Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I’ve told you, We’re to a place now, it’s kind of like our secret recipe, where we don’t get a consultation that is not in the strike zone anymore. We’ve been that focused.

But it costs us a hundred dollars per consultation. That’s what we’re paying. And that’s a pretty steep fee. So obviously we’re like, okay, how do we get organic people to come to our website from social media, where they’ve seen something that we’re providing, and they’re clicking through and that doesn’t cost us anything, right?

So that’s the goal, that’s the dream. But now we’re in another problem. We could probably get tons of people coming to our site. But now I don’t want everybody clicking on the schedule a consultation.

Because I’d be back in that same problem. I’d be talking to a lot of people who I can’t help. So this is the dilemma. This is where we’re at in our company right now, moving to social media, but we have to be very strategic about how we do that.

David: Yes. But you’re very clear on the results you’re looking for. Yes. You’re looking for a very specific type of client.

You’re looking for a very specific criteria. And for you, you know that even though a hundred seems expensive, you know that it’s worth it because you know that each client is going to be worth quite a bit more than that. If the service that you were offering cost 50 dollars, you could not do what you’re doing.

And that’s something else that I think is important for people to understand. Not every product, not every service is going to work in terms of social media advertising, no matter how great you get at it, because there’s always going to be competition for various keywords.

There’s going to be a number of factors that go into it. So if you don’t have a product that justifies that kind of investment, if you’re selling a pack of gum at a time, right? When you go into a grocery store and you check out, there’s a pack of gum, they’re like, Oh, I’ll have a pack of gum. You take it as an impulse buy, right? That sort of thing. It’s very unlikely that you’re going to be able to run ads on social media and sell a pack of gum, right?

I mean, just the shipping costs on it, it’s not going to work. There’s some things that don’t work. When you understand that, then you can recognize that if you want to sell something that doesn’t sell particularly well on social media, you need to find other ways to do that. And of course, that’s the subject of a totally different podcast.

But when we think about the results that we’re looking to get. There are a number of different ones, right? The first one is, in your case, it’s about getting someone to have a conversation with, who is qualified. Getting a qualified person to raise their hands and express interest. And you’re talking about your secret recipe.

And I’ve always maintained that any business that does not have some secret recipe in it, is not going to last very long. And I’ve had people argue with me about this a lot. It’s like what are you talking about? You know, we’ve got a commodity business, essentially, like if your business is a commodity, that’s going to be a reflection on your sales, right?

If it’s just a total commodity, it is going to reflect in your numbers. There’s got to be something special, something different that you bring to the table, either in terms of the product or service that you’re offering, or in terms of the way that you sell it, right?

Because if you’re selling a commodity, Then you need to be better at attracting the type of clients who want to buy that commodity.

We do a lot of work in the promotional products industry, in the print industry, and a lot of people view that as a commodity. I sell print services. I’m an offset printer. Everybody sells offset printing. It’s like, that is correct. But what are the types of clients that you really want to bring in, right?

Who are the kinds of clients who are going to spend the kind of money with you that you want to actually encourage, right?

You don’t just want to take anyone with a pulse, anyone who can fog a mirror. You don’t want to just take anyone who comes through the door. When you’re building a business proactively, you’re deciding who you want to work with and who you want to choose to leave to your competitors.

So again, I want to stay focused on our topic, which is social media. We need to recognize that there are specific results we want, and then once we’ve identified what those results are, we can start to figure out what the specific plan is for getting those things to happen.

Jay: Yeah, and I’ll tell you, I don’t say this very often, but I really think this is a situation where you may be better off not trying to learn it yourself.

You know, I’ve watched videos, I’ve taken online courses, and everybody’s like, even down to the thumbnail you put on your YouTube videos and the, you know, what do in the video where I’m pointing at the, you know, taking all these pictures, I’m, looking like surprise and look, this is amazing and the clickbaity titles and all of those things,

but that’s always changing. That target is always moving, right? I’ve used something as simple as Fiverr, right? Where somebody who charges me 50 bucks a week, but this is what they do. I’ve gotten more results from that than I have ever gotten from trying to follow somebody on YouTube, and so I’ve just decided I’m not going to learn it. I’m paying somebody else to do it because I want to focus my time on what’s most important.

And that’s what we’ve found. Again, I’m not saying everybody that’s the solution for you, but we have spent a lot of time in this arena, and that’s how we’ve gotten results.

David: It makes perfect sense. I think it was Dean Graziosi, who I originally heard this from, he was talking about the fact that when you have the money to solve a problem, you no longer really have that problem, unless you’re too cheap to spend the money, right?

And so if you can pay somebody 50 dollars and you can get ad results that allow you to multiply your ad investment, it’s silly not to do that.

That also goes to the topic of “who, not how.” Dan Sullivan wrote a book about that. If you’re looking to do everything, every aspect of your business, you shouldn’t, because there are going to be things that you’re not going to be naturally good at.

But I think the core of this particular topic, when we talk about getting results from social media, The biggest problem is not social media. The biggest problem is people don’t know exactly what result they want, right?

They may think, “Oh, I just want to get more sales.” Well, yes, you do want to get more sales, but there are steps to that. And the first step, particularly if you’re using social media is going to be figuring out a way to somehow identify who those people are, whether you’re doing it organically, whether you’re doing it with paid ads, there are specific things that you need to do.

If those things don’t happen, you’re not going to get more clients. And whether it’s you coming up with the how on how to do that, or whether you’re paying someone else to do it for you, you’ve got to be able to convey to them what you want, and that’s where a lot of people get stuck.

They’re just so unclear on exactly what they want to have happen that they can’t get it done because they can’t even convey it to someone who can help them do it.

Jay: Yeah, such an important point. I mean, I’m just sitting here thinking, if you imagined our business with a storefront, you would think I want to line out the door and down the block.

I don’t. Right? I want the door locked and I’m buzzing you in, once I’ve decided that you fit in a specific category. That seems to go against everything. that we’ve learned about business, but we know that because we’ve spent so much time defining exactly what you’re talking about.

And what I think is the core, if anybody takes away from this podcast, and that is, if you don’t know what you want, how are you going to craft social media or any type of marketing towards that specific thing? That’s got to be job one.

David: Yeah, and the truth of the matter is that that situation you described about buzzing people in versus having the line, anyone who has been even remotely successful at identifying their audience and identifying ways to attract the right people into their organization would much rather have the buzzer, right?

Because otherwise you’re having to swat people away, and that is time consuming and it’s difficult. So when we’re able to identify the result that we’re looking to get, identify the messaging that we need to create to be able to get in front of these ideal prospects to get them to raise their hands and express interest.

When we do those things correctly, then you can get to the point where you are, where nearly everybody you talk to or everybody you talk to is actually qualified to do business with you.

Jay: Yeah, I mean think about it. We’re literally saying how do we get fewer leads? You know what I mean? It just seems like it’s such a different approach.

And I want to add one more thing. We’re about out of time here. And I think we should talk about this in another podcast. People who do have successful social media programs, you don’t want to rely on social media. They change their algorithms all the time. And your goal should not be just to get a sale.

It should be to offload them onto one of your properties. Your mailing list, your website, something else. Because you could spend all this money and have a great system and then an algorithm changes and you’re sunk.

So I’d love to dive into that a little bit more in the future.

David: Yeah, that’s a good one. And also the fact that the people who do this extremely well are not just running one ad forever. It’s very unlikely that’s going to happen. There are constantly going to be changes that are necessary because either the market has seen it and it’s gotten stale or there are approaches that work better and differently, or as you indicated, the algorithm could change.

There are a lot of different factors that go into it. So if you think you’re going to come up with one magic thing that’s going to work forever, it’s very unlikely that’s going to happen. But when you’re aware of the factors that you need to be able to focus on, you’re going to be a lot more likely to get the results you want.

Jay: Yeah, eventually competitors are going to steal that secret recipe. And what are you going to do then, right? How do you define yourself? David, as always, it’s a pleasure. How do people find out more?

David: Go to TopSecrets.com/call. Check out the video. See if it makes sense to have a conversation with myself or our team.

We love having conversations with really sharp, motivated entrepreneurs, salespeople, those who are looking to grow their sales and profits in a way that is sustainable. You’re not looking for just the next new thing, the next whatever it is that somebody says is going to get you the business you’re looking for.

It’s unique to everyone, and we need to be able to recognize and utilize your unique strengths in your solution. Otherwise, if you say, well, the solution is Instagram, the solution is Facebook, the solution is this, it’s that. No, the solution is identifying what is going to work best for you, and that’s what we do with our clients.

So, TopSecrets.com/call.

Jay: Fantastic. David, as always, a pleasure. Thank you.

David: Thank you, Jay.

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

Jay: Oh yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So is it your communication that’s bad? What is it? And if you can fix it, is it your training? You didn’t train, you know, whatever it is, and that goes for yourself as well.

Finding and identifying that you’re actually going to accomplish something, as opposed to just the visceral, you know, I got it off my chest, but now I’ve destroyed somebody.

David: Yeah. And when you’ve got the right processes in place in your business, it becomes a lot easier to determine was the problem with the process or was the problem with the employee not following the process.

Jay: Yes.

David: Right? Because if the problem was with the process, it gives you an opportunity to fix the process so that it doesn’t happen again.

If the problem is with the employee not following the process, then you can encourage the employee, and you can train the employee to follow the process more closely next time.

And if you have an employee who continues to not follow process after process, then you’ve got a hiring problem, most likely on your hands.

But it’s a whole lot easier to identify when you’ve got the systems in place and you’ve got the people in place following the systems or not following them to identify where things are going wrong.

