, you can see the part of above the water. You may be missing out on the majority of things that they’re doing that you have absolutely no idea about.

Jay: Yeah, such a great point. I do believe there are, quote, universal truths out there, right? Like you said, maybe 3 percent of what the highly successful are doing that can be duplicated.

But again, it’s about knowing yourself. Is that something that you can even do? Because a lot of time that speaks to somebody’s talent. It’s like I read 7 Habits for Highly Successful People and I’m like,it’s not t just highly successful people, it’s people who are already extremely organized.

Right, because I wanted to write seven habits for highly successful slothful people or who are not well organized, so for everyone who’s focusing, “Oh, all I have to do is what this guy says,” it’s not going to work that way.

David: Right, because that’s the difference between copying what someone is doing and adapting it. And I think anytime we just try to copy exactly what someone else is doing, it’s doomed to failure.

Once again, in our work with clients, if I were to say to everybody that comes in to work with us, okay, you have to do cold calling, or you have to do social media, or you have to do paid advertising. A lot of them would say, well, okay, but then they’re not going to do it.

And so we look at what are the things that actually have to happen. And we’re a lot more flexible in terms of the methods they use to get there, so that they can engage in activities that they will actually perform.

They’ll do things because they like doing them and they’re willing to do them.

What I find is extremely disheartening for a lot of business owners in particular, is when they’re trying to copy a method of performance that they absolutely hate and that leads to frustration. It leads to burnout and it leads to businesses closing down because they just feel like I can’t do this.

And the reason they think they can’t do it is because they haven’t figured out a way to adapt the things that work to their own personal strengths. And in my view, that’s really the only thing you can do that is going to ensure your ongoing success.

Jay: Yeah, I love that. Adapting versus copying. Copying, you would think, would be the easiest. I’ll just do what that guy does.

But so often we talk about being self aware and knowing what you would be good at, because some people are amazing at cold calling, right? They’re amazing, but that speaks to their skill set what makes them feel successful. I could never do it.

I’ve never been able to do it. But I have found other ways through technology, because I’m really good at the follow up call. And I’m really good at closing. I’m not good at the cold call.

So if I can get another way to generate leads or have somebody else do the cold call and then I do the follow up, well then that has worked very well for me.

David: Yeah, and when we think of the idea of adapting versus copying, a lot of that goes to the function of communication. We see what somebody’s doing and we try to copy that as opposed to adapting it to our own personal strengths.

And that is such a huge mistake because we end up saying the same things. We end up coming across as exactly the same in the marketplace, which does not differentiate us at all.

And if you’re copying somebody who’s already established and who actually resonates with that message, it’s going to be very difficult to compete with that. Because most people who are smart in business, will create messaging around their abilities, what they’re good at.

They don’t just copy something that somebody else is good at because it’s a recipe for failure.

And when we look at the communication aspect of it, finding your own unique voice, finding your own unique approach is absolutely critical.

Now, it doesn’t have to be 180 degrees from other things that you’re hearing, but it has to be different enough to be able to position you as something that is at least somewhat more interesting, something different enough that someone would say, “Hey, I’d like to learn more about that.”

Because 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 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?

Jay: Yeah, I, love that. you know, I’m in a very niche business. And so I only have four or five competitors in the country, which is amazing. And the other four or five, they all operate in the same way.

If you call them for a consultation, you’re going to get exactly the same thing from all of them.

But not when you call us. We’re very different, we’re very personable, and my favorite thing to hear, and I hear it on a daily basis, is “it’s so refreshing to talk to somebody…” dot, dot, dot.

And every time I hear that, I’m like, we are winning in this space and it’s because we’re not following them thinking, “Oh, they’re successful and this is how they do it. So we’re going to do it that way.”

No, we found a way to be completely different and still conduct business, and still compete.

David: Yeah. And it goes down to your messaging, you know, and the way that you’re doing things to be able to communicate that upfront.

I think one of the biggest issues that a lot of businesses have is the disconnect between what the marketing arm of their organization says that they do and what the sales arm of the organization says they do. And then what they actually do, right?

So you have marketing saying one thing, you have sales saying something else. And then when they deliver, it can be three different things. But when you’re able to get all three of those elements functioning together, firing on all thrusters, it really allows you to dramatically outperform your competition without having to be really different in terms of the deliverability, the thing that you’re actually providing, right?

There are people who sell commodities. But the way that you sell your commodity is going to determine how much more successful you’re going to be than everyone else who sells that same commodity.

Jay: Yeah, and I like the idea of going to competitors, going to their sites, and instead of assuming that everything they’re doing is working, I like to go as a consumer and say, “man, I don’t like this. I don’t like this. Why in the world are they doing that?”

And some of the stuff I may duplicate, but I’m always testing and trying it out. And I think you would find if you look at our website compared to all of our competitors, it speaks to the whole process, how we’re going to treat them from the beginning, whether or not we know the answers to their questions.

We never want them at some point to say, that’s not the impression I got from your website. Because you’re building obstacles in the process instead of removing obstacles.

David: Yeah, I think there’s also something to be said for when you’re looking at what competitors are doing, to be able to say to yourself, What do I hate about that?

What do I really dislike or disagree with about that? Because that allows you to find your own voice. If you’ve ever run into a situation where you’re dealing with this, this, and this, These three things that this other organization is promoting that you think shouldn’t resonate with your people…

it allows you to really define your messaging in a way that is different and ideally a lot better, because of those differences.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. David, how do people find out more?

David: You can go to TopSecrets.com/call. Schedule a call with myself or my team. We’d love to have a conversation with you.

If you are in a situation where you know that you’re doing a lot of the same things that other people are doing and you need to break free of that. a lot of times it’s not a huge thing. It’s a matter of making small differentiating statements. It’s a matter of positioning yourself a little differently, adapting your approach, and it can create such tremendous differences in your results, you just won’t even believe it.

So, TopSecrets.com/call.

Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. Such a great service, David. I hope people will try it out. And once again, it’s great speaking with you.

David: Thank you so much, Jay.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

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, let’s do that next week, or let’s do this. I should just be saying, I’m sorry, that doesn’t fit into what I need to be focusing my time on.

That’s a difficult thing for me.

David: Yeah. And when we push things off, especially when we put something off Indefinitely, or we don’t connect a date to it, it makes it even harder because now we’re going to have to have another conversation about when that’s going to come together.

So very often, if we are planning on saying yes to something, we should immediately get it scheduled for a certain day or time, that would be the best thing to do, because then, you know, you’ve got that time blocked out.

But if you really feel like you don’t have the bandwidth to be able to do it. We’re always far better off just saying, I can’t right now. And if we are going to put it off, then it might need to be several weeks or a month or whatever. But make it realistic so that when you’re saying no to someone, but you plan on doing something later, you’re at least figuring out what that is now, as opposed to creating another thing that’s in the back of your mind, driving you crazy that you haven’t gotten either scheduled or done.

Jay: Yeah, exactly. So what happens is I end up having to almost say no three or four times instead of just saying no the first time so like a lie turns into more lies, turns into more lies. If I was just honest up front, then I could move on with my life and I’m not going to have to spend time making up excuses later.

David: Yeah, and just to be able to say, no, I’m sorry, I can’t do this at this particular point. And if you can reschedule it, you do. And if you can’t, then you say, I don’t even know when I can schedule at this point. And unfortunately, that’s kind of the way things need to go. Otherwise, what ends up happening is we spend the majority of our lives reacting to other people’s priorities.

If someone asks you to do something that you really feel like you don’t have the time or the desire or the energy to do, and you say, yes, well, now you have sacrificed whatever it was that you actually wanted or needed to do, for somebody else’s priorities.