Jay: Yeah, and the danger is if you do this wrong, and again, I think it happens in our internal persona and also with other employees, if you’re constantly blaming people and it’s really a system situation, what happens is you create a “why try” or “you can’t win” atmosphere, right?

So if employees are constantly being blamed, when they weren’t trained, when there wasn’t a good system, they’re going to start saying, well, why should I even try?

It’s something I call minimum expectations mode, right? I’m going to show up, I’m going to do as little as possible, stay under the radar, and collect a check. I think we do that personally as well.

If we keep hitting a wall and we’re not aware of it, we’re not trying to learn from it, we’re not deliberate about it, we adopt a “why try” attitude as well, right? Well, every time I try something, I just fail. So I’m not gonna pursue this anymore.

David: Yeah, I agree. I think if most people in an organization take personal responsibility for their actions, whether it’s the employer, whether it’s the employee, doesn’t matter.

If an employee has something go wrong and they take personal responsibility and say, “okay, what could I have done differently? What should I have done differently? Oh, I should have followed this procedure better,” or, “oh, I missed this,” or “I missed that.”

If they recognize that there’s something they could and should have done better, then they are learning from that failure.

Same thing if you’re the employer. If something goes wrong, you look at yourself, you take personal responsibility and you say, “what could or should I have done better? Should I have taken a longer amount of time to train this person? Should I have made the instructions more clear?”

Because if everybody is looking to themselves in terms of what they could do better, then you’re not doing the whole blame game thing. You’re literally taking responsibility for yourself. And when everybody takes responsibility for themselves, Everything’s better.

Jay: Yeah.

David: And when nobody takes responsibility for themselves and everybody’s finger pointing and I’m blaming you and you’re blaming me and we’re blaming other people, it just doesn’t accomplish the result.

So learning from failure is something I think that we all have to try to concentrate on? To say to ourselves, all right, if this didn’t work, what can I do better? What should I do better? Who else has helped me? Could I have asked for, should I have asked for? And you may go through something and say, you know what?

I really feel like I did everything I could possibly do in this situation. And sometimes you’ll do that and things will go wrong anyway, but at least you’ll know, and then you can get feedback. Well, listen, this is what I did. This is the process that I followed. What else could I have done? What else should I have done?

And if you can get positive input on that, then it’s helpful because it allows us to grow. And I think the whole idea of learning from failure is that it does allow us to grow. It allows us to advance, allows us to get better, and ideally it prevents us from failing again the next time.

Jay: Yeah, one thing I know for sure, failure is going to happen. It’s going to happen.

And so having a system, having a recognition, okay, failure just happened. If it’s in an organization, this is how we handle it. Let’s look at our systems, our training then our individuals, or if it happened internally, okay.

You know, you’ve talked about writing things down. What did I learn from this? What should I do next time? Because a lot of times like you said, you did everything you can. And so sometimes you don’t need to beat yourself up. You don’t need to make changes. It just, it’s going to happen. that’s the reality.

David: It is. And when we talk about learning from failure, it doesn’t just have to be our failures. We can learn from the failures of others.

Jay: Oh yeah.

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

I remember growing up as a child and noticing things in adults, where I would say, “I don’t want to do that. When I grew up, I never want to do that.” And you see things in other people where you go, “I want to do that. That looks good. I’d like to be more like this person or I’d like to be more like that person.

And if not doing that, if you’re only noticing, “Oh, I’d like to be like this. I’d like to be like this. I’d like to be like this,” and you’re missing out on the things that you don’t want to do. Those are the biggest traps, right?

Those are the things that are most likely to mess you up. So, when you’re able to recognize failure at a relatively early age, recognize that you don’t want to go there, and then determine the steps that you can avoid, to not fall into those traps, you’re going to be doing much better.

Jay: Yeah, I love this. I love this.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. In today’s world, I mean with resources like what you provide with YouTube, I mean, I see somebody in my house and they’re trying to fix something and they’re just trying to figure it out and I’m like, have you gone on YouTube yet?

Because there’s gonna be 50 videos on how to do this. I have a plasma television in my house. It’s gotta be 20 years old. The screen is still spectacular. I had two of them. They both died after I had them for three years. And I’m like, these are expensive. I don’t want to…

So I went on YouTube and I found out first you can solder new capacitors into the board. And I’m like, I’m not soldering anything. But then I found another website that said you can buy the PowerBoard for 50 bucks, and it just plugs in.

I did that to both TVs. They’ve gone on for another 15 years, each of them. And I’ve fixed a washer, I’ve fixed our fridge, I’ve replaced shocks, I’ve learned how to code.

I’ve learned how to do all of these things because people have put together these systems and you’ve put together resources where you should be able to fail less, or be more focused or more advanced before you get to those places.

David: Yeah, no question. And I’ve said this to so many audiences over the years when I’ve done presentations.

I would say the reason I’m standing up on this stage today is not because I’m particularly smart. It’s because I feel like I’ve made every single stupid mistake you can possibly make. And if I can keep you from making just one or two of those, you’re going to be light years ahead. And so, so much of what I teach to my clients, is based on the potholes that we want to steer around, the things that we want to avoid, because it can save you years.

It can save you decades of your time. And that’s what I find so rewarding in our work with clients is that when we’re able to identify specific things that they can avoid doing or specific things that they can do that will allow them to advance their goals and their outcomes and what they’d like to accomplish for themselves and their families, it’s incredibly rewarding.

Jay: So how do people find out more about how you can possibly help them out?

David: Go to TopSecrets.com/call. Check out the video on that page and see if it makes sense to schedule a call with us. If it does, great. You can schedule a call right on that page. If it doesn’t, at least you’ll have a good idea of what may be possible for you. Some things that you might not have considered in terms of the growth of your business.

There are things that you either don’t yet know or don’t know the intricacies of that could be slowing you down, right? Because it’s not always about, “well, I didn’t know that.” It’s about, “oh, I didn’t know exactly how to do that.”

Those minor details make a huge difference. Could be something like that. Or it could be that you know a lot of what you need to do, but you’re not doing it consistently.

Our work with our clients is designed to address both of those things. What to do and how to do it is one part of it, and then actually getting it done is the critical part. Because that determines what’s working for you and what’s not.

Jay: Such a great service that you provide, David. As always, it’s a pleasure.

David: Thank you, Jay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I only do it on very specific things and I only do it when I feel like this is something that will help me or my business or my family immediately.

David: Yeah, well, I think that’s a great way to approach it, because otherwise you can go down a lot of different rabbit holes, and you can end up following other people’s priorities, as we talked about in a previous podcast.

So, when I think about the idea of investing, it’s What are we investing? Is it our time? And in a lot of cases, it’s definitely going to involve time. Is it money? And in some cases it can involve money and it can involve quite a bit of money depending on what you’re investing in.

I know I’ve done online courses that have cost a lot of money and some of them have been really worth it, and some of them have been kind of worth it, and some of them… they just weren’t worth it for me at all.

It doesn’t mean the product was bad It may just mean that it wasn’t suited to my personality or whatever.

But I think as business owners or as salespeople, we consistently have to take the time, take the energy, take the money in some cases and invest in ourselves to be able to say, if I’m at a particular point and I need to get to a different point, a higher point, a better point, I want to be able to provide more and better for my family, as you mentioned, then what’s it going to take to get there?

Because in a lot of cases, what we know now has gotten us to the point where we are. So if we want to get further, we can either just try to keep doing more of what we already know, pedal faster, essentially, pedal the bike faster to get farther, or we can say, “well, what can I do to shift gears?”

And a lot of times that involves looking at the things that we don’t know and correcting that and saying, “well, if I fix this one problem, then I’m going to be able to go a lot farther and a lot faster.”

Jay: Yeah, so often, when we do these podcasts, we end up with self awareness as being such an important element here, right?

If you are going to invest in yourself, well, are you aware enough internally to know what you need, right? Where you stand? And you kind of mentioned this, I think what happens is, every once in a while I’ll get on this thread of self improvement or things like that, and I want somebody else to tell me what I need.

And I want them to just give me the secret sauce, right? And so that’s what I’m looking for. It’s like a get rich program, but for self improvement or for task management or goal setting, right? I want the quick and easy. And I think so often investing in yourself is not quick, nor is it easy.

David: Right. Particularly if you end up investing in the wrong things. And I think, to some extent, It’s really important to identify the areas where we’re stuck. To say, “okay, this is the specific problem that I’m trying to overcome.”

So with our clients, we work with primarily business owners and sales people who are at a certain level of sales and profitability in their business, and they’re looking to get to another level.

And they recognize that there are things that they are not doing, and they’re not quite sure what those things are. And so when we have conversations with people like that, and we’re able to identify those areas and say, “okay, is that something we can help you with?”

And if it is, we’ll tell them that. And if it’s something we can’t help with, we’ll tell them that as well. When we do that, It’s better for everyone. Because at that point, they either have a solution or they have to keep searching for a different solution. And we’re totally fine with either of those things.

We’re not looking to try to be the end all solution to everything. But because there are so many options, it’s important to be able to have conversations to find out exactly where the people are stuck so that we can determine If or how we can help them.

And that goes for myself, that goes for anybody who is offering you any sort of investment in yourself. You want to make sure that it lines up, not with what they want you to do, but with what you want to do, with what your objectives are, what your outcomes are.

And a lot of times in the conversations that I’ve had with people, I’ll ] talk to people who will say, well, I don’t like doing cold calls. And there are some programs where it’s like, well, you have to do cold calls.