Jay: Yeah. again, I want to make sure that people understand, we’re not saying say no to everybody.

But we are saying maybe you say yes three times a week if people want your scheduling time or your focus after work. So you’re saying, I can do that once a week, I can do that once a month.

And once that’s scheduled, like when I was in radio, I did a lot of appearances. And if I would just, let people get my time no matter what, I realize I’m busy every night of the week.

And so I literally had to say, no, I’m only going to do that once a week. And eventually that came into twice a month, right? And after that, I’m like, well, let’s shoot for next month. I’ve got two openings for next month. Let’s do it then.

I can’t tell you how much bandwidth that cleared in my mind. Because we’re not just talking about scheduling time. We’re talking about mental time, your capacity to handle more things, right?

David: No question. And I think part of the struggle, too, is when we think in terms of a to do list rather than in terms of a calendar? If we’re thinking, oh, I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do this, and I don’t have any timeline in terms of when any of those things are going to happen, it just drives you crazy.

Whereas if you are able to have open slots on your calendar for specific things, Out over the course of the next at least month or so, and you say to somebody, well, I can’t do it this week, but how is Thursday of next week at two o’clock? Then it gives you an opportunity to get that scheduled. Now I don’t have to think about that again until it’s time to do it.

And when somebody else asks about something, I can either tell them, I’m sorry, I’m booked up until the following Tuesday or whatever it is. But at least you know. And I think one of the big difficulties that we often have is thinking in terms of stuff that we want to do, as opposed to things that we are actually committed enough to, to get them onto our calendars.

Jay: Yeah, and it just occurs to me, and this may be a podcast for another time. But learning to say no to yourself. In a lot of ways, that’s what we’re talking about, right? The things that you may want to do, above what is important. Or even like you said, I want to help people out, and so when I say no to them, I’m really saying no to myself.

David: Yeah, that’s such a great point. Because I feel like particularly many of us in business, we’re saying no to ourselves a lot more than we’re saying no to other people because we want to please them. We want to accomplish or help whatever it is that they want to do.

And we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Because we’re not saying out loud, no, I can’t do that. We’re not saying that to ourselves. We’re saying yes to something else. And then we’re realizing we don’t have time.

And then when we’re asked to do something that we would actually prefer to do, we say we can’t, because we don’t have the time to do it.

Jay: Yeah, exactly. I can think of many things that recently I’ve cut out of my schedule, and they’re things that I actually like to do, but I’ve just decided, focusing on that is not going to give me the same benefit as focusing on something else.

So, it’s about prioritization, right?

David: Yeah, this time of year, I think, is very often a good time for most of us to sort of evaluate where are we spending our time? Who are we spending our time interacting with? What are we doing? Over the course of the past week or two, I’ve noticed some of my online activities in terms of social media and that sort of thing.

I’ve unsubscribed. I’ve left several groups that I participated in for a while. I’m basically stepping out, stepping back on things that I realize are not important enough anymore. They’re not moving the needle, and I need to focus on the things that are, and that requires saying no.

And as we sort of discussed here, sometimes just that word alone is very difficult to say.

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 when someone asks you something.

That was an old Nancy Reagan thing, right? Just say no. But when somebody asks you to do something, you just say no.

I think it was an episode of Seinfeld. No, Jerry’s girlfriend was trying him to eat pizza that her dad made, but he didn’t wash his hands after he went to the restroom and Jerry was like…. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, just that simple. Come on, have a little piece.

Jay: Can’t do it. All right, David, how do people find out more about saying no?

David: Go to TopSecrets.com/call. Check out the video on that page. Schedule a call with myself or my team. If it makes sense for you to be able to focus on the things that are most important to you, moving the needle in your business is going to require the ability to say no to the wrong things and yes to the right things.

Love to help you do that. TopSecrets.com/call.

Jay: All right, David, once again, it’s a real pleasure.

David: Thank you, Jay.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

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. So that’s not ideal either. I think trying to figure out where that balance is between the things that we really need to do, the things that we’re best at, the things that create the best results for us, focusing hard on those and trying to eliminate the things that are taking us in a different direction.

Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I also have the tendency to think that because it works for somebody else, it’s going to work for me, right? Especially on the internet, you know, use time blocking, use bullet journaling, use this, use that. And I’ve tried so many of those things and I really think the key is to know yourself well enough to know what is going to work for you because we’re all different, right?

David: Yeah, and it is a trial and error kind of thing. So the fact that you and I both, we’ve both looked into all of those types of things. We say, okay, well, which of these could potentially work for me, which seem to actually help.

When we’re able to do that, it’s great. But. I think the trouble we run into is when we try to do all of the things. And you can’t, you literally can’t do all the things.

You can’t take action on all the recommendations that you’re likely to get from a hundred different sources.

Jay: Yeah. And you’re also not going to find the exact answer for you immediately. For me, it’s a constant process. I’m always looking for a way to improve a little bit here and there.

I hate friction, right? I hate having to go to one screen to pull something up that I’m constantly looking at. So I’d rather buy another screen and have it there. So I won’t tell you how many screens I have in my office, but for me, it’s down to that level of minutia to learn how I operate and what systems are going to work best for me.

David: Yeah, and if multiple screens is helpful for you, then you definitely want to do it. Other people. I think if I had multiple screens here, I would use all of them. But for my particular style, I don’t think that would be good. I’ve got that sort of entrepreneurial ADD that a lot of people seem to struggle with.

But you also raised a great point, which is that we each need to sort of understand what type of systems are going to help us. And when we turn our productivity problems into systems problems or systems issues, then we can start looking for systematic solutions to our problem, as opposed to just working harder.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. One of the things that I’ve found is. It’s really hard for me to time block because if my head is not in it, in that particular thing, then like you said, it’s probably not a good idea to push that through just like if you’re tired.

So for me, I have a list of all of my different projects. Obviously, there are time based projects. I don’t have a choice. I have to do those. But everything else is a list. And so when it comes time to do those things, I look at it and I say, what do I feel like doing?

What is my mind space right now? That is something that I’ve learned about just how my mind works.

David: Yeah. And even a little behind the scenes, when you and I get together to do these podcasts, we have to coordinate it in advance. We have to coordinate our schedules and then we both have to summon up the will to get together and do it.

And we’ve been doing that for a while now. So, pats on the back to us for that, but for some people, the struggle is real. Trying to identify what are the things I’m going to do?

What do I really have to almost force myself to do, on any given day, and what are the things that could potentially be excluded so that I can focus on something else that will be more beneficial.

Jay: Yeah. It’s interesting. A lot of phones. They’re coming out with focus modes.

For exactly what you’re talking about, you can actually set your computer to say, right now I’m working on podcasts. And so I only want to get notifications from my wife, for example, because that might be an emergency.

So you can let through certain types of contact. I can limit what I see on my seven different screens, right?

And I find, David, that I’m using those more and more, which surprises me because I’ve always considered myself the king of multitasking. But nowadays, when I see an email, I want that email out of my box. I want it gone.

There’s very few things in there that have to be done right away. And so I do find I’m leaning more towards that direction.

David: It’s nice when the technology can help us. As you were saying that, I realized I had not silenced my phone when we started this discussion. So with my left hand, as I was looking at you on this screen, I was using my left hand to make sure that the silencer was on my phone so we don’t get interrupted in the middle of this.

But yeah, you’re exactly right. A technological solution for that. And this technological solution there would be to have me turn it off before we jump on the call rather than during. But like you were describing, if the device itself has a focus mode, which I imagine they probably all do now. I haven’t really taken advantage of that much.

But it’s another great point because you’ve got your system solution. You’ve got your technology solutions. And then, I would say, you can also start to look at delegation solutions.

Who can I delegate this to? How well can I delegate this? How fast can I delegate this?

Jay: Yeah, and I think that there are obviously manual ways to do this. You don’t have to rely on software.

Make a list of those things that are potential distractions. Make a list of things that you have to get done in the day. Time block those if you need to.

But I think also scheduling a time, whether it’s you close your door, during that time. If you have a staff, letting them know that during this time of day, I’m In that focus mode, where I’m going to be working on things where I really don’t want to be distracted.

So, unless it’s an emergency… really, a self awareness about the things that distract you, about the things you have to get done.

And you talk about delegation. Are you spending a lot of time on things that you shouldn’t be doing? And can you clear up your schedule through delegation?

David: Right, or elimination. Eliminating the things that don’t even have to be delegated. Because we get so used to doing things in a certain way, that very often we can fall into that trap where we’re doing things that don’t have to be done at all and instead of delegating it or doing it ourselves, if we can eliminate it, it’s even better.

When I think of the idea of effort versus outcome, how much effort do I need to put in versus the outcome that I’m getting? It all also sort of boils back down to the 80 20 rule, the Pareto principle, right? 20 percent of activities generate 80 percent of the results and vice versa. That’s been done to death.

Everybody knows it. Everybody understands it. But I think it is also definitive proof of this concept, which is 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.

And that’s where I think the necessity to look for those points of leverage, in the form of systems and technology and delegation, is really at least part of the solution.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. And working backwards. Right? So, yes, we just closed somebody. What was that process? And then, what about the last 10 people that we were able to sell? What are the commonalities there?

This is something again, we’re constantly doing in our business. Because we pay a substantial amount of money per lead.

How do we maximize that? We listen back to our phone calls, and then we compare those to the actual close rate. And we found that there’s a lot of times when we’re spending too much focus and time on something that is not effective.

And so that’s been such a great tool for us, constantly tweaking, constantly refining.

David: Yes, that makes so much sense. I think there’s also a tendency in some businesses to really focus on the glorification aspect of work, glorifying hard work and indicating that it’s always necessary in order to achieve the results.

But that also just sort of goes to the idea of working harder versus working smarter, ideally, if you’re doing both, that’s great, but the smarter we can work, ideally, the better it gets, because we can come up with ways of accomplishing the things that need to get done in better, more efficient ways.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. And, you know, a lot of times it’s just talking to somebody else, getting outside of your own bubble. That’s one of the things that you’re here for.

How do people find out more?

David: You can go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team. If you’re in a situation where you feel like you’re pedaling as fast as you can, you’re shifting gears, you’re pedaling harder, and you’re not getting to where you want to be in terms of visibility or sales or profits, go to that website.

TopSecrets.com/call, check out the video on that page. And if it makes sense, we’d love to have a conversation with you.

Jay: David, I love this conversation. Thank you so much.

David: Thank you, Jay.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

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, sometimes we have to come up with alternative things that will work for people who aren’t sort of naturally wired to make them work.

Jay: Yeah, you need something that you can train to, that you can feel good that other people are doing. If you have other staff, right, if it’s just you, and I know a lot of our viewers are, on their own, then you need to find things that you’re good at, that play to your skill set.

You know, when I was in radio, I had a program director who felt that every single person should do exactly the same thing. And that always bothered me because we all had different interests. We all had different skill sets. If you put me in the lane of my passion and what I’m good at, then I’m very good in those situations.

But, if you keep trying to force me into areas that I don’t like and I’m not very good at, I don’t think that serves anybody.

And it’s the same with cold calls or any other type of lead generation.

David: Yes, I agree completely. So to circle back to our topic, reducing or eliminating cold calls, and this is not for everyone.

Obviously, if you’re doing them successfully, then you don’t need to reduce or eliminate cold calls. But for those who feel like they do, there is absolutely hope. You can do this.

Now, if you’ve got a sales manager, or if you’ve got a boss who insists on a certain number of cold calls per day, and that’s part of the job you’re being paid for, well, then this might not apply to you either, because if they’re not going to allow you the latitude to be able to generate leads differently, then this might not apply.

But for those of you who have the flexibility to test it out, one of the first things you need to ask yourself is this very question. How can I reduce or eliminate cold calls from what I’m doing now?

And the answer is that you’re going to need to find an alternative. And very likely more than one alternative.

We talked about this a bit in the previous podcast. When you’re looking at different methods of first contact with a prospect, there are a lot of different ways to do it. And if you’re only focused on one, it means you’re probably ignoring a hundred others that could potentially work for you.

So if you’re in a situation now where most of what you’re doing is cold calls, if you’re basically on the phone doing analog kind of stuff, you’re doing real-world, picking up the phone, making phone calls, not online sort of things, then you can look at what are some of the other offline sort of things that I could potentially do, that I am more comfortable with.

Whether it’s attending a networking event, joining some sort of group where people get together to interact and network, something like that. You can look at that type of thing.

You can also look at some people actually prefer cold canvassing, going out and meeting people face to face. I tend to view that as very similar to cold calling, but it depends how you’re wired.

There are some people who are very happy to get out and they like the fresh air and they like being out and meeting people and doing that. Now, that’s also slower than cold calling, right?

Because you can get on and off the phone with 10 people in a very short period of time. It’s harder to do that in person, but it is a different way of doing it. And when you’re attending networking functions, well then you can get in front of a lot of people all at the same time.

If you’re able to speak at a networking function, then you can have a lot of people get to know you very quickly, even though you’re not necessarily getting to know them. But if you can gather business cards, you can get a lot of leads in a very small amount of time, if you’re able to be positioned among a group of people as an expert on a particular topic.

I mean, these are just some examples. And then you get into all the online stuff, other ways of initiating first contact with a new prospect, whether it is a post that you make on social media, inside a group or on your own profile. If it’s a conversation that you have with them in the DMs, there are different ways of doing it.

Some people will love those methods of communication, and some people will hate them. And the advantage of having a repertoire of different methods of reaching people is so important is that it allows you to get to people the way that they want to be gotten to.

Jay: Yeah, that’s a great point. People prefer to be reached out to in different ways.

I also think it’s important to note that just because you’re cold calling doesn’t mean that you’re cold calling effectively, right? You need to constantly be reassessing, constantly be trying new things.

Cold calling is not such a difficult thing if you’re regularly successful, right? That takes a lot of the pain out of things. But if you’re using the same tired thing over and over again, it’s going to become a slog for anybody. So how can you adjust your approach? How can you say different things, do different things?

Can you reach out to them with an email first? Okay, you know what can you do? In your case, can they send them promotional material first so they’ve seen your name first? There’s a lot of ways to make cold calling not as cold, I guess, and more successful.

David: Yeah, and that’s one of the reasons that in all of our work with our clients, we look at cold calling as one potential method of first contact.

Jay: Yeah.

David: In other words, it doesn’t have to be the go-to., And as you mentioned, in the promotional products industry? In the print industry? It is almost ridiculous for someone in an industry like that to not lead with the very thing that they’re offering.

Because if it actually works, if it’s likely to work for your clients, if you truly believe that it’s going to work for your clients, then why shouldn’t you be doing that?

It’s like the example of the shoemaker who has really bad shoes, right? If you’re selling promotional items, if you’re selling printed material that is designed to get more customers for their business, then why wouldn’t you demonstrate your ability to do that.

And if you don’t have the ability to do that, that’s going to go back to, very likely, the messaging that you’re using in that communication, the communication itself, in other words, the marketing vehicle you’re using and the people you’re sending it to.

We talk about the MVPs a lot on this podcast, but over the past several weeks, in a lot of conversations that I’ve had, I’ve realized that everything comes back to it, whether it’s. In a sales realm, in a sales conversation, whether it’s in a marketing realm, a communication piece that you’re sending out, whether it’s for promotion that you’re creating.