And it’s like, well, that’s not going to be helpful to me if I don’t like doing cold calls, right? Or social media. ” I hate doing social media.”

Well, if you hate doing social media, you definitely don’t want to sign up for a course that requires you to do social media. And so in our work with our clients, one of the things that we’ve looked at is to say, “okay, let’s look at what you actually enjoy doing, what you’re naturally great at doing.”

And can we create a curriculum for you that is based around your strengths and your areas of interest, so that you’ll be a lot more inclined to do it?

In an earlier conversation, I’m not sure if it was this podcast or I think it was the previous podcast, you were talking about sort of the difference between school learning and business learning, right?

And in school, we’re forced to take subjects that might not resonate with us. Whereas once we get out, and once we get to call our own shots, we can focus on the activities and the skills that we want to develop, to get us to our next desired benchmarks and our next goals.

Jay: Yeah, I think it’s so important what you talked about, and that is, if you are going to use somebody to help, If they don’t take the time to get to know you and where you’re at and your strengths and your weaknesses, then, I’m not saying it’s not going to be helpful because I think anything that causes you to reflect and look at your own systems and kind of do an inventory, I think there is value to those things.

But I think we also fall into the trap of looking at somebody who’s successful and assuming we can do exactly what they do the way that they do it.

Like, I looked at Elon Musk and Bill Gates, and I look at the schedule they run, and how Bill Gates, once a year, locks himself in his cabin away from his family, with just all of his books, and he just reads and reads and reads and reads, and I’m like, I need to tell my wife I’m going up in the mountains for a week, and I’m gonna do this thing, right?

They’ve found ways to make it work for them and to invest in themselves. if you’re living by comparison and not really finding out about yourself, that’s a difficult road.

David: It is absolutely difficult. Yeah. And not everybody’s going to be able to do that. Not everybody can afford to take a week or two weeks or a month by themselves or even have a cabin. Right?

So, there are all those elements. I know for myself, what I find helpful is I’m able to take in a lot of information while I’m on the treadmill in the morning. I’ve got a Sony speaker and I just crank it up so that I can hear it over the noise of the treadmill and so I can take in information while I’m exercising.

So that’s kind of a twofer. And I’ve got a little digital recorder so that when I hear something that I need to remember, I’ll record it.

So I’ve got endless recordings of myself panting and recording messages to myself about things that need to take place. But it is a matter of finding the time to make these investments in ourselves and to say, “okay, if I can’t go to a cabin for a week, what can I do? When can I do this??

For me, again, early morning is great because it’s a quiet time. I’m able to focus on it. And it also gets my brain in gear for the day.

I’m not thinking about other stuff. Like if I watch TV? I don’t. I haven’t done that in years. But if I were to watch TV at the beginning of the day, it doesn’t matter what it is. If it’s entertainment, then that’s in my brain. If it’s news, that’s the worst, right? Definitely never want to do that at the beginning of the day.

So I find that when I’m listening to something that’s helpful to the business, in the morning, it allows me to get myself into gear a lot more quickly.

Jay: Yeah, I love it. Great discussion, David. How do people find out more?

David: You can go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team, or just check out the video on that page and see if what we’re talking about makes sense for you. If it does, schedule a call. We’d be happy to have the conversation. If not, that’s fine too. We have lots of resources available on our website. Feel free to have at it.

Jay: All right, David. Always a pleasure.

David: Thank you, Jay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So if you catch yourself saying, “I don’t feel like it,” you can then say, “yeah, well do it anyway” and start on it. Right? Take some initial action toward that.

And at that point, you’re very likely to continue because once you get yourself engaged, you’re a lot more likely to move forward.

Jay: Yeah. I love that you brought up for those that are responsible for their own schedules. You know, for years, I had a job where I had to be there at a certain time, and I was there at that time.

I mean, I didn’t have a choice. And now, I’m in complete control, and I’m only accountable to myself. And this is where those thoughts are just completely magnified.

David: Yeah. That’s why I think when we pay attention to what’s going on in there, and try not to take it too personally, because again, going back to the original thought where that’s not really, necessarily you.

I mean, it’s your brain. Sure. It’s our brains generating that stuff. But it doesn’t mean that’s who you are. It just means that your brain’s job is to generate ideas to come up with different things that you can then decide whether or not to take action on.

So when it comes up with things that are counterproductive or unhelpful, and you’re able to recognize that, then you’re able to take far more control of your life than you will any other way

Jay: Yeah, one thing I learned from my parents is the “and then what” game, right?

So instead of telling myself what’s gonna happen? I ask myself, because, you know, I still have fear and anxiety and those kind of things, and I don’t like rejection, and I don’t like failure, and so a lot of times it feels easier not to try. But if I ask myself about that fear and say, okay, let’s say you do it, and something negative happens, and then what?

And you kind of play that game, and you just keep asking yourself, and then what? And you get to the end, and you realize, the reality is nothing is going to happen, right? Something positive can happen, but the fact that something negative is going to happen is not very realistic.

David: That’s true. I think sometimes taking notes for ourselves is also helpful, particularly when you’re in a place where your brain is trying to take you in different directions than you actually want to go. To be able to just sit down, jot down some notes about either why the thing that you need to work on is more important, or just writing down the thoughts that are in your head, writing down those little scraps of dialogue that are derailing you, and then coming up with alternatives to those, so that when you notice them appearing, you can then proactively create your own responses to that, to get you to take the actions that you want to take.

I think one of the things that’s most interesting about this is, very often, it’s our best selves, our plans. Well, today I’m going to work on this, this, this, this, and this, right? Those are our best laid plans versus the impulsive part of our brain, which just wants to run off in all kinds of different directions, and to be able to stay focused on the things that are most important to us.

One of the other things that’s helped me a lot is going back to the why. Why do I want to do this? Why was this important to me at the beginning of the day and seems less important now? And when you’re able to reconnect with the why of why you’re doing it, you’re going to be a lot more likely to stay on course.

Jay: Yeah. You mentioned the word reprogramming. I think that you can eventually get to a point where it’s automatic. That when you hear these thoughts, you’ve got something there to replace them with. And that can be just as subconscious as these negative thoughts coming up, right? Your brain can start to recognize what’s happening and you’ve reprogrammed yourself to replace that negativity or whatever it is with something positive.

David: Yeah, it reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons where Homer’s in a meeting and somebody mentions the word chocolate and all of a sudden you’re inside Homer’s head. He’s going, chocolate, right? And he has these fantasies about chocolate going on in his head, and it really demonstrates how things can go very wrong, very quickly, if you don’t notice what’s going on in there and take positive actions to change it.

And once again, as business people who have some flexibility sometimes with our schedules, it becomes so much more important to us than people who may have less flexibility, whose jobs are more dictated. “You must get this done in this amount of time,” because even if you have a thought like that, you’ve got to figure out a way to get it done.

And particularly when you’re talking about small business owners, or you’re talking about salespeople who do have some flexibilities with their schedules very often, this can come into play a lot.

And as you mentioned, if you’ve got alternatives to that, or if you’re, first of all, able to recognize it and notice that you’re not happy with the way that it’s going, you’re going to be a lot more likely to be able to fix it.

Jay: Yeah, I also think in today’s world that controlling your thoughts. might be a little bit more difficult because we have so many distractions readily available. And I tell myself I’m an incredible multitasker.

And so I have, Dave, I have like eight screens in front of me because I don’t want to miss an email. I don’t want to miss a text. I’ve got the news going. I’ve got all these things. And I do find myself in a place where I’m kind of the chocolate thing, right? Or the squirrel thing, right?

I’m like, “squirrel!” And so I’m starting to implement these focus modes, these do not disturb modes, because there are very few emails that I have to answer right away. There are very few texts, and how are you going to control that inner monologue If you can’t even control where your attention is going.

David: Yeah, and when you talk about something like that, which essentially is input versus output, and you recognize that you’ve got all these distractions set up, and in many cases, it’s just an organizing system for other people’s priorities that you’re seeing. Your inbox, right, is what other people want of you, what other people want you to do.

I want you to read this, and it could be anything. It could be spam and what they want you to do is see the subject line, be enticed by it, open it up, read the email, click on whatever it says, whatever it is they want you to do.

Now, you’re no longer even in your own head. Now you’re getting somebody else’s internal monologue forced into your brain and accepting it.

And that’s about the worst thing we can do is delegating our internal monologue to someone else. Let alone someone we might not know, like, or trust.

Jay: Yeah, yeah. And for me, it’s like, I have a fear of missing that thing, right? A FOMO, like, maybe if I don’t respond now, that’s going to fall off of my to do list, and then I’ll have some accountability there or something.

And so, you do want to have a good system. I think that’s another part of what we’re talking about, having a good way. Remembering things, offloading them from your brain, but they’re still tracked so that you can, still focus and those kinds of things.

Again, in today’s world, this is not the easiest thing to do.

David: No, it’s definitely not. Sometimes I think it’s good for us, when we’re getting a lot of input, to maybe put the phone in airplane mode to disconnect from the web, so that if we have to focus on writing something that is not web connected, we can just do that without those distractions.

Because it’s like a casino. You’ve got the dings coming in on the phone. You’ve got things coming through on your computer. And every time that stuff happens, if we’re not aware of it, and if we’re not proactively focusing on our own thoughts and what we want to do and what we want to take action on, then the likelihood that we’re going to stick with what we originally intended is pretty much slim to none.

Jay: Yeah. Or you’re going to be, you know, pushing a rock uphill, right? Making it hard on yourself. David, how do people find out more?

David: You can go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself and my team. Actually when you go to that page, even before you schedule a call, there’s a video there that you can watch.