If you’re in the promotional products industry and you’re creating a promotion that’s designed to get a result, then the messaging on that imprint.

If you’re doing custom imprinted shirts, the shirt is the marketing vehicle. The message is whatever goes on the shirt, the marketing vehicle, and then the people you distribute it to is going to determine what kind of response or result you get.

It all boils back to those three things. So circling back to our primary topic, 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.

If you were to target a dozen high value clients for your customer, right? Rather than saying, okay, you want to go out to everybody. Allow them to focus in on the most qualified people. Initiate contact with them in a positive, memorable way.

Whether it is a promotion that’s being sent out in the mail that they’re receiving, followed by a call. That works so much better because now it’s not a cold call. Now the call can be, Hey, did you get this thing I sent you?

Did you get the shirt I sent you? Or the mug I sent you? Or whatever it is that was sent. And then it’s a much warmer lead. They’re also going to be a lot more likely to take the call, because they might feel like they owe you one.

Right? If you’re not doing that and you’re calling completely out of the blue to say, hey, I sell this stuff, your likelihood of success is greatly diminished.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. David, how do people find out more?

David: Just go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team. If you’re really serious about reducing or eliminating cold calls, and better yet, if you don’t like them, replacing them with something that is better, something that is more effective, something that is more targeted, something that will position you better, then schedule a call.

Watch the video, schedule a call. We’d love to have a conversation. We’ve worked with more than 200 businesses to help them with these exact problems through this course, through our Total Market Domination course.

And if it didn’t work, we wouldn’t be in business anymore.

The only reason we’re able to continue to offer this to people is because the people who implement this stuff get tremendous results. Another place you can go, since we’re talking about places that you can go, go to TopSecrets.com/results.

Take a look at some of our own clients, in their own words, telling you how our material has worked for them.

If you’d then like to have a conversation, you’ll know what we’re getting into.

Jay: All right, Dave, as always, it’s a pleasure.

David: Thank you so much, Jay.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

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, the desire, the money, the budget, etc.?

And in a lot of cases, the answer is, well, no, that’s why I was trying to get to an appointment. And my point there is, why on earth would you spend any time at all trying to get an appointment with someone if you don’t already know they’re qualified?

Particularly if we’re talking about an in person appointment, which is what’s happening in a lot of these cases.

From a 21st century standpoint, where you’re trying to generate leads online, for example, it really is a two step process because you’re going to want whatever advertising you’re doing online to sort of weed out the worst quality prospects.

So you’re not taking calls with people who aren’t qualified to begin with. But even then it’s a net, you’ve got to sift out that first layer. And then sometimes you’ll end up on the phone with somebody who is still not completely qualified. And you’ve got to have a series of questions in place, a lead qualification procedure that will allow you to find out as you do, Within the first few minutes, whether or not it’s a good fit.

And if you don’t have that in place, if you don’t have a lead qualification procedure, a series of questions you can ask, relatively quickly, get answers to, and make that determination fast, you are going to spend not hours, not days, not weeks, you are going to spend months and years of your life talking to people who have absolutely no ability to buy from you.

Jay: Yeah, but the problem is it’s so hard to think, Oh, I can sell to everybody or especially if you’re early on and you’re like, I can’t afford to filter these people out. Well, you can because you should be focusing on other methods.

It may be more valuable to be spending time reassessing your system than it is spending time on the phone with people who can’t use your system.

I mean, we have a system and we’ve talked about our system quite a bit, but at every step there is a qualification process, right? So our first qualification process is our insane focus on keywords. We’re doing it right now, again, we’ve just gone through a new list of keywords.

That’s the first thing. We only want people contacting us who meet those keywords. Then once they’ve set up a consultation right there in the form, where they fill out their consultation, we ask questions about what they’re looking for. Who are they? What they want.

If they don’t fit, then before I even get on the phone with them, they’re going to get an email from me saying, Hey, we’re probably not going to be able to answer this question for us. So that’s step two, right?

And then step three is actually in the conversation that I have with them. So by the time they get to me, I’m the third level of qualification, right? we’re just insane about this process.

David: Well, I would say you’re more structured than insane because what you described is beautiful.

When you talk about a three level process like that, that is specifically designed to reduce the amount of time that you spend with unqualified prospects, that is smart and beautiful.

And that’s what we encourage all of our clients to do. Not just take anyone who can fog a mirror, anyone with a pulse.

We’re not looking for that. We’re looking for the right people up front. Now, during a process like that, is it possible, or is it even likely that you’re going to disqualify somebody who could potentially buy from you?

And the answer is yes. We view that as a cost of doing business. Because for every one of those people that you miss out on selling, there are probably 9, 10, 50, or 100 that you will not waste your time on.

So from a simple math standpoint, from a simple, time investment standpoint, you’re going to be far better off doing exactly what you and I just described, than if you just talk to anybody who’s willing to have a conversation with you.

Jay: Yeah, so true. But we also have a sorting process, right?

Because there are other steps after that. I sort them into immediate, can I close them within the next seven days? Then I have another group of weeks, and then years, and then I have a long term drip, right? Depending on which way I sort them, there are other steps, right?

So I never look at somebody as gone. I’ve added them to my marketing list, right? And so they’re going to hear from me once a month. You’d be amazed. I get two or three calls a month from people who at the time I had sorted out of the system, but now they’re back and things have changed, right?

And I’ve been on their mind once a month. So the filter continues and you don’t have to feel like, oh, that was a waste. I don’t know that any contact is ever a waste if you can sort them and not spend time on them again. But your system allows you to keep in contact with them again.

David: Yes. And what you identified there lines up perfectly with exactly what we’re talking about.

Now, I believe that in the beginning, in those first few layers, especially that you described, that a goal there is to disqualify the unqualified as quickly as possible. Because you don’t want a lot of them in your followup procedure. Even if it’s a drip campaign, you don’t even want to be dripping to people who really have no ability to buy what you’re selling.

So I believe it starts with a disqualification procedure first, because in any situation, like what you described with the keywords, your keywords are going to eliminate probably 90 percent of the people who are ever even going to see your message. So that’s kind of unseen, but it’s absolutely happening.

For people who aren’t doing that type of thing, they’re going to have to have more conversations and they’re going to have to be more ruthless than you are when it comes to disqualifying people. Because they don’t have those automated levels happening first to make that happen for them.

But once you’ve done that, when you’ve been able to eliminate the 80 to 85 percent of people who are never going to buy from you, then everything you described as far as the nurture is concerned and determining are they going to buy now or they’re going to buy next week, next month, next year…

If they have the ability to buy from you, yes, we absolutely want to follow up. And of course, in our work with clients, we talk about the five levels of qualification.

Are they ready to buy now? Those are the ones we’re going to buy within the next week or so.

Do they have specific dates in mind when they want to buy? Well, I’m not ready to buy now, but first of the year, I’d like to do it, right? That’s the second group.

Third group are the ones who are generally receptive. They’re open to the idea. They have the money, the need, the desire, the money, the budget. They’re just not quite sure exactly when they want to do it. Definitely want to drip to those.

Then you have the disqualified that we talked about before. No need, no desire, no money, no budget, no willingness to spend, rude, obnoxious, belligerent. I want those people out. If they happen to make it through the first couple of nets, I want to make sure I nail them on the third.

And then there are the unresponsive, the people who just stop replying to you. And for those, you can either continue with your drip campaign, or you can say, you know what, that’s enough. No soup for you. No more soup for you. I’m done.

And when you recognize that there are only five levels of qualification, it tells you exactly how to follow up with each one.

It gives you a system you can follow, and it makes your life a whole lot better.

Jay: Yeah, and I want to point out to anybody who’s watching or listening, I’m in a very niche industry. I mean, as niche as you can get. That makes my keywords, that makes my steps very simple and then I can continue to fine tune that.

I don’t want to imply that everybody can just rush out and figure that out. It’s not the case, especially if you have a broad base. Customers that you’re looking for, right? I hate it when people are like, “just do what I do,” right? is, certainly not that simple.

David: But the message is exactly right. Because however you do it, whether it’s through the technology or whether it’s individually, whether it’s at a sales level, however it is it’s happening, an automated level, it doesn’t matter.

The point is the same. You still have to do this. It might take you longer. It might take you a different process. But that’s why, it’s not about one solution. It’s about identifying your specific situation, which is why we find it so important to have conversations with people ahead of time.

We don’t want to take on a client if we’re not absolutely convinced that we’re going to be able to help them. And so for us, that’s criteria number one.

And it really should be for everybody listening to this as well. If you don’t feel like you are the best solution to the person that you’re communicating with, you want to determine that upfront. You want to be the one to say no, right?

And some people, salespeople in particular, feel like, no, everybody is my prospect. I should be able to sell to everybody. And, I don’t know. Is it possible that’s true? It’s possible, I guess. I think it’s unlikely, but it is possible. But if you recognize that there are people who need what you sell right now, and you realize that you’re not in front of one, you want to be able to expedite the amount of time between now and the time you can make that happen.

Jay: Yeah. I’ll give you one last example of something we’ve learned over time. And that is when we first started out, I wanted to sell everybody. So I would offer discounts, right? I’d rather have the money than not. And we have realized, over time, in our industry, that people who want discounts are the most demanding people.

And guess what? We don’t offer any discounts, anymore. Not because we don’t want the money. We would love to have the money and provide the service. But we know we’re probably not going to be able to satisfy that person. And it’s going to be a lot more work for us. So when they ask for a discount, I’m even more firm.

You know what I mean? I’m like, we are the experts. We are going to save you money. We’re going to avoid any issues for you. So yeah, take it or leave it.

David: It’s a disqualifier for you. I mean, it goes exactly back to our primary topic here, which is that there are some people you want to try to get rid of them 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.

Jay: Yeah, exactly.

David: Qualified prospects only!

Jay: There you go. All right, David, how do people find out more?

David: Go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team. If you’d like to be able to interact with more and better quality prospects, we’d love to have a conversation with you.

We’ll start by looking at where you are now and where you need to be in terms of visibility, sales and profits. Visibility meaning, are you visible to the type of people who actually want your services and are ready to buy from you now?

Because if you’re not visible to them, they don’t know you’re alive. You can’t possibly sell to them. So let’s have a conversation.

TopSecrets.com/call. If you’re not interested in buying from us, we don’t care because that means you’re not qualified to buy, but you could still be qualified to learn something. And our determination on these calls is to say, “okay, even if you’re not qualified to buy from us, is there something we can help you with?”

Can we give you an idea that may help you to become qualified to buy from us? And we do a lot of that. And then we hear back from people later who said, “Hey, you know what? I implemented that one thing you suggested on our strategy session, and I was able to generate the revenue I need now. Yeah, I’d love to work with you.”

And we’d love to have them back. So TopSecrets.com/call. Let’s have some fun!

Jay: All right, David. Thank you. It’s always a pleasure.

David: Thank you, Jay.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

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 about the possibility of doing whatever it is that I would like to have you do as a result of what I sell?

And If you got that objection once and you didn’t have an answer, okay, it gives you sort of an excuse. But then if you don’t come up with an answer, and you don’t have the right answer for that the second time it’s asked, now it’s not a matter of not knowing. Now it’s a matter of negligence.

Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. You’ve got to keep track of those types of things and you’ve always got to adjust your pitch and your sales calls and those kind of things we talk about that a lot in this podcast, but David, I think that how you respond in those first seconds to the question or to the rejection is more important than your actual response.

I see this. I experience it. Before I finish expressing the concern, they jump in with a pre-packaged, “oh, you said A, so on my flow chart, that means go to C.”

And for me, that tells me instantly this person doesn’t care about me. They’re not interested in my concerns.

So to me, when you listen And respond to what is said is much more important than the follow up line, because that shows to them this person cares.

David: No question. And that’s sort of the other side of the equation, where you have some objections that come up and they indicate interest, and then there are other objections that come up that indicate I targeted the wrong person.

Some questions that come up are disqualifiers, because if they immediately go to antagonistic responses and negativity, and if it starts going down a spiral, that can, in many cases, tell you that you’re dealing with the wrong person. You’re dealing with someone who is unqualified to buy from you.

And ideally the way that you can handle those types of objections is make sure that you’ve qualified people correctly upfront so that the conversation you’re having is with rational people who are actually good prospects for the products and services you offer.

Jay: Yeah, I think that’s important. I’ll just give you an example.

I’m on the phone all the time. You know, this, I can’t tell you how many people who, I get, who have spoken to my competitors and after they speak with me, they use this phrase. They say, “thank you for listening.”

And that to me, is powerful because when you’re on a call with somebody and they don’t feel like they’re being listened to, it’s such a difference.

So that’s how I know I’ve built a relationship. I haven’t just finished a sales call.

David: Yeah. And there’s also the element of preempting this type of thing. Because if you’re able to address the most commonly asked objections, before they come up as a question, you’re far better off.

So each time we do this, 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’re building up an arsenal of material that’s going to allow you to stage that stuff up front, make that stuff part of the presentation, part of the reason to buy from you rather than your competitor.

And it doesn’t matter what the objection is. I mean, if it’s a pricing objection, if it’s a speed of service objection, or not even an objection, if it’s a question, they’re saying, “Hey, well, you seem to be more expensive. Why is that the case?”

You want to make sure that your answer to that question is the reason that they should choose you rather than not. You don’t want to be operating from a position of defending your position. “Well, yeah, we’re a little more expensive, but we’re really good. And we really try harder.”

I mean, I guess try harder worked well for the car company that used that as a mantra for a lot of years. But for the rest of us, that usually doesn’t work. You need to be able to say, well, “yes, we’re more expensive. And here’s why. It’s because we provide this and they don’t. it’s because we provide that and they don’t.”

And provide all the best reasons for why, even though, yeah, it’s a little more expensive, they will get so much more in value that it’s the reason they should buy from you rather than not buy from you, as opposed to saying, well, yeah, we are more expensive. I understand if you want to keep it cheap.

And that’s, a problem among salespeople is that if they’ve got their own mental ticks about what is acceptable in terms of price and what isn’t, then they can let some of that creep over into the conversation.

So make sure that you’re really all over your messaging on that is going to be huge.

Jay: Yeah. So powerful. I have to tell you, I do, eight to 10 consultations a day. Very rarely will you surprise me with a question that I haven’t heard. And so you’re exactly right. Over time, I have developed a way to deal with a lot of those questions up front. And what’s interesting is that tells people that I know them and I know the situation, right?

It immediately establishes me as the expert. And if they can see me as an expert, they’re like, “wow, this guy’s speaking to me.”

Well, no, actually, I know everybody, in your similar niche. I, have learned that this is what you need and what you’re looking for. So it really positions you well.

David: It does. And all the things that we talk about in these podcasts flow into exactly what you just said about positioning you as the expert.

Because if you identify the right methods of first contact that suit your personality, suit your approach, and suit the people that you contat… if you utilize those methods of first contact, or if you anticipate the objections that most often come up, turn them into reasons to buy instead of not to buy and build those into your presentation upfront, you can not only eliminate those objections before they come up, you can use them as a reason to get people enthused about buying from you.