You can get an idea of what we do and how we do it. You may watch that video and say, “I don’t want to schedule a call.” That’s perfectly fine. Or you may watch it and you may say, “Oh, now I really do want to schedule a call.” Go there, watch the video, see what you think. If it makes sense for you, let’s have a conversation.

We’ll basically take a look at where you are now versus where you need to be in terms of visibility and sales and profits. We’ll take a look at the markets that you’re looking to go after. Who you’re looking to sell to, those types of things. Regardless of whether or not we ever work together, the conversation will be very helpful in allowing you to put together a proactive vision of what you want your business to be.

So if it makes sense for you, TopSecrets.com/call.

Jay: All right, David, thank you so much.

David: Thank you, Jay.

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

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

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

David: I think so too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rules become different.

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

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

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

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

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

Because if you can streamline who is coming to you, your close rate is going to go way up. I mean, in my business, we’re paying for an online lead and it costs us, our cost per lead is high, David, it’s high. But it’s okay because we’ve honed that process so well that I never talk to somebody who is outside of somebody who needs our help.

That doesn’t mean that they can afford our help. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to close that deal, but I do not spend time on the phone with people who are not directly in our strike zone. And that is magical. And it’s such a key to our business model.

David: Yeah, because that then allows you to have a conversation to determine if this is not just something you can help them with, but whether or not this is an ideal client for you. This is the type of client that you’re going to be able to create exceptional value for. They’re going to appreciate that value and be willing to pay for it.

So I think all these things just tie together really nicely in a neat little bow when you are aware of the fact that this really can and should be a goal of your customer acquisition efforts.

Jay: Yeah. And a constant refinement, right? We just identified some new products that we can offer to our clients based upon the relationship and the calls that I’ve been taking and what people have been asking for.

So now I’m going to expand my net a little bit more with some additional keywords and things like that, but I’m not being haphazard about any of this anymore.

I’m being so careful and so specific, because I’m spending my dollars, you know, whether I get these leads or not, the money is spent.

David: Yeah, exactly. I know when I think in terms of my ideal clients, the people that I enjoy working with the most, the people who get the best results. Every single one of them is an implementer. They take action. They’re not constantly in their own heads thinking about what they might do or what they’ve done in the past or how smart they are or how, whatever they are.

They’re in there, taking action all the time. On our website, we have our Wall of Fame page, TopSecrets.com/results. And on that page are page after page of video testimonials, audio testimonials, written testimonials of people who have taken action and gotten results. To me, everyone on that page is an ideal client because they do it.

They take the action, they get the result. And as a result of that, we have a great relationship. Because when we take on a new client, we are making a promise to them. We are promising them that we’re going to be able to help them get to where they need to be in terms of their visibility, their sales, and their profits.

And we take that promise. extremely seriously. I can tell you, there are times where I’m talking to a prospect and I can recognize in the call that this person isn’t as serious about it as I am.

And in those situations, I’ll usually up the call quickly and say, okay, you know what? It doesn’t sound like we have a good fit here because guess what? I can’t want it for them more than they want it for them.

And so for me, in identifying ideal clients, I need people who have the motivation, who have the desire, who have the discipline and just the willingness to move forward.

People who are decisive enough to be able to say, yes, I want to do this. Let’s move forward on it.

Because the people who just take forever to make up their minds and who don’t respond to calls and all that type of thing? Been there, done that. No longer my ideal situation, or even close.

Jay: Well, I love this point. It’s so profound. You’re exactly right. When I’m doing a consultation with somebody, I know in the first five minutes what type of person they are.

Are they calling me in a panic because they’ve just learned something? Because we’re in the tax business, and so When, people just found out, they just saw their 1099 or something, and they’re like, oh my gosh, I didn’t know anything. That’s typically not going to be the client that is ideal for us.

Another type of client, where they’re being proactive, they’ve been doing research, they’re taking their time, that’s the type of customer that I’m going to close. That’s the type of customer that is ideal because when I’m requesting documents from them, or when we’re setting up something for them, they’re in that, active mode, that doing mode.

So I could tell right away, you know, I really want to work with this person. This is going to be a great relationship. And the other ones I’m like, okay, you know, we may end up signing you up, but I can tell right now it’s going to be a little bit more painful.

David: Yeah. And sometimes we have to make those decisions. Am I willing to exert the extra effort? Or am I going to say, no, you know what? This isn’t a good fit.

And maybe it’s an age thing. I don’t know if the older I get, the more likely I am to say, I want to make sure that fit is there ahead of time. But I find that it just creates a much better environment for us, for everybody who works in our organization, for the client, for the people they work with.

When everybody’s on the same page, it flows. So if you’re thinking in terms of your business and growing your business and wanting to have the type of business that you’re going to want to live in for a long time, then I would really strongly encourage you to consider what is my ideal client and how do I have to adapt what I’m doing to make sure that I’m attracting people like that and repelling those who are not a good fit for what I do.

Jay: Yeah, we’ve got a customer, we’ve, no, he’s not a customer. In fact, he’s not even a prospect anymore, but we’ve been dealing with him for the last five days. He reached out to us, he made it sound like he wanted our expertise, he was gonna use our services, but what he was really looking for is somebody to confirm something that he had already decided.

So every single time, we’re giving him free advice…

David: Free consulting.

Jay: Because, that’s right, free consulting. And he’s arguing with us about the result and he’s already decided what he wants. He’s not going to do business with us until we tell him what he wants to hear. And you know what?

That is fraught with legal situations for us. But my partner and I, after four days, we’re like, what in the heck are we doing? You know, we just need to tell this guy, look, you have received way more, that you didn’t pay for and go and find somebody who will give you the yes you’re looking for.

David: Yeah, because the moment we compromise our own integrity to try to appease someone who is a non-client to begin with, now it’s like, okay, why are we even in business? Because none of those things are compatible.

Jay: Yeah. You said something a couple of podcasts ago that really resonated with me. And that is that if they can bully you a little bit, if they figure out that they can get you to compromise, they’re going to latch onto that, right?

They’re going to say, look, I know if I push a little bit, if I’m more of a pain, if I’m a little bit more of a squeakier wheel, then they’re going to abuse that. Not everybody. I mean, we’re talking in generalities. People are generally good, but there are these types of…

David: We’re talking about non-ideal clients.

Jay: That’s right.

David: That’s what we’re talking about. Those are non-ideal clients.

Jay: Yeah, and identifying that quick and both of you getting on with your lives.

David: Exactly.

Jay: How can people find out more, David?

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

If you’re in a situation where you’re trying to attract ideal clients and you maybe don’t even know where to begin, or don’t know how to identify who they are, or where they hang out, or how you can reach them, or what you should say or how you should say it in a way that gets results, let’s have a call. TopSecrets.com/call. We are here to help.

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

David: Thank you so much, Jay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

When we’re trying to get a sale closed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And when they’re too afraid or timid or shy to say no, it is a huge time waster.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And you can’t be wasting time, right, on people. You just can’t be doing it. So, we’ve identified progress points, right? So I’ve had an initial discussion with them. I’ve followed up. Have they responded to my follow up or are they ignoring me?

First follow up is an email. Second follow up is a text. If I’m not getting any communication on those first two methods, they’re going into my drip program, right? I mean, instantly. I’m not going to waste my time with those people. I can’t waste my time with those people.

David: Yeah. And there are multiple steps to this as you indicated.

If we haven’t even made a sales presentation to the person yet, if they don’t know what we offer and how we offer it and what it costs and all that sort of thing, that’s very early stage stuff, and we have to decide our tolerance for pain in terms of how many times am I going to reach out to have those conversations?

Once we’ve made the presentation, once they have a clear understanding of exactly what we’re offering, and they’ve expressed interest in it, when they start not responding then, then I tend to make more efforts than I would in the early stages, because now I just basically want them to say, “yes, I’d like to do this” or “no, I would not like to do this,” right?

Because those are really the two best answers. Those are the answers that allow everyone to move forward one way or another. When people just don’t respond or they can’t or won’t say no, they can’t bring themselves to say no, but they can’t bring themselves to say yes. Then where do you go with that?

Right? You’re scheduling out appointment after appointment. And I think at that point, it’s really important for us to understand what is causing that delay. What’s going to happen between now and two weeks from now that’s going to change the situation. And sometimes It will be a money thing. They’ll say, “okay, well, I’m expecting something to come in so that I’ll have the money to be able to do it in two weeks. Contact me back in two weeks.”

And sometimes you do that. And then it’s like, “oh, well now it’s going to be another month or two.” And they keep putting it out. And at some point you have to determine whether or not what they’re saying is even viable anymore, or if they just can’t say no, won’t say no, have no idea of what their cashflow is actually like.

And that’s important too, because if they don’t know what’s coming in and when it’s coming in, then that creates potential friction, not just for them, but for you as well.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I do sales calls every day now. And I’ve just been thinking about my interaction with those people.

We’re a premium product. We’re not trying to be the low cost. We’re like the Mercedes of our industry. We have more knowledge. We’re very focused on our niche. And so people get very excited when they’re on calls with me. And then I’m like, yeah, let me show you our pricing model.

And there is typically some sticker shock. Right? And when that sticker shock happens, I can tell, they don’t want to tell me that they were shocked by our prices.

There’s a pride thing. And so they’ll be like, “yeah, let me look this over and I’ll get back with you.” And they’ve already decided, and I know they’ve already decided that they can’t use us. They’re not going to use us, but they’ll follow up with me. They’ll do all those things, cause you know, I feel like I’m good enough that in 20 minutes we’ve established kind of a relationship. And so now it’s a little bit more personal. And so like you pointed out, they don’t want to hurt my feelings saying, “Hey, you’re too expensive,” when that’s exactly what I want to hear. Just tell me, and let’s both move on with our lives.