So a lot of it is strategic, but it’s also day-to-day, task oriented, identify what are the things they say, and how can I build this into my process, build this into my standard operating procedure, so that this particular objection that I’ve gotten more than once is not likely to trip me up down the road.

Jay: Yeah, very good. And they also teach me what to ask. There are certain questions that I ask that tell them instantly that I know what I’m talking about, right?

So sometimes it’s not necessary to just dive in and spill all the information. I know now that if I ask them a certain question, they’re like, okay, if this guy asked me that, he really knows my industry.

Cause that’s a very unique question, right? So sometimes you don’t want to just spill it up front, but be strategic in what you ask.

David: Yeah, it’s an excellent point. We don’t always have to immediately answer the question because if somebody is asking us or fielding an objection, that seems like it’s about to derail the sale, we may need to find out how important that is to the person.

Because sometimes people ask us questions or they will initiate an objection and they don’t even really care about the answer. So sometimes if they ask a question like that, and it doesn’t seem relevant to what you’re talking about, you can say, well, how important is that to you? I know that I’ve had conversations with people where I’ve said that and they’re like, yeah, you know what? That’s really not all that important.

It’s like, okay, well then you don’t have to address it at all. Some people are hesitant to ask things like that, but when you’re engaged in conversation instead of monologue, it’s a lot easier to be able to ask those kinds of questions, have honest conversations that have integrity to them and then advance the sale and help the people that you’re there to help.

Jay: Yeah, I love that. If you can make it feel like a conversation, you’ve won.

David: If it’s good conversation, yeah. Not just feel like it, actual conversations, right?

Jay: That’s right. That’s right. David, how do people find out more?

David: Go to TopSecrets.com/call. Check out the video on that page. If it makes sense to have a conversation with myself or my team, we’d love to have that conversation. So many times we get stopped in our tracks by things that should not stop us in our tracks. When you have procedures and processes that allow you to blow through those bottlenecks, it has an incredible impact on your ability to serve more people, to sell to more people, and to provide your solutions to more of the people who need that solution right now.

Jay: Yeah, so true. David, as always, it’s a pleasure.

David: Thank you so much, Jay.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

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. And there’s a case to be made that a lot of these different things can and do work, under the right circumstances.

But do they work for everyone? And the answer to that is usually no, they don’t.

They might work for you and they might work for you if they’re done correctly. But the likelihood of just saying, okay, this is the solution and it’s going to work, is actually pretty low.

So I think when we look at this idea, if we want to focus on being able to get more leads, If you’re already generating decent quality leads in your business, or let’s even bump that up a notch, if you’re already generating high quality leads in your business, then it’s a lot easier because you can look at things and you can say, all right, where did my best quality leads come from? And then, where do I go to get more of those.

So if you are generating leads online, is it through Facebook? Is it through groups? Is it through Facebook ads? Is it through DMing people? Same thing with LinkedIn or any other online social media.

If you’re doing YouTube ads, any of that sort of thing, you can look at what has worked for me historically. Does it continue to work, and can I continue to improve it?

If you’ve been doing things that worked for a while and then stopped working, then it becomes tempting to jump to something else. Okay, this is no longer working. But that’s really usually a mistake, because the reason that it stopped working might not be the platform you’re using, it might not be the online source that you’re using if it is a social media platform.

It might be something related to the messaging that you’re putting out on there. Maybe that message has gotten stale with the people who have been seeing it, or maybe you’re no longer reaching the right people. This goes back to what we talk about all the time in these videos, which is the subject of the MVPs of marketing and sales.

If your message is off or if it’s getting in front of the wrong people, then the marketing vehicle doesn’t matter because it’s not going to work. So, when there is this much focus on a marketing vehicle, like Facebook or YouTube or whatever it is, I think people end up missing the point. And when they try to get more leads, it’s easier to be unsuccessful because they might be working on the wrong problem.

Jay: I think that’s such a valuable point. And you talked about social media. I think one of the problems with social media marketing is you’re reliant on somebody else’s algorithm, right? And so what is working today, suddenly tomorrow, it’s like, wait a minute, what happened to all our viewers? What happened to everything?

Well, they changed their algorithm and so you’re going to have to figure it out again, right? So I’m a big fan of diversification, and you kind of mentioned that just like you diversify your retirement portfolio or whatever else. But for us, the real secret is always assessing.

We’re never satisfied with our lead generation. We’re never satisfied with our keywords that we use. We’re never satisfied by saying, yeah, we’re filling up our schedule right now. We’re never satisfied with that. So we are constantly looking for other ways, other sources, and we’re constantly reassessing our own. Because, you know, in today’s world, marketing social media, it’s moving so fast.

And if you think, oh, it’s working right now, that’s going to keep working, I think that’s a mistake.

David: It definitely is. And so far, all we’ve really talked about is online lead generation. And for a lot of businesses, that’s what they’ve been focusing on, but there are still a lot of offline methods of lead generation that people use, whether it’s going to networking functions, whether it’s getting phone numbers and making cold calls.

There are lots of different ways that people are still getting leads outside of the online methods.

Some people exhibit at trade shows. So there are still lots of things that are happening that allow you to get in front of the type of people that you want to be able to get in front of, to get them qualified in or out as quickly as possible, to find out if they are good, valuable leads for you.

In our Total Market Domination work with our clients, one of the primary things that we focus on is exactly this. We refer to it as the methods of first contact.

How is it that you are reaching out to someone? And it can be any of these things that we’re talking about. It’s the marketing vehicle in the MVPs, but it’s just one part of the equation.

So for anyone who’s watching this, who’s thinking, okay, so let’s get to it. How do I get more leads? The first thing you want to consider is: look at where you’re getting your leads now and is it working for you or is it not working for you? So that would be the first thing.

And write them down. Just put together a list of, okay, this is where I’m currently getting my leads. This is where my best leads are coming from. This is where my worst leads are coming from. And this is where no leads are coming from. If there are places that no leads are being generated there, you want to ask yourself a question then, okay, is it this particular marketing vehicle?

Or is it the people that I’m reaching on this vehicle or is it what I’m saying to these people? Cause it is always going to be one of those three things.

Now that kind of takes you in a couple of different directions, which is not ideal. But if you really want to be able to generate more leads that are going to turn into customers, this exercise is practically essential.

You pretty much have to do it. Because if you don’t, you may be spending a tremendous amount of time trying to solve the wrong problem.

Jay: Yeah. Figuring out while you’re doing it, how are your leads, where are they coming from? What are the results from those leads? And I don’t think this is something you should be trying to do from your recollection, after the fact, right?

We’ve talked about using a good CRM system. When I do a consultation, I write down the state they’re from. I write down their economic background. I’ve got like 10 different things that I write down.

And I’ll give you an example. We’ve found, for example, that we close more customers from Florida.

Now, do I know why that happens? Honestly, David, I don’t. I don’t have any idea why we close more in Florida. But what that did for us is we said, we’re going to alter our budget and we’re going to spend more money on clients that come from Florida. And that has had some success. So we are that specific.

So you talk about using a hammer? No, no, no. We don’t use a hammer ever. But I would never have been able to recognize that if I wasn’t writing down where everybody comes from and demographics and all of those things.

David: Yeah, exactly. And so if you are looking to generate more leads in your business, you start with this, you look at where most of my good leads coming from, where else could I potentially go to find high quality leads?

What are some of my competitors doing in terms of generating leads? Where are they getting them from? Are they getting them from online, from offline, from trade shows? Where is it? And recognize that it’s very likely that you may be so focused on the things that you know how to do, and you may have been doing that for so long, that there may be entire segments of populations of people that you are not getting to because you’ve never just taken a step back, taken a breath and looked at, okay, where else could I potentially go to find the kind of people I’m looking for to be able to invest in the solution that I provide?