David: Yeah, I’ve had situations where I’ve given someone a price and then there was this real quiet silence. And I’ve said to some people like, did I scare you off with that? I mean, I’ve literally used those words. Did I scare you off with that? And nine times out of 10, they’ll say, “no, I wasn’t expecting that, but…” and then you continue the conversation from there.

Again, I think just being very direct in our communications, and just being very clear. Because I think when we try to couch what we’re saying and like I’m afraid to ask if they think the price is too high and they’re afraid to tell me if the price is too high, it’s not good for communication.

So I find that just by asking them questions and just being really direct, does that sound like a lot to you? Does that sound like too much? Does that sound like too little? And “well. It doesn’t sound like too little,” yeah, and they’ll tell you.

And you’re far better off having that conversation rather than saying, yeah, let me think about it for two weeks, because there’s no thinking going on during those two weeks.

I had a conversation with someone that I had spoken with previously, and we had made arrangements to talk two weeks later. And I didn’t even want to do it at the time, because I thought this is futile. But, you know, we all make mistakes, right? And sure enough, two weeks later, when I called back, he said, “Oh, I thought we were going to be talking at the end of the month.”

He didn’t even know when we were supposed to be talking again. And I basically said to him, I said, yeah, I had a feeling there wasn’t going to be a lot of thinking going on during those two weeks. I said it sounds like we probably don’t have a fit with this. And then at that point, since I kind of said it for him, he was able to agree.

And I like that. I mean, I prefer that because if I schedule another call in two weeks and he spends another two weeks not thinking about it, and I spend another two weeks thinking I’m having a conversation that could lead to a sale, then all of us are wasting our brain energy and I’m just not about that anymore.

Jay: Yeah, I really love this idea of being direct. It’s something that is hard for me. But being direct, like you said, will save you both some time. And look, they call me for a free consultation, but they fully expect that at some point during that call, we’re gonna enter some type of sales process. Right?

And so me thinking that I can’t go there is, like you kind of mentioned in our last podcast, there’s some fear there, I think on my part.

David: Yeah. And for me, it also boils down to a respect issue. Respect for our own time, respect for the other person’s time. And if you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t respect their own time and they don’t respect your time, for me, that is a huge red flag.

I mean, if I’m able to pick that up early on in the conversation, I’ll tend to wrap up those calls pretty quickly because, when somebody treats you like that as a prospect, how are they going to be after they have paid you money and they’re expecting you to operate on their terms and their terms about the way they do things is terrible.

You just don’t want to put yourself in that position.

Jay: Yeah, this is a great point. And I think it’s a good point for another podcast. It’s like, do you really even want to close that sale? Right? Because you can identify early on sometimes in the process, this person is going to be difficult. So is it worth the money?

We have discovered that when we give, and this is the weirdest thing, and we should talk about it further, that when we give people a discount, they’re more problematic along the way. And I don’t know why that is, David.

So we’ve decided for our own sanity, we don’t give discounts. Because we’ve learned that that type of customer, the whole way, it’s going to be difficult, and they’re paying us less money for us to deal with that nonsense.

David: Yeah, and I think it can be that, it can be a discount, or, in some cases, it can just be any sort of compromise that we make in the process that is really different.

Jay: Yeah.

David: Because they look at that and they go, “oh, okay, I can do whatever I want now.” And when you run into a situation like that, it’s just not conducive to good business.

Now there are other people, and I’ve had situations recently where there was somebody who really wanted to work with us,was really y determined to do it, but was struggling with the financial component.

And we were able to put together a payment plan that made sense for him and he was able to move forward with it and he’s been great. And I’m so glad we did that.

We’ve had other situations where I’ve done something similar for somebody and then they ghost you, right? It’s like you’re basically trying to work within the parameters that they’re setting up.

And sometimes I do this as a bit of a marketing experiment. Because if somebody says, “I can’t afford this,” and it’s like, “okay, well, let’s say we put together payment terms in place that will work for you. You know, would you do it then?” “Yeah.” “Okay.”

And then you put it in place and then they don’t move forward. So, some people are full of it. You’re just going to have that. I mean, that just happens in business.

Some people are going to be great and they’re just going to be honest with you up front. We don’t always know the difference until we have those conversations and we either offer what we’re thinking about offering or we don’t offer it. And then everything flows from those decisions.

But  when we think about prospects who can’t or won’t say no, and we think about people who tend not to respond to us, prospects who don’t reply back after they’ve gotten all the information, it’s basically two pieces of the same puzzle.

When we run into these situations, our goal needs to be driving them to the no, if we can’t drive them to the yes.

Because the maybes, as we know, the maybes will kill us all the time.

Jay: Mmm. Powerful. Driving them to the no or driving them to the yes. I love that, David. How do people find out more?

David: Go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team. We’d love to have these conversations with you. And if you’re in a situation where you’re looking to grow your sales and profits and you’re stuck somewhere along the line, if you have a lot of people who are ghosting you, there are things you can do to keep that from happening.

If people aren’t saying no to you, and you know they should be, there are ways to do that as well. Sometimes I look at it almost like musical chairs, where the music stops. Somebody is going to be without a chair. Sometimes you have to stop the music and find out who’s not sitting down so you can continue to interact with those who are going to be better suited to working with you.

So TopSecrets.com/call. Let’s have a conversation.

Jay: Great analogy. Thank you, David.

David: Thank you, Jay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

David: Maybe firm?

Jay: Yeah, firm maybe is a better term.

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

Jay: They sound the same.

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

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

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

For some people, and I think this goes more to the prospecting aspect of it than for clients, there’s a fear aspect.

I’m afraid of doing this. I’m afraid of taking the next step. I’m afraid of moving forward. And it could be with a client as well. I’m afraid that once I do this, then there’s going to be something else you’re going to need that I’m not going to have. And I’m afraid I don’t have the time or I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to pull it off.

So there’s a fear element that enters it into sometimes. Is that what you’ve noticed as well?

Jay: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And in one of the other things that I’m experiencing right now, talking about current clients is like, they’re not responsive and they’re slow. And then at the end, it’s like, they’re blaming me.

So it’s like, they think that somehow it was my product or my service. And so, there is a danger in not being firm, in not helping them along, that the product won’t satisfy them in the end and you have to guard against that.

David: Yeah, and I think part of that is reminding them along the way that when you’re waiting for them, reminding them that, “hey, if we want to make this deadline, you know, please get back to me and let me know where you stand on this.”

Because even if they say, “okay, it’s going to take me 48 hours to get this to you,” then at least you know, and you’re not sitting there going, “where is this stuff,” and wasting your own mental energy and your own time not knowing what they’re doing.

I think communication is so key when we’ve got a business relationship with someone.

And every single time I’ve had a problem with a business relationship, it always boiled down to communication. Somebody stopped communicating. Or they were really slow in communicating, or they communicated in sentence fragments instead of actual responses.

I remember having a relationship years ago, we were doing business with a really large customer in New York. And I would send out an email that was maybe a paragraph long with several different questions.

And they would come back by answering part of the first thing I asked, and none of the rest of it. And when you see a pattern like this, it very often indicates a problem. And that’s where we have to then go back to our people and say, “listen, I want to get this done for you, but in order to do this, I need A, B, and C. Can you provide that to me?”

And they either will or they won’t.

Jay: Yeah. one of the other things that I see happening is if they’re not responsive, I kind of become less responsive, that’s a mistake. I think that even if they’re not communicating, we need to be communicating.

So I’m still sending them emails. I’m still letting them know that I’m working on their project or whatever else, so that they feel like they’re getting service, even though the breakdown is on their end.

David: Yeah, and I think you’re exactly right. You need to maintain that communication and it’s tempting not to, to say, “okay, we’ll leave it to them if they’re not going to do it.”

Jay: Yeah.

David: But that’s not what we’re being paid for. In some instances we are being paid to continue to nurture that relationship and to continue to ask for the things that we need in order to be able to help them.

Because. If we do get to the point where things don’t get done that need to get done, then obviously it’s going to be a reflection on us.

So we have to make sure that we’re doing everything on our end to be as responsive as possible. if somebody takes a week to get back to me, that doesn’t mean I’m going to take a week to get back to them.

I’ll still try to get back to them within an hour or two, or as quickly as possible, because if I start to fall into the trap that they’ve laid out, then that’s not good for anybody.

Jay: Yeah. One of the things that we’ve learned, talking about communication, is setting the expectation up front with the customer.

So, right after they sign up, or even before they sign up, we’re like, “okay, here’s what’s going to happen.” Then they sign up and they get an email. “Here are the steps that we’re going to go through. Here’s what I need you to do, and here’s what I’m going to do.”

That way when they’re falling down or whatever, you can remind them, “Hey, remember we talked about this? I really need this to provide the product or meet your deadline.”

And that way it’s much easier to remind somebody than to kind let them know halfway through, you know what, we need to make changes here.

David: Yeah, and that’s great. The fact that you’re laying it out in advance, letting them know what you need and when you need it in advance, because that’s something that you can then keep pointing back to.

Jay: Yes.

David: You know, another thing that I think we fall into, another trap that we fall into sometimes is we’re used to one particular method of communication.

So if it’s email, we just keep sending email after email. Or if it’s telephone, we leave message after message. And I think in some situations it’s better to mix that up a bit.

We talk a lot about the MVPs of Marketing and Sales. What’s the message, which combination of marketing vehicles am I going to use to communicate the message? And then who are the people or prospects we need to reach?

Well, in this case, it’s the V aspect of it. Which marketing vehicle are we using to reach them? Because if they’re not responding to email, then maybe we leave a voicemail message. If they’re not responding to voicemail message, then if we’re connected with them in social media, maybe we message them via social media, right?

There are different ways that we can potentially get to them so that we can get a response. If they have an assistant, we can try to reach the person’s assistant and ask them to give us a call back. Right? So it’s three different methods of communication that may result in getting a response.

Jay: Yeah. And we kind of talked about this in the last podcast to kind of keeping track, keeping notes, cause you may have different people on your staff who will interact with that person in different ways or through the process.

So putting in your CRM or in your notes, “Hey, this person is better reached by text. This person is better reached by phone.”

I find more and more text is what everybody wants, but you can’t use text for long form communication or attachments or things like that. And I think it also depends on their technical skills, right?

They may not be using certain types of communication because they’re our generation, right? You know, who knows?

David: Yeah, exactly. And you hit the nail on the head because basically if you’re sending email and they’re not responding, you can then follow up with a text and say, “did you get the email I sent you yesterday at 2. 42 pm,” right?

Jay: Mm hmm.

David: And then they can respond to that. They’ll be more likely to do that. So you’re able to use these different elements in combination, to be able to get the result.

We talked a lot in terms of what clients need to do when we’re trying to communicate with them and they’re ghosting us. When it comes to prospects, maybe we should save that for a whole other episode.

Jay: Yeah.

David: it’s big, huge when it comes to prospecting, because so often you can have a great conversation with someone and then they go radio silent on you. And where do you go from there?

In fact, yeah, let’s do that. Let’s save that for another one.

Jay: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I was just thinking, if we’re not keeping track of how we’re communicating with them, we may be frustrating them, right? Because I’m trying to get a hold of them one way and they’re expecting another way.

So listening, processing, keeping track, very important. David, 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 struggling with this, where you’re having trouble getting clients to respond, we’ve got different methods that we use to stir the pot a bit, get the response back that you’re looking for and keep you engaged in the conversation because that’s the only way that sales move forward.

It’s the only way that business moves forward. So TopSecrets.com/call.

Jay: All right. Fantastic, David. Thank you so much.

David: Thank you, Jay.

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

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

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

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

David: Right. And doing what we know.

Jay: Yeah.

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

What’s the newest, the latest, the greatest, the things that I should be paying attention to? And sometimes when we get too focused on input, we don’t engage in the output necessary to get the results we’re looking for.

Jay: Yeah, I’m exactly the same. Like I have all this technology. I’m always trying to hone my systems, but like we hear garbage in, garbage out, right?

I spend so much time on that, maybe I should be spending time on actually closing sales, meeting with clients, you know, those types of things.

David: Yeah, and keeping track of what we’re doing, keeping track of our output, I think is really important, and a lot of us lose sight of this. I’ve actually created tools in my training programs that allow people to start to capture that.

Because when you boil it down, the things that we need to be doing on an ongoing basis involve bringing new prospects through the door, getting them qualified in or out as quickly as possible. Engaging in presentations with the people who are worthy of presentations, making offers, closing sales, all those things are key.

And a lot of that is just about engaging in conversations with people. So simply by tracking what we’re actually doing on a day to day or week to week basis, we can have a crystal clear idea of where things are going wrong in our business.

But if we just sort of think in the back of our mind, “Oh, well, yeah, I know that, or I’m doing all that,” we can really be misleading ourselves more often than we think.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And when you talk about tracking, I’m looking for the perfect software to track or things like that. And often a notebook, you know, start simple and work your way up. A spreadsheet, something and just reviewing your daily activities can be a very powerful thing.

David: Yeah, whatever you’ll actually use is your best contact management system, whether that’s a full blown CRM software system, or whether you’re just good at being able to keep track of your appointments and notes on a calendar or in some sort of notebook. As long as you have it all in one place and you know what’s next, that’s huge.

Knowing what’s next for each prospect and client. When do I have to reach out to them and what am I going to be reaching out to them about?

If I know that somebody has an event coming up in November and I need to be in touch with them by early October, I want to make sure that I’ve got a note for early October that says, be in touch with this client, early October, about their event mid November.

So that when I reach out to them, I’m not just calling and saying, “I’m just calling to check in” or “how’s everything going?”

No, I’m calling, “Hey, listen, I wanted to give you a call. We were talking about this event you have coming up in mid November, wanted to see where we are with that,” so that we’re able to continue the conversation where the last one left off, which is also pretty critical.

Jay: Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I tell you about an experience we’ve just had, the past few weeks, because we upped our game in tracking and kind of identifying the different categories and the conversations.

We’ve identified two new products that our customers absolutely need. And we’re excited to offer that. And we would have never caught it, if we weren’t tracking the calls and taking notes and those types of things.

David: Yeah, it’s so important to be able to listen to clients, but a lot of that doesn’t happen when we’re not taking the daily or weekly actions necessary to make sure that that’s going forward.

Years ago, I put together what I referred to as a continuum of knowing versus doing. And in the lower left corner of the grid, people who know nothing and do nothing.

It’s like, I don’t know what I’m doing. As a result, I take no action. And people who know nothing and do nothing in sales are actually not doing any harm. So they’re obeying the first law of good doctoring, you know, first do no harm. Right? So they’re not really an issue in the marketplace.

The people who know a lot and do a lot are the ones who typically get the best results.

So ideally we want to move from knowing nothing and doing nothing to knowing a lot and doing a lot. But what’s really interesting are the other extremes on the matrix because There are people who know a lot, but do nothing or do very little. They’re not taking action.

And when you’re in that situation where you’re like, “Oh yeah, I know this, I know that. I’ve known that for a long time,” It’s like, okay, but are you doing it?

Not just are you doing it, but are you doing it as, as well as you need to be doing it? Are you doing it better than your competitors? Are you doing it as well as it can be done?

Because until you get to the point where you are implementing as well as you can, based on the things you know, there’s no way you can possibly get to the money. Because implementation tells us if what we know is actually true, right?

Because a lot of times we’re taking action based on what we know and we try things and they don’t work and we’re like, why didn’t that work? But you don’t even know it’s broken until you’re actually implementing.

And that’s why in our work with clients, we are laser focused on identifying what’s taking place, what is being done, and as importantly, or more importantly, it’s how it’s being done.

Because in a lot of cases, people are like, oh yeah, I knew that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this conversation with prospects and with clients where they’re like, okay, well, yeah, I know how to do that.

And I’m like, look, I know you do, right? Prospecting, presenting, and following up. Everybody does that in sales. It’s not about the what. It’s about the how.

How are we prospecting?

How are we identifying the targets we’re going after?

What specifically are we saying to them? Are we saying things consistently from one prospect to the next? Because if we’re not, then we don’t know what’s working and what’s not. So, the how part of it is absolutely critical.

Jay: Yeah, and I also think the assumption that you’re good enough, right? Our systems are good enough. That’s very dangerous.

I’ve been watching the Olympics and watching things where they’re separated from their competitors by one tenth of a second, right? And when they’re training, they’re not saying, well, I’ve reached this point and I’m done. They’re saying,

David: Good enough

Jay: Right. They’re watching videos about their technique. They’re training in a different way. They’re watching what their competitors are doing. So I think just the realization that you can always improve, always, is so important.

David: Yes, and implementation is key to that because implementation is what connects the knowledge you have to the results that you’re going to get.

And without that key element being implemented again and again and again, you’re never going to get to the results, the sales, the possibility that you have in your entire career.

Jay: Yeah. And I also think the understanding, cause this can feel really overwhelming for people. And I think it’s important to simplify, but I also think it’s important to know you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

There are people who study this type of stuff. You, who are always looking into this, always improving, always looking for systems implementation, and you’re passing this onto your customers. So don’t think you have to do it alone.

David: Yeah, exactly. And it’s not that I’m some particular genius, but when we’re working with our clients, we’re working with their specific situations, their specific issues. So when they run into something, it’s not a vague generality where we’re saying, “Oh, make more calls,” right?

We’re looking at what is the specific situation? What’s the bottleneck, and what are the best possible solutions to blowing through that bottleneck.

But that requires two way communication, right? It’s not about me saying, go make more calls, go do this, go do that. It’s about saying, okay, what are you doing? What are you currently implementing? How are you taking action on this thing?

Where are the bottlenecks that you’re running into? What are the specific situations that are keeping you from being able to get more people qualified in or qualified out? What’s slowing you down in terms of being able to make more presentations and making more offers so that people have something to say yes or no to.

And those basic points along the continuum are what’s really critical. So if you feel like, “Hey, I really know a lot, I should be making more.” It goes right back down to implementation.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. So how can people find out more about implementation?

David: You can go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team.

We love having these conversations, because the first thing we’re going to do is take a look at where you are now in terms of visibility and sales and profit, and where you’d like to be, and then see about helping you to connect the dots between here and there.

That’s all just part of the diagnostic. That’s just part of the call. So you don’t have to buy anything for that to happen. We have these conversations to help you think through your current situation so that you can determine what are the best next steps? So if you go to TopSecrets.com/call. That’s the best place for you to go.

Jay: All right. Fantastic, David. Thank you so much.

David: Thank you, Jay.

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A lot of people just think broadly in terms of expanding their market, without asking themselves a really important question, which is why? Why do you need to expand your market? Am I not doing things well enough in my existing market that I haven’t been able to mine that as effectively as I could?

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing Expanding Your Market. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you, David. Once again, I’m excited for this conversation. I know we always kind of learn from each other. We’re in a process in our business where we’re trying to expand from the inside, from our current customer base.

Like right now we have a great Google Ads program, but we don’t have an organic program, right? So that’s one area that we’re looking at right now. How do we get those organic leads? So we’re right in this process right now.

David: That’s really interesting because there are so many different ways we can talk about expanding.

I mean, the first thing you mentioned, just expanding inside your own customer or prospect base, right? You could just look at your Excel spreadsheet of all these people say, how can I expand within the people on this sheet, right? Or you could be talking, like you mentioned about an ad campaign.

How can we expand this ad campaign to reach more of the high quality prospects that I need to reach in order to have those conversations, in order to do business together. So yeah, lots of different ways to do it. I think the appeal of a topic like expanding your market is that a lot of people tend to want to do it.

I want to have more customers. I want to have more clients. Not quite sure where that’s going to come from. That’s sort of the generic thought, I think, for a lot of people. I want more customers. How am I going to do that?

And a lot of it boils down to this. minute stuff that we’re talking about, identifying who these people are, how we’re going to reach out to them, and how we’re going to get them on board with us.

Jay: Yeah. And I think that’s something that a lot of people fall prey to, and I catch myself sometimes as well, is thinking that movement is doing something, right? I’m busy. I’m writing a check. We’re doing something and we’re just moving. But ultimately, are you getting results and are you monitoring those results and fine tuning them?

If not, you’re kind of wasting your time.

David: Yeah. Confusing movement with progress and they’re two different things. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, but you’re like, Oh, I should really do this, I should really do that.

And we’ve also talked about the fact, in previous podcasts, that many business owners suffer from entrepreneurial ADD. Where you’re working on one thing and then the whole squirrel, squirrel, squirrel! and we’re doing that. And now we’re off on something else.

I think a lot of us have to reel ourselves back in when it comes to that, because there are so many different ways to expand your market.

So many different ways to get in front of different groups of people, and so many different things we can say to those people. And there are too many variables. And I think when you’re looking to expand your market, you can’t be changing all of the variables.

You can’t say, okay, now I’m going to go after a totally different group of people with a totally different message and promote a totally different product or aspect of my product, right?

Or a different approach to describing my product, because you will have absolutely no idea at that point of what’s working and what’s not. I mean, in some cases we can do some minor tweaking of maybe one of those variables.

If we’ve got a sales presentation that has worked historically for us, for a long time, then it makes perfect sense to test out that presentation in front of a different group of people who have never heard it.

Because you have something that wins and you’re matching that up with something that has not yet won, right? So you’re seeing does this work over here as well. That goes to the basic essence of what’s referred to as split testing, where you want to test approach A against approach B. And when you’re doing that, you just have to make sure that you’re only testing small aspects of one thing.

Cause like I said before, if you’re testing two completely different things against each other, you’re not going to know the answer to much of anything.

Jay: Yeah. And we’ve talked about movement that we go through, but there’s also a sense of, I’m generating all of these leads.

Well, what if 90 percent of them are junk, right? And so we confuse that with a successful program. And it’s not. It’s actually costing you money on both ends, right? And so, coming up and honing it, and doing your A B testing, you’re not just looking at does it bring people to ask questions.

What is the close rate? What is the cost per click or whatever it is, right?

David: Yeah, it’s not about quantity. And I think people try to take a simplistic approach to this and in sales, this has been going on forever. It’s just make more calls. Right. And that’s the same thing. Okay. Run more ads, get more leads in.

But if those leads aren’t any good, then what’s the point of bringing more of them in? I’ve always believed that it’s got to be a smart process. When you’re going after prospects and clients, it has to be a smart process, meaning that you’re evaluating things along the way. You’re evaluating the target group of people that you’re approaching.

You’re evaluating what you’re saying to them and the responses you’re getting back from them. You’re evaluating things like your closing ratios, and your conversion ratios.

Of the leads that I get, how many of those are qualified in or qualified out? If I talk to 10 people, how many of them are in and how many of them are out?

And those numbers should be relatively consistent as you’re doing that. And then if you know that three out of 10 are good quality prospects for you. Then you ask yourself, okay, how can I get that to four out of 10? And that might be related to getting to a different group of people, perhaps a higher end group of people who could spend more money.

It could be related to a lot of different things, whether it’s getting to different people or whether it’s a matter of what you’re saying to those people that would get more of them qualified in. There are always things that we can do. But I think in a lot of cases, if we want to expand, which sounds like we’re going big, we really have to focus and go small.

Jay: think that’s such an excellent point. I think there’s a danger when you say, I want to expand my market, to say, well, in order to do that, I’m going to have to add products or add services to attract a different group.

And then what happens is you become the restaurant that has every type of food on the menu. And they don’t do anything well, right?

And they have this massive menu, but so what. You haven’t really expanded your marketplace at all. So I love that idea of going small, going finite could be a much better way to expand your market.

David: Right. Cause again, sort of getting back to the idea of. Expanding the market doesn’t just mean quantity.

Jay: Yes.

David: It’s not about just more people. Can you expand your market that way? You probably can, but too much waste is associated with that in a lot of cases.

Expanding your market could mean, okay, if I’m dealing with this certain particular niche, whether it’s a geographic one, whether it’s an industrial one, whatever your group of people is that you’re targeting and you want to expand beyond that.

A lot of the thinking is to just go wide. But what if you were to say instead, okay, of the group that I’m going after, what if I were to target just the top 20 to 30 percent of that group and see how that goes. And then go wide with that.

Find more people like the ones who are your most successful clients and then expand that way. Expansion does not mean ignorant expansion. It doesn’t mean just blowing things out. It means identifying. really where you want to expand and how you want to expand and with whom.

Jay: Yeah, I love that concept. I told you in our business model, we rely so much on Google ads. We don’t want to spend a single penny on some type of ad that is not going to attract the right type of customers.

We want to spend a considerable amount of marketing dollars. So like you said, expand wide, right? That you have a large net, but on a very specific type of customer.

And that actually is the secret to our success, right? I mean, it’s like having a secret recipe, you know, that restaurant owner who doesn’t want anybody to know their recipe.

That’s how I feel about this keywords, you know, situation that we come up with. That’s more important than anything else we do in business at this point.

David: Yeah, and every business has to have things like that, that are going to allow themselves to differentiate themselves from anyone and everyone else who offers similar products and services.

I’m really big on the whole secrets thing, as you know, it’s our brand. So I feel like if you don’t have secrets like that in your business, then you have nothing proprietary. You have nothing that is going to differentiate you enough for people to want to buy it.

Another thing that I think is important to consider is that a lot of people just think broadly in terms of expanding their market, without asking themselves a really important question, which is why?

Why do I need to expand my market? Am I not doing things well enough in my existing market that I haven’t been able to mine that as effectively as I could?

And in some cases, that’s what’s happening. It’s like, we’re feeling like we’re not getting the progress we need here. So maybe I need to look over there.

And sometimes that will work, but sometimes, once again, it’s a matter of really honing in on what are the things that are working best with me now and can I even expand those things within the market that I’m currently interacting with?

Jay: Yeah, you bring up such a great point. If you’re trying to expand, but you’re not doing a good job with your current product that you’re offering, you’re going to kill yourself because you may be able to expand, but your consistency, your ability to serve your customers is going to go down exponentially with that plan.

David: Right. And if you’re running off to one place and the next, you’re essentially starting over each time and you’re setting yourself up for failure because it’s hard to get established and then to be able to continue to thrive in a particular area.

So it is often very tempting to say, well, I have to get to people outside of the city that I’m currently servicing, or I want to expand and I want to open up offices in different areas.

All of that can work, but it’s overhead. In most cases, it’s overhead. And you have to determine if the problem is really that, or if the problem is with your processes that are allowing you to not generate enough to begin with.

Jay: Yeah, I have a good friend. She has established kind of a unique clothing brand. It’s a vintage clothing brand. She does it all on Facebook. And she just went and opened a local retail store. She wants to expand.

And I’m like, like you said, I’m just sitting there going, what? You want rent, right? You want, payroll? You want all of these things when you had already established this great business model?

I understand the temptation to do that. But now she’s like, how do I get out of this? She signed a lease, right? It’s like clearly she’s regretting the decision at this point.

David: Been there, done that. Years ago we had retail mail order catalog businesses and we decided to open up a retail store. It is exactly like what your friend did. And… totally different business models, total distraction, not a good choice, not a good decision. Hopefully you realize it sooner rather than later, and you can adjust quickly. But expansion, but smart expansion.

Jay: Yes, all expansion is not good expansion. And that’s why it’s nice that there are people like you who people can talk to. So how do they find out more?

David: Yeah, they can learn from all my stupid mistakes along the way. I’ve said that to so many audiences over the years. The reason I’m up on this stage is not because I’m particularly smart, it’s because I’ve made every single stupid mistake you can possibly make in business. So if I can keep you from making just one of those mistakes, it’ll be time well spent.

Jay: Our podcast is a lot about the mistakes we’ve made over the years.

David: It is, right, because it’s so easy to learn from poor example, as long as you realize that’s what you’re doing. So that’s why we do it. We share the good, the bad and the ugly, because it’s not about, wow, you know, we’re so smart. It’s about, we’ve had these experiences. We’re happy to share our experiences with you and hopefully they’ll help.

So to answer your question, TopSecrets.com/call. You can go there, schedule a call with myself or my team. We’d love to have the conversation with you. If you’re thinking about expanding your market or expanding your business, getting to more or different people, let’s have the conversation.