And. They’re out there. And this is something that people have been kind of driving me crazy with lately, where I hear from people that it’s like, “well, I just to wait until things settle down. I don’t think things are going particularly well, with the economy and my particular business and my particular niche.

And it’s like, “okay, but if you do that, if you step back while other people are stepping forward, you’re not going to be doing yourself any favors.”

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I think also don’t wait until things start to slow down, right? Keep moving. And the other thing I would say is you don’t need to reinvent the wheel all of a sudden.

They have people like you, David, who are glad to help them kind of walk through this. How do they find out more?

David: You can go to TopSecrets. com. Check out the video on that page and see if it makes sense for us to have a conversation. If it does, we’d be happy to have it. If it doesn’t, that’s okay too, but at least you’ll have an idea of what we could potentially do to help get you from here to there.

If you’re in a situation where you know you need to generate more and better leads, there are very specific ways of doing it. One of the things, as I said, 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.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. David, as always, it’s a pleasure.

David: Thank you so much, Jay.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

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. And I think it’s also to kind of look at what you’re doing. I fall into the trap of, you know, email works really good, so I’ll just email instead of picking up the phone.

So I’m slipping into those comfort zones, right? And making excuses that that’s just as good. So I’m taking the path of least resistance.

David: Right. And then blaming the prospect for not replying to the email, right? When email may not be their primary method of communication.

And there are a lot of people who do the opposite. There are people who have done phone all their lives. And the idea of having to deal with the indignity of having to send a text, right?

There are some people who are like that as well. And they may want to make a phone call, but if the person that you’re reaching out to doesn’t like taking phone calls, there are some people who see the phone ring and they’re like, “who on earth is trying to call me?” They get really mad about it.

Jay: That’s me. Yeah, that’s me. So this is my question and I’m glad we’re talking about this because I’m a salesperson and I have these hesitancies and these fears and we say get over it and I know you, you never mean just get over it, you mean there is a path forward to get over it, right?

And so, let’s talk about that. What are those steps? You’re talking to me and I have to make phone calls, and every day I get up in the morning and I dread it. David, what can I do to begin the process of overcoming those fears?

David: Well, one of the things that we do with all of our clients is we look at what are the actual fears? What are the things they hate doing? Right?

And if somebody comes to me and they say, I hate making cold calls. Then if I go back to them and I say, “well, our program requires you to make 72 cold calls a day,” that’s not going to work for them.

But the good news is that they don’t have to do that, right? A phone call is a marketing vehicle. We talk about the MVPs a lot. I’m not going to get into it in this podcast, but there are lots of different marketing vehicles. And when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

If all I know how to do is cold calling, I’m going to want to do cold calling.

There are people online now who say, selling is all about Instagram, right? And that’s all they know so that’s all they talk about. The truth of the matter is there are lots of different ways to reach out to people. And there are lots of different people who like to be reached out to in different ways.

So we have to match up what we’re ready, willing, and able to do with the audience that also likes to do things that way, right?

So if I were to say to you, you have to take phone calls from now on and you don’t want to do that, then what I would do instead is I’d say, “okay, let’s look at all the other alternatives that could help get you in touch with as many or more people as you’re in touch with now without having to utilize a lot of the tools that you don’t like using.”

Now, will you have to use them occasionally? Probably. But if you can get things set up to the point where you’re utilizing the marketing vehicles that you’re most comfortable with, then your job will be to connect with other people who are on the same page as you.

Jay: Yeah, I think that’s really interesting, can you accomplish the goal focusing on your strengths instead of just trying to do it the way everybody does it? Cause that’s the way that, you know, sales has been done for the last 50 years or whatever else.

In my case, calling somebody cold is the most terrifying thing in the world. But once I’m on the phone with somebody, if that phone call was generated in a different way, I am comfortable, I am relaxed, I build rapport, people thank me for the information that I give them, so I really excel once I’ve overcome the initial cold call portion, right?

I know I’ve shared this with you and our listeners. I’ve set up that system where we convince people through online means to set up a free consultation with me. So now I’ve overcome the cold call part because they’re expecting the conversation.

Now I can shine, right? So we adjusted our business model. Now I have a business partner who would cold call anybody, for any thing. And so he takes on anything that deals with that aspect. So we’re lucky to be able to divide and conquer based upon our strengths.

David: Yeah. And all of these things are tools. A phone is a tool. Social media platforms are tools.

It’s all just various tools. And when people get too married to the idea of one particular form of contact, they set themselves up for failure because those types of things change. And if we’re not ready for the change, if we only have one particular way of doing things, and we now require another way of doing things, it’s going to take a lot longer to adapt.

Jay: Yeah. And I also think, as you’re trying different things, tracking those different things. And we’ve talked about this many times. We just did a webinar. We formed a partnership with a company and we did a webinar with all of their clients. And we thought this is going to be a great opportunity.

And yeah, we lined up the free consultations. But out of about a hundred of them, I’ve closed one. So it’s like, okay, I didn’t have to cold call. I didn’t have to do these things. I filled up my calendar. But in the end, was there any value to it?

Not yet. You know, maybe in the long term, but not yet. No.

David: Yeah. And the value is learning that this doesn’t work as well as other things I’m doing, right? So you’re testing and you’re looking at the results of the test and saying, okay, is this something that I want to do again? And how long will I cultivate them?

And then the other 99, you know, then the question becomes, all right, how can I disqualify the poor quality prospects as quickly as possible and musical chairs. Musical chairs it down to maybe 10 or 12 or 20 or whatever that number ends up being.

But I would focus hardest right now on getting rid of the ones that you know, are not a good fit, so that you can then focus your time and energy and effort on the few people that are actually going to move forward.

Jay: Yeah, and it’s not that we get rid of them, it’s that we reclassify them, like you said, or pre-qualify them.

So they’re still in our database. They’re still going to receive regular contact from us. It’s going to be automated contact, and we will generate business from them. There’s no doubt. But if I could take a hundred new calls that fill up a hundred spots on my calendar from that same group. I would never do that again.

Yes, I might do something with that same company, but it will not be designed to give free consultations. That will never happen again with that particular format.

So we learned a great deal. We needed to do it. We think it will still be an income stream, but we will not sell to them the way we did the first time.

David: Yeah, so it’s an excellent learning experience. And we have to do that. We have to constantly adapt. We have to look at different things, potential twists and turns in the road that are coming ahead and say, all right, what’s something that we can test out to see how it works? And it sounds like you’re doing that and you’re already learning a lot from this.

And who knows, like you said, a bunch of those people may end up converting.

Jay: Yeah, but I still, David, I still have a tendency to seek the path of least resistance, right? I know that I’m best one on one on the phone. And so that’s the hardest piece for me, still, even with everything that we’re doing.

And I’m getting better, you know, sometimes it’s just the more you do it, and you learn about yourself and I’m getting better every single day, but I would never get better if I didn’t put myself in an uncomfortable situation, right?

David: Yeah. And 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?

You said it best earlier. It’s like, okay, well, when we talk about getting over it, 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.

It may take a little longer. It may be a little more convoluted, maybe more twists and turns, but you can get there. So getting over it doesn’t mean you have to do a lot of things that you hate doing.

Now, if you’re a salesperson and you don’t want to do any of that, you don’t want to make phone calls and you don’t want to send texts and you don’t want to send emails, you don’t want to do any of that, then you’ve got a problem.

In our retail mail order catalog business, we hired someone one time to work in our call center. So her job was to answer the phone and take catalog orders over the phone. And so we hired her the first day and she came in and she’s answering the phone, and she was doing it. And at lunchtime, she came to my operations manager and said, “Yeah, I don’t think I’m really cut out for making these phone calls.”