We’ll look at who you’re targeting now, maybe who you could or should be targeting, where you are now versus where you need to be in terms of visibility and sales and profits, because if you’re not visible, if they can’t see you, they can’t buy from you.

If you’re not generating sales with them, then being visible isn’t helping you.

And if it’s not profitable, then there’s no point in making the sales and being visible. So we really like to hone in on the most important aspects of what will allow you to really grow your sales and profits, in a thoughtful manner.

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

David: Thank you, Jay.

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When you’re able to deliver what you say you’re going to deliver, that will start to motivate buyers to want to do business with you. And particularly for repeat orders. Because the first time they’re buying from you, they don’t really know exactly what you can do. They’re basing it on what you’re telling them, the conversations you’re having.

But then after they have that first experience with you, and they know what you’re like, and they’ve liked that experience, then they are going to be motivated to buy again. Because at that point, they know those things. And it’s not just based on what you’re saying.

David: Hello and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing what motivates buyers. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Yeah. Hey, it’s good to be here, David. I kind of think, why would you need to know or have a discussion about what motivates buyers?

I think it’s because we assume everybody’s like us. And that assumption, can be completely wrongheaded, right?

David: Yeah. I know Tony Robbins, in some of his material, talked about the fact that he’s not motivational. His goal isn’t to motivate people. And I thought that was a really interesting takeaway because you look at somebody like Tony Robbins and you’re like, well, that’s what he does.

He’s motivational. He motivates people. But his goal is to educate people and to encourage people and nurture them and provide services that are going to help them in their lives. Like the rest of us, most of us in business, that’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to provide products and services that help our customers.

So when we talk about motivating a customer, there are a couple of different aspects to it, because one aspect of it is motivating them to buy, right?

Once they have all the information, sometimes it’s difficult to get people off the fence. So there’s that aspect of motivation, but even in the earlier stages, what will motivate a customer to want to even have a conversation with you?

What will motivate a customer to even go to your website to investigate what you have to offer? So my feeling is that motivation, at lots of different levels, is pretty much critical in business and in sales.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. And also a recognition that people are different, right? I remember walking into one of my program director’s offices and he had a cardboard cutout and it was divided up and all the things that he felt the listeners wanted and I looked at it and this was not based on research.

This was just, you know, what he felt. And I looked at it and I’m like, I don’t think that’s accurate at all. It’s nice that you have this cardboard cutout, but I think you need to put a little bit more thought into it.

David: Yeah, that’s a great point. And a lot of us go into every situation with our own preconceived notions about situations.

And so it’s the same thing in sales. If we think that a customer is looking for X, Y, and Z, then that’s all we’re going to be talking about. But that’s why I think the whole consultative aspect of selling is so important.

Asking questions, diagnosing, finding out what the actual need is. And when it comes to motivation, you’re going to be a lot more likely to motivate people based on what they want than what you think they want.

Jay: Yeah, I think about people who create the product from the product side instead of from the customer side, right? And we just assume I like it, right? See it on Shark Tank all the time, right? These people are just so invested and they mortgage their homes and they do all these things and they don’t have any sales, but they’re just so convinced that this product is going to be something that everyone will love and they’re shocked to find out that nobody does.

David: Yeah. It’s like the old adage, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. He was like, look at this. This is the greatest thing in the world. Like, I don’t want that. That’s not what I’m looking for. Right. So yes, when you take an approach that is product centered instead of client or customer centered, that’s not likely to motivate people.

So if you’re thinking about how am I going to motivate a buyer to action? I think it really has to start with the diagnostic and understanding and determining what they really want.

Jay: Yeah. And I also think, once you’ve done that, taking pride in what you have to offer. And this is something I see people struggle with and I’ve struggled with it.

You know, I have people oftentimes will ask me for a discount now and I understand the ask, but I’ve really come to a place where I believe that we’re offering a great product. for a fair price. And I feel very confident in that. So I just tell them, look, we’re gonna do this and this and this, and our competitors are not.

You can reach out to them. We encourage you to research. But I know when you’re done with us, that you’re gonna feel like you underpaid, right? I just put it that way, you know, up front. And it really sends a message to them.

David: Yes, and that is very motivational when we’re able to transfer our own enthusiasm for our products and services to the buyer.

And I think I’ve heard sales described as something like that in the past. It’s a transfer of enthusiasm from the salesperson to the prospect or client. And I think there’s definitely an element of that that has to go into it because if we don’t have the courage of our own convictions, if we’re like, ” yeah, yeah, it’s okay. I mean, I think you’ll like it,” that’s not going to motivate anyone. It’s not very likely at all to get them to take action. So in terms of the motivational aspect, yeah, we kind of have to sell ourselves on whatever it is that we’re offering before we can ever sell anyone else.

Jay: Yeah. And again, get customer feedback and make sure that you are fulfilling promises and those types of things we went into in depth in the last podcast.

But when I first started out in our current business model, I kind of was hesitant. I felt like, you know, are we overcharging? And I’ve come to learn over the past two years, we might even want to charge more. You know, that’s how confident we are in the product we’re offering.

David: Yeah, and that’s really about creating value, right? You’re creating enough value for your customers that it makes sense for them to make the investment. That’s also highly motivational too.

When you’re able to deliver what you say you’re going to deliver, that’s going to motivate people to want to do it. And particularly for repeat orders.

Because the first time they’re buying from you, they don’t really know exactly what you can do. They’re basing it on what you’re telling them, the conversations you’re having.

But then after they have that first experience with you, and they know what you’re like, and they’ve liked that experience, then they are going to be motivated to buy again.

Because at that point, they know those things. And it’s not just based on what you’re saying.

Jay: Yeah, it’s that example I gave about the car salesman, right? Or the mechanic. Once you find somebody you can trust, it’s like okay, I’m never going anywhere else. And I would say I’m motivated, right?

Instead of being hesitant, “oh, I’ve got to go find somebody and I’m not sure if they’re going to be fair to me.” I’m like, “call them up,” right? There’s no doubt in my mind whatsoever. I’m excited to call them. I know I’m going to get an honest shake and that’s really all I want.

David: Right, that’s all we’re looking for. And if you think about it, the idea of motivating buyers goes so well with what we were talking about in this most recent series of podcasts where last time we were talking about building trust in sales. Well, trust motivates buyers, right? If they have that level of trust, that’s going to motivate a buyer.

Prior to that, we were talking about crafting a customer experience, giving them an experience that is positive, that is memorable, that they’re going to remember in a good way. That also is extremely motivating.

When you don’t have those things, when you have a lack of trust, a lack of a good experience, a lack of enthusiasm from the salesperson, then it’s very unlikely that they’re going to be motivated to do much of anything, other than get away from you as soon as possible.

Jay: Yeah, and I’ll also add to this. You’ve mentioned this over and over again that you will tell potential customers like I don’t think that you’re a match That, I think is part of the motivation process.

Because if you’re in tune enough with your own products and services to where you can be very enthusiastic with the ones who are a match. And they talk to you and they know that you are a match together, right? It’s like, “Oh, I’m so excited. This person is going to solve my problems.”

David: Yeah, and in those situations, authenticity is so important. You never want to say to somebody, “I don’t think we’re a good fit” for the purpose of trying to convince them to convince you that they are a good fit. And then you say, “well, okay.”

Right? That’s just manipulative BS. And if I say to somebody, “listen, I don’t think we’re a good fit for this.” That means I’ve already determined that I’m not going to be able to help you to the extent that I’m going to need to be able to help you to get you the outcome you want, that I’m going to be happy with it, right?

So it’s not about the money at that point. It’s not about anything other than being really honest with people about who you can help and who you can’t. I think that’s also pretty motivating to people.

When I say to somebody, if I’m on a call with them and we talk about, okay, listen, I think this is going to be great. Here’s how I think we’re going to be able to work together. That’s how I honestly feel.

If I feel like I can’t, I’m going to tell you exactly the same thing. So for people who share that enthusiasm, you’re going to be able to work together.

Now, if I’m really excited about working with somebody and they’re not excited about working with me, it’s still not going anywhere, right? That’s not going to happen.

And at that point, if whatever it is that I’m saying doesn’t transfer that enthusiasm, then at that point, for that person, we don’t have a good fit. So we’re not going to work together.

I’ve always said over the years, and I learned this one the hard way, like you learn most things, but I’ve always said over the years that if two parties to an agreement want to put something together, they’ll figure out a way to do it. And if one of them doesn’t, they won’t. Right?

So if just one party to the agreement wants to do it and the other one doesn’t, it’s not happening. Both people have to want to engage in order for that business relationship or even a personal relationship to be successful.

And talking motivation, that’s also pretty motivating.

Jay: Yeah, both sides motivated to come to the same outcome. I mean, what better situation can you have in a business model? I mean, that’s the strike zone, right? That’s where you want to be. All right, how can people find out more, David?

David: Well, you can go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team.

Love to have a conversation with you to see if we are a good fit to work together, if we can help you in any way, even on the call. If we don’t end up working together, a lot of people are just helped on the call.

We’ll talk to you for roughly 45 minutes or so, walk you through where you are now in your business and where you’d like to be in terms of visibility, sales and profits, the markets that you’re going after, where you’re successful with that, where you’re not.

We’ll talk you through some things that will help you to operate your business better on the other side, regardless of whether or not we ever work together. So if it makes sense to have that conversation, love to talk with you.

Jay: I love it, David. Once again, it’s a pleasure.

David: Thank you, Jay.

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