And he said, “Oh, okay, well, that’s kind of the job that you were hired for, but it’s the holiday season. We have a lot of mail orders coming in as well. What we’ll do is we’ll take you off the phones and we’ll just have you process the mail orders and we’ll have everyone else pick up the slack on the phones.”

So she said, “okay, good.” So back from lunch, she’s working the afternoon, entering the mail orders. Comes to my operations manager at the end of the day and said, you know what, I don’t think I’m, you know, really big on entering these orders into the system. And he’s like, well, now we’re kind of out of options, right? And you applied for a job that you really don’t want to do any of the things that are necessary.

So when it comes to sales, you’re going to have to be able to communicate with people. You’re going to have to figure out a way that you’re comfortable doing that. But it doesn’t have to be just one thing. A lot of times there are sales managers who will say to their salespeople, “you have to do this,” right?

And if it’s something that they’re just not going to do, or do well, then they’re not going to last, or they’re not going to do well. And that’s not a dig on the salesperson, and it’s not a dig on the sales manager. Some are just programmed, look, this is what we do. This is how we do it in our organization.

And if that’s the only thing they know how to do, then yeah, they’re going to have to find people who are willing to do it. But when they’ve got different forms of first contact, and that is something we focus on a lot in our training with our clients.

First contact is huge. Because there are so many different ways of doing it, that you’re bound to find several that you’re comfortable with, so you can actually interact with the people that you need to interact with, without driving either you or your prospects crazy.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. So, if people want to tap into that experience, how do they find out more?

David: Go to TopSecrets.com/call. There’s a short video you can watch there. Take a look at that, see if it makes sense to have a conversation with myself or my team. You’ll know from that video, I mean, if it makes sense, if what we’re talking about there makes sense, you’ll say, okay, I’ll have a call.

Now, there is no obligation to buy anything on this call, right? We’ll have a conversation. We’ll look at where you are now versus where you need to be in terms of visibility, sales and profits.

We’ll ask you some questions about where you are now and where you need to be in that regard. And from there, if there is something to talk about, if it seems like it makes sense for us to work together, we’ll give you some options on that.

But absolutely no obligation in that regard. So schedule a call. We’d love to talk with you.

Jay: All right. Fantastic. David, it’s always a pleasure. Happy Halloween.

David: Thanks, Jay. You too.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow:

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, and I think we mentioned this in the last podcast that those who are prepared to pivot, those who are prepared to face the new challenge head on and say, what can I learn from this? How is this going to make us better? How do we survive it? Obviously, that’s the 1st thing.

Those are the businesses that will survive, hopefully. Sometimes, after all you can do, it’s all you can do, right? But, so often, it’s the ones who are agile. They’re the ones that improve and survive.

David: Yeah, and any business that is likely to be in business for the foreseeable future has to be able to do that.

They have to figure out how to do that because there is always change. There are always challenges. We can’t always see what they are. In fact, probably most of the time, we don’t know. Something comes up, we’ve never dealt with it before, and we have to figure it out. Life in business is a little like a game of whack a mole.

You know, there’s always something that pops up, and you have to try to smack that one down before the next one pops up. It’s such a great analogy. And once again, just going back to the primary idea that if we complain about the fact that there are always moles popping up on our whack a mole table, we’re losing sight of the fact that this is the game we’re playing.

This is the game we’ve chosen, this game of business, being in business for ourselves or operating in sales in a business, being an entrepreneur, all of these things, this is baked into the cake. So once again, the more we resist reality, the worse off we’re going to be.

Jay: Yeah, I like the idea that you’re calling it a game.

I mean, if you are excited about it, like, you know, it takes a visionary sometimes, not all business people are visionaries, but if you are a visionary and you are looking at market trends and you’re watching the news. You said you didn’t want to get into politics, but there are things in politics that may directly affect your business model.

They may affect the entire country’s business. So, local, national, being aware of it can be important and looking to seize the moment, right? Okay, I see this. I’m going to jump on this or I’m going to…

You know, our whole business that we set up right now is based upon something that we saw. And we’re like, nobody is providing that. Let’s jump on it. If we had jumped before we jumped, we would have not made it. If we had jumped later, we won’t be able to compete. So timing, luck, you know, all of those things are involved, but just having an awareness and having, I think, an attitude.

Right? Attitude is a lot of what we’re talking about.

David: Yeah. And the reason that I even mentioned politics at all in this podcast is that right now half the country feels that it’s going to be disastrous if something happens, and the other half of the country feels it’s going to be disastrous if something else happens. And everybody’s going to have to adapt to whatever happens.

That’s my point with all this.

Jay: Yes.

David: And you know, vote and pray, right? If you’re a praying person, pray. Definitely vote, right? Do those things. But as a business owner, you’ve got to focus on the reality of the situation, whatever that turns out to be, however unhappy any of us are with the result that happens, we still have to move forward, right?

We’ve got to live to see another day. And the only way that happens is if we remain focused enough on the reality of the situation and what we need to do personally, accepting personal responsibility, to determine what happens next for us.

Jay: Yeah, and I don’t think you can do that if you’re just using the squeaky wheel gets the grease management style, right?

If you’re just always putting out fires, how can you see what’s coming? How can you prepare for the future? And I think that that is the nature, especially for new businesses, but I think for small businesses in general, it’s tough because sometimes you may be a one person business, a three person business, you know, it can be difficult, but somehow you’ve got to get control on that.

That’s why I love these podcasts and what you do, you’re always providing people with ways that they can manage those types of things, so that you can look down the road a little bit. If you’re putting out fires all the time, you’re not looking down the road at all.

David: Right. 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?

How am I going to pivot? As you said, right? You don’t want to have to wait until it’s upon you and then you have to figure out what you’re doing. You need to plan in advance, think ahead. All right, what do I need to do now, today? What can I do now, today, to start to get ahead of those types of things.

Jay: Yeah, the last thing you can do, and this is my tendency, is to just put my head in the sand and say, “Oh, it will pass,” right? It’ll pass, I just have to hold on long enough. Sometimes that’s true, right? Sometimes that’s true. But a lot of times when you do that, your competitors are not going to be doing that and you’re gonna get passed, right?

While you’re hoping for it to pass. And so, that’s probably not the best approach.

David: Yeah. You have to live long enough, right, to see it pass. And most of the time, most of us do, but it depends. Some things take longer times than others to recover. And if you’re just waiting for it to pass and you’re not planning alternatives for what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it and who you’re going to approach and how you’re going to approach them and what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it…

if you’re not doing those things in the moment, then there is so much missed opportunity between here and there, not to mention the fact that others who aren’t doing that are going to be picking up that business, so when you’re ready to get started again, there’s not going to be a lot of business available.

Jay: Yeah, it’s, too late to act at that point. So, this is why I think it’s a great idea to have a partner in the process. That’s where you come in, David. How do people find out more?

David: Go to TopSecrets.com/call. Check out the video on that page. See if it makes sense to schedule a call with myself or my team.

The goal of these calls is to simply figure out where you are now versus where you need to be in terms of visibility, sales, and profits. We start out with that. We look at the markets that you’re approaching and look at various aspects of what you’re doing right now that could potentially be hurting your prospects.

So in that call, regardless of whether we ever work together or not, we’re going to go over some things that will be helpful to you. It’s just good to have the conversation. So go to TopSecrets.com/call and we’d love to have that conversation with you.

Jay: Absolutely, everybody should do that. Sometimes it’s just good to hear even yourself say things and then get some feedback.

David, it’s always a pleasure.

David: Thank you, Jay.

If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: