Everybody has to make those determinations about their business when making sales and building brands. How am I going to do it? Is it going to be about me? Is it going to be about the customer? And how do I convey that in terms of my company name, my logo, my brand, and any slogans or taglines that you use, in order to communicate all that.

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing making sales and building brands. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much, David. And again, just a great topic. I don't know if everybody feels like they're a brand. Like, I'm a company, I offer a service, but am I a brand?

When I think of brands, I think of like Kellogg's or Tesla or things like that. I don't know if I think about my own business that way.

David: Yeah. And a lot of small businesses don't. But even though they don't, very often, if they don't know what to do from a marketing and sales standpoint, they will copy the big brands because that's what they're seeing.

You're watching TV, you see a commercial for Kellogg's or you see a commercial for McDonald's or some retail brand and you say, "Oh, okay, that's what I need to do. I just need to get my name out there." Right? When I think of branding, particularly for small business, that's what I think of. Somebody who's like, "Oh, I just have to get my name out there."

And when you've spent as much money on marketing as Kellogg's has, or as McDonald's has, or any of the big companies have, they already know what those companies are all about. They already know what they do. So they can just basically say, come in and buy from us. And they're like, okay, I already know what it's all about.

For small businesses to do that, to just put out the name of their company and expect people to want to wander in, it just doesn't happen. And that's why I think this topic, you know, the idea of making sales and building brands, I could have said making sales versus building brands, because I think sometimes people view it as two different things, but ideally we have to do both.

And even if it's not a matter of seeing yourself as a brand right now, once You're established enough in your market where people recognize who you are and what you do. That's sort of building a brand in their minds. So that when they hear the name of your business, they associate it with certain things, related to what you do and how you do it.

When you think about Tesla or Elon Musk, you have a very good feel for sort of what he's all about and how he tends to approach things. So to me, that's an established brand. When small businesses want to establish a brand, they can spend a lot of money doing it, which is why they kind of have to be making sales along the way and focused on that first.

Jay: Yeah, great point. You know, in those big companies, they have the big dollars to have focus groups and all of those things. Talking about the very beginning of your branding, again, I think we're coming up with another podcast topic here, though. People who just throw together their logos or their slogans, It drives me crazy because it's like the first impression when they meet you in public.

David: Yeah, and again, with small businesses in particular, sometimes we can be too cute for our own good, too creative, quote unquote, for our own good. We think that something that appeals to us is going to appeal to everyone else.

Personally, I think that the simpler we keep it, the more direct we keep it, the more sense it makes. Now Nike spent so much money establishing what that swoosh means that they can put a swoosh up on the screen and people go, Oh, maybe I'll go buy some shoes, right? We can't do that. And so. Unless you have that level of funding, unless you have access to that much money that you can teach people what your logo means, then you have to be a lot more clear and direct about your communication, your logos, your branding, all of it.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. And, just so you know, you do have a focus group and it's something that is really hard for me and that is showing your friends, your family. Getting their feedback, other people. I tend to do some things on my own because I'm afraid of feedback and that's just not good.

Everybody has a focus group, choose to use it.

David: Yeah, I also think that particularly in the early stages, your messaging is very likely to be more important than your logo per se.

Jay: Yes.

David: I've talked to people who have said, well, you know, I still need to get my logo developed. I still need to get my website up.

And I'm like, well, how are you paying for things until you get that done? Because the way you're going to pay for those type of things is to figure out what you're going to say, who you're going to say it to, and how you're going to say it. The MVPs, the messaging, the combination of marketing vehicles you're going to use to communicate the message and the people you're going to say it to.

Once you've made some sales, to those people using the messaging that makes sense, you're in a much better position to be able to create your logo, your branding, your sub branding, not just the name of the business, but what is the positioning statement that you're going to use that explains clearly and succinctly what you do.

When we make it up, up front, and we just put it out there and then we try to conform the business to that, we're kind of doing it backwards. We need to find out. What is it that the customer needs? How can I use messaging that will position this as the ideal solution?

And then once it's proven to work, then you can really start building the components around that.

Jay: Yeah. And I think when we talk about brand, again, it's not all about logos and slogans and these kinds of things. To me, brand, you mentioned Nike, brand is whether or not my customers and potential customers, if I ask them, do you know what I do?

Do you know what my products and services are? If they can answer with clarity, then I think I have established a brand. And my communication and things like that have been good in establishing that brand. If they're kind of, well, I think you do this, and I'm not sure if you do this, You don't have a brand.

David: Right. And when you're in the process of building your brand, I think it's good to start thinking in terms of stories. What are the stories that we need to put out there into the marketplace about our reason for being? Why are we even here? What does it mean? We've got a brand called Top Secrets, well, what does that even mean?

And the way that it came about is that there are specific things that the most successful people in the market know. That other people don't. And whether or not you want to think about that as a secret, it's a secret. It's at least a secret from you if you don't know it, right? So when we originally started, we said, okay, TopSecrets, that's what this is going to be about.

It's, what do the most successful people in the industry know that you don't? And when you make that switch... When you flip that switch and go from not knowing these things to knowing these things, all of a sudden, everything changes.

That's just an example, but that's the story. You don't just say, okay, is a combination of words I made up, unless it makes sense for you.

Now, in the situation where Amazon started, right? They took a word, Amazon, which had nothing to do with books. It had nothing to do with selling everything, but it did create the impression of big, large, vast, right? And then they were able to put the money behind it to explain what that meant. So I think a lot of times when people are naming their businesses, they're either going to name it after themselves.

You think about a lot of the advertising agencies in the world, they just put their own names on the business. Now it's about us. And a lot of businesses in general, they'll just name the business after themselves. They'll just put their own personal names on the business. Now it's all about me, right?

So there's that approach. There's the other approach, which is that you take something that doesn't necessarily mean anything per se at the moment. And then you use your marketing dollars to ascribe a meaning to it, which is pretty much what Amazon did. So now when people hear Amazon, they don't think about the rainforest.

They think about getting their stuff in two days for the lowest price. Walmart. Well, that was a combination of a person's name, right? And the fact that they were competing with Kmart at the time, right? So you have Sam Walton and Kmart, you come up with Walmart. So it kind of makes sense, but everybody has to make those determinations about their business.

How am I going to do it? Is it going to be about me? Is it going to be about the customer? And how do I convey that in terms of my company name, my logo, my brand, and any slogans or taglines that you use, in order to communicate all that.

Jay: Yeah, you said something very important though earlier, and that is, don't try and be too clever. You know, gimmicky, things like that. And even the big companies, I don't know if you're like me, but I looked at the FedEx logo probably millions of times over my life.

And then somebody pointed out that there is an arrow in that logo, and they probably thought they were so clever and everybody was going to see that. And. I didn't see it. I don't know if you saw it, but I didn't see it. And one day I'm like, oh my gosh, there is an arrow in there. They didn't need that arrow to make sales.

That was all accomplished in other ways.

David: Right, between the E and the X. No, I never noticed it. I heard about it from someone else. You almost have to squint to see it because it's just the white space in between the E and the X. Is it going to make me want to have a package delivered b

When we think in terms of creating persuasive communication, it's really important to consider the flow. What is the flow of the communication? In what order are you asking these questions and having these conversations? Are you leading with the pitch? Because if you're leading with the sales pitch, then that's not going to work well at all.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing creating persuasive communication. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thanks, David. You mean all communication is not good communication? I just thought sending out emails and random texts, that's the way to go.

David: Yeah, random communication is often different than persuasive communication.

I guess sometimes it can line up, but the stars have to all be in alignment for that to happen.

Jay: Yeah, I see this. I get emails saying, Hey, just following up. And I'm like, Oh, you know, I don't know that that's really how you want to approach a potential customer. There's no energy, there's no urgency, there's nothing persuasive about it.

It kind of feels meh. And, I recognize that now cause I'm in that business, right?

David: Exactly. And I think if we start from the premise that different prospects have different needs, that's a really good way to start. Because I think a lot of salespeople tend to think in terms of persuasive communication, meaning saying things that will get them to buy from you.

And that's only the case if and when we've determined that we have a good fit with the person that we're talking to, right? Persuasive communication doesn't just mean getting them to buy. It's about seeing if they buy into what it is that we do, seeing if we've got enough of a fit to have it make sense.

What I think in terms of persuasive communication, it's the kind of thing that's going to get people engaged. It's going to pull them into the conversation rather than repel them from the conversation. So while the term persuasive sort of implies that we're trying to persuade them to do something, that is true, but it's not just about that.

It's not just about trying to get someone to do something. It's about seeing if what we're talking about to begin with even makes sense.

Jay: Yeah, and I think we talked about that a lot in our last episode, getting to know that customer so that you can build loyalty. How do you expect to send out persuasive communication if you haven't taken the time to get to know them?

And for example, I'm in the tax business, which is hard for me to say, I can't believe that happened. But my communication is very different right now in the summer than it is in March, right? In March, there's a built in urgency, and so it's a lot easier to communicate to them what they need. This time of year, very different.

David: Right, and the things that you need to persuade them of now are different than the things you have to persuade them of in January, February, March, right? Because what you need to persuade them of now is perhaps thinking in advance about what they're going to need to do rather than trying to cram it in at the last minute.

So that's going to change the languaging. If you think in terms of who do you need to appeal to, that's going to be happening throughout the year. What type of prospect am I looking to bring in the door, and how can I help that person to make a decision based on what we're doing as opposed to what someone else is doing?

You know, what are they likely to want? And we can't always know that. We can assume, okay, well, I think they're going to want to pay less taxes. That's probably a reasonable assumption. And for some people, for most of them, that's probably going to be the case, but there might be some sort of extenuating circumstance that plays into that as well.

And if you're not touching on that, if you haven't taken the time to understand what it is they're actually looking for, then your ability to persuade them to choose you is going to be greatly diminished.

Jay: Yeah, and in my case, a lot of times, I mean, we have other products and services we can identify or we have identified that they can use during the year. But in my case, can I be persuasive enough now so that when they're trying to choose a tax professional, that I'm the first one that comes to their mind, that it's already a no brainer, because I've been persuasive enough, or will they forget about me when the time comes?

And that applies to so many businesses when, you know, they may not be ready today, but when they're finally ready Are you the first person that comes to mind or have you just faded into oblivion?

David: Yeah, that's such a great point. And that really ties to the whole idea of branding, in addition to just selling, which we should actually do in a future podcast.

Maybe we'll do that in our very next podcast. In fact, that's a really good topic. But, when it comes to that, trying to determine what they actually need and whether or not we can deliver it, the best way to do it is simple. It's about asking them, finding out what they want, and then adapting it.

So if we assume we kind of know, or we think we know what they're likely to want, we can then ask them, is that your most important priority? And then they'll tell you yes or no. And if it is, Then great, you're on track.

And if it's not, they'll tell you something that you might not have heard before, at which point you can add that thing to your repertoire so that you can ask your next prospect, Hey, is this something else? is this something that is a concern for you? Is this something that you're trying to resolve as well? And, the more of those type of things that you get from different customers, it just makes you sound smarter and smarter with every person you talk to, because you develop this big list of potential issues they could be dealing with that they might not have even thought of.

And you never would have thought of them if you hadn't asked the other people that you talked to prior to that.

Jay: Yeah, I love it. And I will tell you two or three times a month, I find myself adjusting the questions that I'm going to ask. I have a list of them and oftentimes people are afraid to ask probing questions and I found it just the opposite.

I, before they even start, you know, before we even start the back and forth of how I can help them, I have a list of qualifying questions and I'm constantly working on that, constantly changing and updating based upon customer feedback.

David: Which is perfect. It's exactly what needs to happen. And you kind of ask yourself as you're going through that process, okay, what gets a response and what gets the best response?

What gets the most positive responses? What gets them most engaged? And each time you do that, when you've got that list and you're asking lots of different people, very similar questions, it's going to direct you to sort of what to say next and what to focus on.

Jay: Yeah. And the other power that we're finding is, I can market based upon answers to those individual questions, right?

When an idea comes up, I can go back to those questions and I could say, Let's zero in on this type of customer who was asking about this or who answered this way. And I'll tell you, David, because my systems are so much better now, I'll go back to a client back in December or November. And I'm like, crap, I wasn't asking this question back then.

And, so I can see how much I've evolved over the months.

David: Yeah, but that also gives you good fodder for follow up with some of those people. The ones that you didn't ask that question of originally, you can then go back to them and say, Hey, you know what? It just occurred to me, I don't think I ever asked you this.

And then you ask them the new question, and it's just another opportunity to get them engaged, and to eventually, you know, persuade them, or at least find out whether or not they are still worthy of persuasion, whether or not you want to continue to interact with them.

Jay: Yeah, and I think we've also talked about after the interaction.

Do they get some type of survey? Do you have an assistant who calls them back whether you close the deal or not? Hey, how was this interaction? Did we answer your questions? Those types of things. And certainly after the sale, you want to do that as well.

David: Absolutely. think also when we think in terms of creating persuasive communication, it's really important to consider the flow.

You know, what is the flow of the communication? In what order are you asking these questions and having these conversations? Are you leading with the pitch, right? Because if you're leading with the sales pitch, then that's not going to work well at all. In a previous podcast, you had mentioned the whole idea of if you go to a doctor and they start trying to get you to do stuff. You know, the diagnostic approach to sales, just like in medicine, is the same when it's done correctly.

It's you examine the patient first, examination, diagnosis, and then prescription. So we're asking those intelligent probing questions up front to make sure that we're on the right track.

We're then diagnosing the issue. We're saying, okay, based on what you told me, the problem you have is this, this, and this, is that correct?

And then once they've agreed to that, Then you can make your prescription and say, yes, listen, I have something that can help. Would you like me to explain what that is? And they're going to be a lot more likely to want to hear your answer than if you lead off with, oh yeah, I can help you and here's how much it'll cost.

Jay: Yeah, and I've got an idea for a future podcast as well, but I'll kind of bring it up here. I have this fear. Everybody's worrying about AI taking their jobs, artificial intelligence,...

When I think in terms of turning leads into loyal customers, what is that first contact? And I know we've talked about that in a number of podcasts. And then from there, what is the desired path that we want them to take with us, that we want to take with them, right? Without some sort of basic path to get from here to there, the likelihood of making that happen is pretty much slim to none.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing turning leads into loyal customers. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you, David. Such a great topic again. I love our conversations cause I learn so much and I feel like there's a tendency to say, okay, I got the lead. I closed them. Now I'm going to move on to the next lead.

And I think we would save ourselves a lot of time and money, if we were able to turn that customer into a returning loyal customer.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And you raised a great point because I was thinking in terms of just new leads that come in, turning them into loyal customers.

But I think what you pointed out is probably even more important, that we already got someone and we've already turned them into a customer. And now how do we make that customer more loyal to us?

I know in a lot of presentations that I've done over the years, I've talked about these sort of different layers of recognition in terms of what do people think about us? And I've often drawn it out like a target for archery practice. And outside the target is the area where it's total obscurity. They have absolutely no idea who we are or why they should do business with us. And at the center of the target, it's complete customer loyalty.

And you don't get from, "I don't know who you are," to "I'm completely loyal to you" in one step. It's got to happen in a series of actions. So what you're talking about there, you make that first sale. That doesn't even happen very often in the first contact. A lot of times it requires intelligent repetition of contact to even get to that.

We go from obscurity. I don't know who you are, to recognition, I recognize you, but I'm not sure if I love you yet, right? I don't know enough about you. To comfort, and then once we get to comfort, once they're comfortable enough with us to place that first time order, like what you were talking about, then they're going to see how we do.

And if we did well, they might give us another chance and come back again. And if we do well on that second one, they might come back and give us a third chance. And then As long as that continues to play out, that's going to lead to that level of loyalty, but it sure isn't likely to happen in one conversation or one transaction.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. But I kind of like where you started off, too, before we dive into that a little bit more. And that is thinking about making the loyal customer out of the lead . Where do you start? Because a lot of people are like, I can't make them loyal until they've purchased a product. That's not true, is it?

David: Well, I think if you recognize that when I attract a lead into my organization or when I'm even just trying to attract a lead into my organization, the goal is to turn that person into a loyal, longtime customer or client.

So when you start with that perspective, you become a lot more discerning about even the people that you're approaching. You have more skin in the game, because it's not just about, "hey, can I make a sale to pay my bills for today?" It's about, "do I want this person as a loyal customer?"

And this goes back to a lot of what we've talked about in previous episodes about qualification and that sort of thing.

But if we start out with the idea that we want to turn our leads into loyal customers, I think it positions us better, because it makes it more relational and less transactional.

Makes it more about creating the kind of relationship that will result in a loyal customer, as opposed to just making that sale.

Jay: Yeah, and I think first impressions are everything. When I first started out and I wasn't the best at returning calls, because I didn't have a good priority system, I had somebody say to me, "well, if this is how you treat potential customers, then that tells me a lot about how you treat existing customers. And so I'm going to find somebody else." And I'm like, "okay, wait a minute, I'm doing something wrong here!"

David: Ouch. Yeah. That's tough when that happens and it can happen to us, even when we think we're doing our best and when we're trying our hardest and we just miss something. That's a tough one when that happens.

So. It's another reason that being very conscious of what we're doing, what we're saying, how we're saying it, who we're saying it to, are all going to contribute to this idea of building in that loyalty.

You know, not all leads are created equal. If we attract five, six, 10 new leads into our business, they're all likely to be very different people in very different circumstances.

They're going to have some similarities, particularly if the product that you offer is very specific. But, the different personality things can be big, and the different goals can be big. Because if one person comes in and they're a perfect fit for what you do, and somebody else comes in and they're not quite a perfect fit, but you're thinking, well, they might be able to be a good fit, then a whole different level of communication and nurturing is necessary to see if that person is ultimately going to be the appropriate type of customer that you want to have in your business.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. And again, using technology and having systems, for example, before we would just have somebody leave a voicemail if they can't get me directly and I would call them back. It's not a good system.

So now on our website, they can schedule an appointment with me and that syncs with my calendar.

And when they schedule an appointment, it asks what would you like to discuss? So now I have a description ahead of time.

So I can go through my calendar at the beginning of the day. And I can prepare for those calls. And if there's somebody who doesn't fit perfectly, I can email them ahead of time and say, you know, this really isn't a service that we offer.

Something like that. So it clears up my schedule. I'm more prepared for the call and they feel like I'm providing an even better service.

David: Yeah. And it also brings up a great point, Which is context, having an understanding of what they want to talk about and how that fits in with what we're trying to accomplish.

Jay: Yeah, context is everything. I know ahead of time what that potential customer wants to talk about, and I can be super prepared for it. And I mean, come on, there just couldn't be a better situation than that than going into every single call blind.

David: Right. And then also thinking in terms of, you know, what does my nurture process look like once I brought that lead in the door?

What are the very specific things that I want to communicate to that person about what we do? And ideally, in what order do I want to communicate those things? What's the most important thing they need to know about what we do and the way that we do it?

And how can I communicate that in a way that is understood early on so that if they say, "Oh, that's not what I'm looking for," that you're not wasting your time or theirs.

Jay: Yeah, I love that word nurture. I don't know that I've thought about it in that regard, that I'm nurturing them along. Going back to the lead generation process, one of the things that drives me crazy is when people offer a free consultation, and it's really a free sales call, high pressure sales call.

When they have talked to my competitors and they got the sales call and then they land on me, I'm already ahead of the game because I'm not, they never feel like I'm a salesperson to them. And I think that's the beginning of nurturing, right?

I'm already establishing a different relationship with them than my competitors ever will.

David: Yeah. In our work, we frequently think in terms of creating value in our communications with prospects and clients. And a good way to short circuit that is to offer to help and then turn it immediately into a sales pitch.

In our conversations with clients, and we have conversations with prospects and clients all the time, we're very clear upfront that our goal in the conversation is to have a discussion to see if, or how we can help them to try to help them determine what's where they are now versus where they need to be in terms of visibility, sales and profits.

We'll make recommendations on how they can do that. And if, at some point into the conversation, it makes sense for us to talk about working together, we can have that conversation, but it's certainly not going to start out as, "okay, now that we're on the phone, you want to buy what I have to offer?" Because it's just a recipe for disaster.

And once again, It's contrary to the whole idea of qualifying the right people in and the wrong people out.

But even in the situations where when someone contacts us and they're not the best fit for what we do, our goal is to make sure that they get so much value from the conversation that when they hang up, they're like, wow, I'm really glad I did that because that person could then refer us to somebody who maybe is a better fit, and even if they don't, they're still going to feel good about us.

Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. And if you think you're going to build loyalty without finding out about that customer ahead of time, and that's the problem with jumping in to a sales pitch. If you haven't taken the time to find out who they are and address their needs specifically, that's like going to a doctor and they just jump right into their prescription pad or something and you're like,...

With strategic networking, you can make some initial decisions about who you think you'd like to target. Then it's a matter of saying, "okay, where do these people congregate?" Identifying exactly where they are. Are they online? Are they offline? Most likely they're doing both. But if they are online, where's the best place to find them? And a lot of times, particularly with social media, we just end up interacting with whoever we happen to be connected with. But if that part of it isn't strategic, if we're not connected with the people that we could actually potentially do business with, then we're wasting our ammunition.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the power of strategic networking. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I'm really glad we're talking about this because I think, you know, sometimes I think I'm great at networking, but there's not really any plan. There's not really any, like even down to storing information and how I'm going to follow up on it. I would not use the strategic word in what I'm doing.

David: Okay. And I think you're not alone. I know that I have struggled with exactly the same thing. And even when we were thinking in terms of topics for today's podcast, The Power of Strategic Networking. What does it even mean? Right? What does strategic networking even mean? And the way that I'm looking at it is basically that strategic networking means, not just anyone, right?

You're not just looking for anyone who can fog a mirror. You're looking for the people who are going to be best suited to you and what you have to offer.

I think a lot of us tend to stumble into networking situations, whether it's with a chamber of commerce or BNI group or online in different situations, we're online, we're interacting with people.

We consider it networking. But is it networking or is it just schmoozing? Is it just interacting with other people, or is it designed to get a positive result from a business standpoint? So I think if we start with that, the idea of strategic networking being that we're doing it for a specific result, which is to meet and interact with the type of people that we can ultimately do business with, then it becomes a whole different thing than just talking to people.

Jay: Yeah. Again, this is so important because we're always talking about maximizing your time, focusing on the things that only you should be doing. And if you're just out there collecting business cards and now you have to follow up on each one of those. individuals, you're going to be spinning your wheels a lot and that's going to cost you money and time in the short term and long term.

David: Yeah, especially if you're not quite sure what to do with those business cards. In other words, if you're just thinking, okay, I'm going to meet people, collect business cards, gather information, and then follow up with them. It's too generic. I mean, what does that even mean in terms of follow up? What does that even mean?

And so for our clients, one of the things that we stress a lot is the idea of getting them qualified in or out as quickly as possible.

I know so many salespeople who have engaged in networking that was you meet someone, you exchange business cards, and then you keep contacting them. You try to schedule an appointment to meet with them, to try to find out what they need and all that sort of thing without ever bothering to try to find out whether or not they're even a decent prospect for the products and services you offer.

And it can be a huge waste of time if, in fact, they are not.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. We talk about time wasting and I think that even applies to thinking about it before you go into a situation where you want to employ marketing. Like in my particular use case, just walking into a room full of business owners doesn't cut it because I have a very niche product.

And so I have to be really careful ahead of time so that I'm not wasting time.

David: Yeah. And when you have a very specific defined niche, it's actually quite a bit easier, as long as you take that into consideration and say, okay, well, who are these people? And where do these people gather and how can I best interact with them?

What do I need to say? How do I need to say it in a way that's going to generate results? And. I think that's what brings the strategic element to it. That's what brings the strategy to it, is just thinking in those terms. And I know in previous podcasts, we've talked a lot about the MVPs of marketing and sales.

What's the message I want to communicate? Which combination of marketing vehicles will I use to communicate the message? And then who are the people or prospects that I need to reach.

So if we think in those terms, then. The strategic part of it comes about from making sure that those three things line up.

Jay: Yeah. Talk a little bit more. So I've been strategic about how to get these leads. What would you suggest? I still have a stack of business cards. How do I prioritize them? How do I weed them out at that point?

David: Well, I think that really boils down to making sure that you've got a really good solid lead qualification procedure in place. And I tend to take the opposite approach of what most people do. I tend to try not to say, okay, it's my job now to sell everybody whose business card I've collected. I look at it from the other standpoint, which is to say, how many of these can I discard as quickly as possible?

How many of these people can I get disqualified as quickly as possible? Either they're not in my market as you talked about, if you've got a very specific market, it's easy to say, okay, well, this person doesn't fit in. I'm not going to follow up with this person. But if they are in your market, do they have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend?

Do they have the personality type that you even want to engage with? Because some people are just obnoxious, right? They're just awful. And Sometimes we even recognize this in a networking scenario and we follow up anyway. And I did that in the early stages and I'm like, why am I doing this? Because if they're bad now when they don't owe me money, how are they going to be when they do owe me money?

It's not going to be better.

Jay: Yeah. And I think a huge part of this is tracking, right? Because you're not going to know right off the bat. You can't just go into business and say, I'm going to know perfectly what type of lead I want. That takes time. That takes effort, whether it's keyword marketing or, you know, some kind of thing where in the conversation that you've had, you need to track those things so that you can get better and better at being strategic.

David: Yes. And I think what that means initially is, deciding who you want, having a reasonable idea of the types of prospects and clients you want. And you can break that out by, you know, what industry are they in? What level of business are they doing? What size business are they? How many employees do they have?

That type of thing. So you can make some initial decisions about who you think you'd like to target. Then it's a matter of saying, okay, well, where do these people congregate? Identifying exactly where they are. Are they online? Are they offline? Most likely they're doing both.

But if they are online, where's the best place to find them? And a lot of times, particularly with social media, we just end up interacting with whoever we happen to be connected with. But if that part of it isn't strategic, if we're not connected with the people that we could actually potentially do business with, then we're wasting our ammunition. We're putting out content to people who have absolutely no ability to utilize it to be able to potentially conduct business.

Jay: Yeah, such a great point. I think that especially when you're starting out, there's a fear that you might miss a potential sale, right? So it's kind of like some FOMO and I think it's important, you talked about having a good customer management system.

I think it's important to note you don't necessarily have to discard these people. You can just put them in a different category, like in a drip program or something like that. So you don't have to worry about the FOMO. They're still there. They're still getting contact from you, but you're not picking up the phone every time.

David: That's true. And even when there are people who you don't want to follow up with, I recommend keeping them in your contact management system as well. So you don't inadvertently go back to them. We've got notes in our system from people that we talked to who were just brutal They were absolutely awful. And in the past, we would discard people like that.

But then if they happen to wander back into your orbit and you don't have the notes on it, you could end up having more conversations with them. You're going like, this seems familiar. I don't really like what's going on here. But when you know that, when you've identified it, and somebody happens to try to come back and you look at the notes and you say, oh, okay, yeah, this person was really problematic before.

You can then decide how much energy and time and effort you want to put into trying to reestablish or. renew that relationship.

Jay: Yeah, I had this exact thing happen to me earlier today. I got a call from somebody who I had spoken to three months ago. At that time, I thought, oh, they're not interested.

They're not the ideal candidate. So I mark them as a long term drip, so that my system is constantly reaching out. She called me this morning and said, "I'm ready to move forward."

I'm like, oh no, I don't remember her name, but I went into my system, I had all the notes and information, and I closed the deal this morning.

So,...

There are a lot of people who aren't quite sure where they are with the whole business growth thing vs. just maintenance. Some people are content where they are. And if you're okay with just maintaining, then none of this applies to you. Right?

You're not required to grow your business if that's not where you're going. But there are so many people that I talk to that really want to do it. They want it to grow. They want it to be more than it is.

They want to be able to create better lives for themselves, for their employees, for their families, for everybody they impact. And they know they can't do it without growing. And when they use maintenance as an excuse, that's a tough one to overcome.

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing business growth versus just maintenance. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey David, once again, it is a pleasure to be here. And it's so funny, oftentimes we choose these topics and I'm like, "man, I am right in the middle of that!" So, again, I'm excited to discuss this with you.

David: Yeah, I think the reason that I wanted to talk about it, this came to mind fairly recently because I've had so many conversations with people, business owners primarily, small business owners for the most part, some sales managers, who say, "listen, I really need to grow this business. I need to grow my sales. I need to grow my profits. I need to make that happen now. This is a priority for me."

And then we talk about some of the incentives and we talk about some of the things that they're going to need to do. we talk about some of the steps they'll need to follow and nearly all of it is designed to save them time, save them money, generate more revenue, just make everything a whole lot easier and a whole lot better.

And one of the things that I find extremely frustrating is when I'm talking to someone like that, who then says, well, I really don't feel like I have time to implement this because I have so much that I'm dealing with on a daily basis, maintaining the business, essentially.

I'm busy doing this and I'm busy doing that. And I'm doing all these different things that are allowing me to stay just underwater, a little bit, where my nose is just barely peeking up and down above the water, but I don't have time to do the things that are going to get me out of the water and make sure that things are still functioning the way that they need to function.

So in most cases, I believe that growth is the solution to maintenance, but it doesn't work the other way around.

Jay: Yeah. What is it? Winning gets rid of all the stink or, you know, whatever. Winning is the best deodorant. That's what it is. Winning is the best deodorant.

David: That's true.

Jay: Yeah, you know, it's funny, this last year, I'm kind of reliving everything that you're talking about, because of our seasonality, we have times where we have to be all growth, all the time, we have this influx of customers. We can't be worried about maintenance at that moment, but then all of a sudden, it practically dies instantly, so now we're asking the question, "How do we maintain our current base?"

Because we want them to be back and so what maintenance things do we need to do? But not only that, what about the people who we talk to who might be interested in the future? Can we reach out to them on a regular basis?

So now that we've died down, we're talking about drip programs, we're talking about newsletters to our existing clientele.

So we're kind of in this process between maintaining, we still want to grow during this time so we can pay our bills. But we're really kind of in this mode where we're trying to do both, but a certain part of the year we can't do one. We just don't have time.

David: Right. Yeah, it's hard to grow when the business is just coming in. And in seasonal businesses like yours, that's particularly true.

We had a retail mail order catalog business and around the holiday season, that's when a lot of the business came in. And yeah, at that point, just struggling to maintain, but it's the growth that you accomplish in the non seasonal time of year, that is going to allow you to generate the extra revenue that will allow you to pay for the times when you are just maintaining and not growing.

And once again, with small businesses, this is particularly true. Because if we're not growing enough to accumulate extra revenue that will help us to get through the more lean times, then we're really going to have a problem.

So the growth aspect of it is necessary. And you raised a really valid point. It's not always possible at every point during the year, particularly in a seasonal business. But it has to be a priority whenever it is possible.

And when it's done correctly, it actually ends up saving time because it doesn't always take more time to make more money. And in fact, It shouldn't, right? When you get your processes dialed in, it takes less time.

And I've talked to people on the phone who are like, Hey, listen, I'd love to do your Total Market Domination program. I just don't have the time. I'm like, "if you don't have the time, that means that you need to do this because every hour you put into this is going to be two to three hours you're going to get back on any given day."

It's just, ridiculous , well, it's not ridiculous, because not everybody understands it. People can't always see it, but it's ridiculous to expect that when you get to a certain point of growth, that you're going to be able to grow more by pedaling faster. It's just not going to happen. You have to switch gears.

If you're on a bicycle, you got to switch gears and switching gears means some things have to change. Your inputs have to be worth more. They have to create better outputs. And that happens when you are not just changing the volume of things you're doing. It's not about doing more things. It's about doing everything you're doing better so that it produces better results.

Jay: Yeah. You're just speaking my language here. I'll tell you, there's two bad feelings in the world that really get me. The one is I have dissatisfied a customer and I know it was our fault.

You know, there's customers that you're never going to please. But when I know it's my fault, that is the worst feeling to me in the world.

The second worst feeling we experienced this last peak season is when the phone is still ringing, you know you have more sales to do, but you can't handle it. And you literally have to tell them, we're full.

A lot of people I know they're listening to this and they're like, "man, I just want to get some sales, right?" And that's a terrible problem too. But during our seasonal peak, we had to send a ton of people away.

But guess what? Every single place we had a bottleneck, I've got a notepad right here, I wrote it down. And so I have a list, a huge list, of things that we're going to now create during the off season.

Our expectation is that we'll be able to bring in twice the sales. We won't be adding any staff. We're just changing our system so that we can take in more people. That is a great feeling, to know that we're ready. Will we be completely ready? Of course not.

I'll have my notepad. Every year we're going to get better at this. We'll be able to take in more money. And so I have a lot of confidence moving forward, because I've learned exactly what you're talking about.

David: Yeah, and I think that maintenance is absolutely required. You have to be able to maintain a certain high level of service because your customers have to be able to expect that.

So when I talk about growth versus maintenance, I'm not saying don't do maintenance, right? I want to be clear about that. You have to do that. You have to be able to maintain that. But you also have to be able to grow.

Sometimes I talk to business owners who say, well, I'm doing all I can and I don't have money to hire anyone.

That to me is a screaming red flag. Because if you're putting in all these hours and you're doing all this work, and it's not generating significant enough profit for you to be able to hire the help you need, then there are a lot of things going wrong there.

And a lot of times when we schedule calls with people, when we have these strategy sessions with people, we can point to one simple thing that they can change, that will completely alter the trajectory of their business.

Because now it's not about trying to accomplish the impossible. It's about recognizing that simply by tweaking the way you're doing this, you can get a completely different output.

Jay: Yeah, you've identified a very important piece of the puzzle, and that is, you have to be open to change. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. What you've done, there are people like David, there are people out there, sometimes just a conversation with somebody is enough to open, even your mouth moving and articulating the problem causes your brain to start moving again.

It's those people who are so confident and prideful in their systems. They're the ones who are going to get bogged down.

Ask for help, seek guidance and opinions. Also do the same with your customers. Ask them, okay, especially the ones that are disgruntled you know, and you've lost the business. Would you take a minute and at least tell me, what you saw and where we fell down so that we can solve the problem?

Get it from everywhere and be open to it. Otherwise you're going to get stuck in a place where you can't do the maintenance. And when you can't do the maintenance, you're not going to grow. Right? Just that simple.

David: Absolutely. I think one of the other reasons that I wanted to talk about this topic is that I feel like there are a lot of people who aren't quite sure where they are with the whole growth thing. Some people are content where they are.

...

There are so many situations where inadequate product knowledge, damaged reputation, and inefficient or poorly executed sales processes come from having untrained salespeople.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the incredible cost of untrained salespeople. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, it's such a pleasure to be here, David. Sometimes I think I'm that guy. I'm the untrained salesperson. So, this will be very informative to me, I hope.

David: Okay. Well, you know, there's a difference between being untrained and untrainable. So, as long as you're trainable, that's a really big plus.

Jay: OK, I feel a little better.

David: No, I'm sure you're trainable, but untrained salespeople can really cause a great deal of harm to themselves, to their companies, to their prospects, to the businesses they're associated with.

It is really kind of epidemic and It's largely unnecessary. A lot of it comes from, particularly in small businesses an employers desire to delegate it quickly, to get it off their plate.

Like, "okay, I'm not doing this as well as I'd like. I better hire somebody else to do it." And they're hoping that that person is going to know how to do it.

And if you don't have protocols in place, like we talked about in our previous podcast, then of course that just makes it that much more difficult. But the biggest problems that people are likely to run into, the obvious ones are lost sales opportunities, right?

Cause I'm talking to somebody who could potentially buy, but I'm saying all the wrong things and I'm not positioning the company well, and I'm not finding the right needs that the people are actually looking for, and I'm saying the wrong things, there's no way that sales is going to happen.

It's a bad reflection on the salesperson and the company, and the prospect will walk away thinking that that company is not good at what they do because the salesperson did not do a good enough job of explaining what they do.

So, it creates a complete disconnect between what the business might be capable of and what the world is likely to think they're capable of. So that's a killer.

Poor communication is another one that when you have a salesperson who is not trained on what they need to ask, what they need to find out from the prospect, how they need to address those questions and issues, that defines poor communication, because they're just going to say whatever comes to their mind or they're going to say, "well, I have to find out, let you know."

Now there are situations in pretty much any sales scenario where that might be the case, where you don't have every single bit of information that they might need to know. So there will be situations where you might have to find something out.

But if it's happening more than a couple of times at any particular sales presentation, you might want to look at the process that you're using to make that happen.

The training that you have or have not received. Actually, this really does dovetail pretty well in our previous conversation about protocols. So if you're seeing this podcast and you didn't see that one, go back and watch that one as well because these things really tie together.

Jay: Yeah, a couple of things come to mind.

And the first is, how do you know you have an untrained salesperson? If they are not where you're at, if they're doing outside sales and they're sitting in somebody else's office, how do you know what they're saying and how they're interacting?

That can be very difficult. The second thing is if they're on the phone making those calls, how do you assess their situation there?

Like I said earlier, we have a system that records all phone calls coming in and out. So that's one way that we have to listen back to calls and give feedback. So maybe you have to go on those sales calls and listen. Maybe you have to have a hidden microphone, I don't know what it is, but there's two problems that you get with untrained salespeople.

The first is it'll be hard to keep salespeople. Because if they're untrained, they're not going to perform. And if they don't perform, they're not going to make money. They're not going to make money. They're not going to be there.

And you may have a lot of potentially good salespeople, but they're not getting any coaching. They don't have protocols. They're not getting training. And so you may be burning through salespeople when really, It's on you instead of on them.

David: Yeah, and it definitely happens that way quite a bit. The first way you can know whether or not you have an untrained or a well trained salesperson is you can ask yourself, how well did I train this person? Right?

Did I train this person? Right? Because a lot of times if we're not training people and they're going out and they're not doing a great job, we can assume that it either means that they are untrained or that they were trained poorly from their previous experience.

And as business owners we have to make decisions about how we want our business represented in the marketplace. Because the human beings who represent us in the marketplace, these salespeople, if they are not really crystal clear about what our organization is all about, what we do, how we do things, then they're just not going to be able to perform at the level that we need them to perform at.

So if you're wondering if they're untrained, they probably are, right? Because that means that you didn't do a good enough job of training them. I think recording phone conversations for sales managers, I think that's an excellent thing to do.

When I worked in radio, when I was a teenager, one of the things that they required us to do is something called an air check,

Jay: Oh!!

David: Where... yeah, you worked in radio too, that's right. You know about this. So what would happen, and sometimes they tell you they were doing it and sometimes they wouldn't, but basically they had this setup rigged that when you would flip the microphone switch on, an audio cassette would start rolling. This is a long time ago. And it would start recording what you were doing.

So it would only record when you were talking. So you're talking over the beginning of a song or whatever. It's just going to record that portion. And then. What they would do as an extra treat is the program director would invite you into his or her office to share with you what you did the night before, the day before, or whenever they recorded this thing, when you didn't know you were being recorded.

And you got to hear just the essence of what you're doing. Now, when you're on the radio and you're playing songs, you're having a vibe and everything like that, that's great.

This doesn't include any of the vibe. It's you, you, you, you, you in these separate little things. Did you perform or didn't you? Did you do the weather at the time you were supposed to do the weather or did you not?

Did you do your top of the hour station ID at the top of the hour? Did it happen at 10 after? You know, all those different things. And it created accountability. And I think that's necessary in most sales situations.

I mean, there's accountability for results, right? And a lot of companies do this. Okay, you're required to generate X amount of sales in a month, right? That's your quota or whatever. But that's one of those lagging indicators, right? That's a lagging metric. That's the result.

What can you help that salesperson with before that happens? With the presentation, with the targeting, with the what to say and how to say it, the elements that need to be included in a presentation?

When you get that part of it dialed in, then the numbers will likely flow correctly. When you focus on the outcome rather than the how to get there, it's like saying, get me to Detroit without a map. You know, you need a map.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, you just, you made me feel sick. I was in talk radio for 20 years and we had to do air checks once a week, and that's the least favorite part of my entire existence.

Because they just randomly pick. They're like, okay, and it's all recorded digitally, so they're like, all right. Just pick this segment, come in and listen to yourself and then be critiqued on what you did. Oh, it's the worst.

David: Yeah, that's brutal.

Jay: Absolute worst. But...

David: Yeah, we were doing like 15 seconds at a time. So...

Jay: Oh man, no...

David: Yeah, that was easy.

Jay: We'd listen to about 15, 20 minutes and I'm just like, "ohhhh." And then I'm typically being judged by somebody who didn't know the topic, didn't know the show prep we did, didn't know where I was going.

Ugh, but you're right to liken that to sales. Because if your salesperson is not getting any feedback, then they're going to keep doing what they're doing. And there may be just one little thing that they're doing, that if you could tweak that, all of a sudden the floodgates will open. Could be that simple.

The other part of this though, is if you don't do this, you're never going to realize that you might just have somebody who's not meant for sales. Because not everybody is, and sometimes they need the money, times are hard, so yes, I'll take a sales position.

But they're not good for sales, and so if that's the case, and you're sending somebody out there representing your product, and they're doing a horrible job, that's not good for them, and it's not good for your company.

David: Yeah, absolutely. I think there are so many situations where things like inadequate product knowledge, damaged reputation, inefficient or poorly executed sales processes, all these things come from having a salesperson that is not well trained.

And as you know, I do a lot of work in the promotional products industry, printers and promotional products professionals,...

A lot of the people that I work with now are exceptional at what they do, but they may struggle to get other people in their organization to be able to do it, because they haven't codified the success protocols that would allow them to say, "okay, this is how we perform this task. This is how we do this. This is how we do that." And when they start doing that, they're just amazed at how far their people can come so quickly.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing your protocols for success. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, it's such a pleasure to be here with you again. This may be a situation where I want to sit back and listen to you a little bit because I know you have a lot of experience and coming up with these protocols and things like that.

So I'm just going to say hit me and I'll see if I can learn something here.

David: Okay. Well, when I talk about protocols for success, we talk a lot about systems and processes and the work that we do with our clients. And if you want to be able to create consistent results in your business, you need to have these things in place.

Protocols is another term for it. But the reason I like the word protocols is that it sort of establishes the fact that these things aren't optional. This is what we're doing. This is how we're doing it in this organization. And when you approach it like that, everything gets a lot easier because you don't have to make a hundred different decisions now.

It's like, I know what the process is. I simply need to follow it. If you're veering from it, you know it. If you're on it, you know it. And so does everybody else. People who don't like accountability will not like that. But people who do like accountability will know, Hey, listen, I followed this procedure to the letter and this didn't work.

And then you can talk to the person that you're working with to have them explain, okay, well maybe this protocol needs to be changed or updated.

It's almost like a baseline. Most people need to start with some sort of baseline protocol that they're going to say, okay, this is how we do this.

This is how we perform this particular task. And then you have a number of people do it and they follow the protocol or they don't. If they follow it and they get a comparable or consistent result, great. That's a good protocol. If five different people try it and they get five different results and they all follow the protocol, you have a problem with your protocol.

You need to clarify, you need to identify, okay, what are the problems with each of these steps? And I need to tweak that so that when I hand it to five different people, they can all get a similar result. That's the nutshell version.

Jay: Hmm. You know, this is something that's so critical. I think a lot of managers miss this point.

Managers are afraid to hold people to the protocol or hold them accountable, and they don't realize that this actually robs your staff from feelings of success. Because if you don't have a baseline, and the baseline is basically when they fall before it, it's not a matter of getting mad at them, it's a matter of saying, okay, what was wrong with the protocol first?

And if the protocol is good, then we probably have a training issue, right? So that's underneath the expected line. But above the line means that they met the line or they did better. That's the only way you're going to feel success. If there is no line, I promise you, your employees will never feel like, man, we did it.

Because you never put a baseline on it. So that's, to me, how you consistently make people happy. And that's why I like the word protocol over accountability, because accountability always sounds negative to people.

David: Yeah. I mean, accountability is basically, did you follow the protocol or not? The protocol is the list of steps saying this is how we accomplish this task.

And there are probably a lot of people watching this video or listening to the podcast who have worked in a sales organization where their entire training regime consisted of "dial nine for an outside line," back when people were working in offices with switchboards and things like that, right? That was it.

That's not a protocol, that's a free for all. And the big difference between a protocol and a free for all is that free for alls create wildly inconsistent results and protocols create more consistent results.

It's not perfect. It's never going to be perfect. But as long as you've got a protocol that provides a reasonable degree of certainty, in terms of the outcome that they're desiring, you're going to be in much better shape.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And you said it's never going to be perfect, but it should be always improving, right? So when we see something happen, we find out, was it a person problem or was it a protocol problem?

I believe 95 percent of the time it's going to be a protocol problem, but instead, we always look for the person to blame, right?

Whose fault was it? That's the worst way to handle it, in my opinion. You look for what happened. And I'll tell you, we did this this year. I spent six months last year, preparing for our peak season.

We have four months of absolute madness. And I built my systems and I was so proud and I'm like, we're so ready to go in.

And that system fell apart within days. And I was so proud of it. So I took notes on every step. I'm like, here's where we're going to change this. Some changes we could make midstream. Other things we were stuck with until the offseason when we can fix them.

But I'm always taking notes. How do we improve here? How do we improve here? And the protocols did affect people because I wasn't prepared. Now they're not prepared. And now that goes to my customers. with a feeling of not being prepared. We're talking about mission critical stuff here.

David: Yeah, you raised so many great points . there's a great old war quote, It basically says no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

And so when we put together protocols like that in your business, you're putting it together based on what you know and the things you're thinking about at the time when you're putting together that protocol, right?

And so it's like, yeah, this is great. This is basically what I would do. But unfortunately, until you get that in front of a prospect to be able to hear what they're going to be able to say, you don't have the feedback to be able to update, adapt, and modernize that plan so that it takes into account what happens when they go this way instead of that way.

The advantage of a business plan is we say, we know where we're going. But the disadvantage of a business plan is that everybody we interact with has different places they're going.

And so we have to provide for that in the contingencies. You also raised a great point where you were talking about how people tend to blame the people first rather than blaming the protocols.

So naturally, if I write protocols, I prefer to think it's not my fault, right? But the reality of the situation is that it's pretty binary. It's pretty easy to know if it was the protocol or if it was a person, if you've got systems in place for tracking.

Jay: Yes.

David: So if you are recording phone calls and you've got bullet points that need to be hit, if those bullet points were all hit, then it wasn't the salesperson if that person hit all those points. And on the reverse side, if they didn't hit all those points, okay, well, then it's not a protocol problem. Then it's a problem with the person who's doing that work.

So it can be easy to track if we make sure that we have those things in place.

Jay: Yeah. And then the worst case scenario is you don't have protocols. Something happens and what is your option? You only have one option and that's to lay into the employee. You didn't tell them, you didn't tell them what the standards are.

You probably didn't train them very well because you don't have protocols. And so your only choice is, "why did you do this? How can you?" And I think we've all worked in that situation.

And what you create is an employee, a staff member, who doesn't feel like they can ever win. Because the only time they're going to hear from you is when it's negative.

That person is going to slip into what I call minimum expectations mode. In other words, I'm going to fly under the radar. I'm going to do as little as possible to keep my check. Because I know I'm going to get beat up anyway. So it's the worst way to de incentivize people.

David: Yeah. And I would say the majority of businesses that I've known and worked with and worked for in the past, did not have anything close to the kind of protocols that are necessary to create a consistent result.

A lot of the people that I work with now, my clients, they are great at what they do, they're exceptional at what they do, and they struggle to get other people in the organizations to be able to do it, because they haven't sort of codified those protocols that would allow them to say, "okay, this is how we perform this task. This is how we do this. This is how we do that."

And when they start doing that, they're just amazed at how far their people can come so quickly.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I would think maybe 60, 70, 80 percent of my time with my partner, we're talking about protocols. We're talking about how we're going to do this better, even down to the types of forms we have, how we collect information, when we start doing certain types of work.

Fortunately he's a systems guy too, so we get along really well. A lot of people are not systems people, so this is a very foreign concept to them.

David: Yeah, it's a plus. It's a real big plus when you're both on the same page. Even if you're not both systems people, if at least you're both on the same page about t

Indecision comes with a high price. I think most of us in business try to make the best decisions possible, but really it becomes a matter of saying, "okay, do I have all the information I need?" And if I do, then make the decision. Say yes, say no, but make the decision.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I are back with a talk on the high price of indecision. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here. And I think this is something that we all suffer with, especially in a new business, just knowing what you should do.

What are your priorities? How can you tell that? Paralysis by analysis is very common.

David: Yeah, no question. And I think some people are more wired to be decisive while others are more wired to be indecisive.

If you're decisive, dealing with indecisive people is extremely frustrating.

And if you're indecisive, dealing with decisive people can feel a little intimidating. So it's a challenge.

Jay: Yeah. And I think sometimes you need both. I mean, if you're sitting around waiting to make a decision. You could miss the perfect opportunity, right? But if you move too fast, you're probably not going to be prepared for that situation.

So we got to find balance in the force here. How do we do that?

David: Great question. Yeah. I think missed opportunities is definitely the first thing we tend to think of when it comes to indecision. But if we're trying to find balance in the force, then that would also mean talking about, well, should decisive people do anything differently?

And my guess is that's kind of a quick one. My guess would be to say, all right, if you think you're too decisive, then maybe you need to take a step back, aand consider things a little more. But in business, wow, it's much more detrimental in most cases, in my opinion, to be indecisive. And there's a great quote from Tom Watson that says:

"Solve it. Solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solve it wrong, it will come back and slap you in the face, and then you can solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business."

So there are lots of schools of thought on this. The bottom line for most of us is that you're better off making a decision, because if it's the wrong decision, you'll find out sooner, and then you can change it and make a better decision.

If it's the right decision, then you're already past the point where you would have been if you were still putting it off.

Jay: Yeah, I think part of this though is to be decisive, but to be informed in your decisiveness.

If you don't have good tracking of what's going on, like, we were decisive before, and this is how we learned, and we tracked it, and so next time we can move faster because we have some knowledge, we have some key performance indicators, those things are going to help our decisions go faster, and we're going to be more confident in those decisions.

Because for me, sometimes when I feel like we've acted too soon, I'm not at my best. I'm hesitant because I'm hoping it's going to work, but I'm not sure that there's anything backing it up.

David: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think you also sort of raised an interesting point, which is the difference between informed decisions and uninformed decisions, right? I don't think decisiveness means just making up your mind without having all the facts.

I'm saying basically, if you've got all the facts and you're failing to decide, that to me is indecisiveness. If you've got all the facts and then you ARE deciding, that to me is decisiveness.

But I completely agree with you. If you don't have all the information then it's too soon to make a decision. But in sales situations, a lot of times salespeople struggle because the people they're talking with don't have all the information.

They don't want to take the time to even gather all the information and they decide "no" before they have enough information to even make that sort of decision.

That's frustrating from a sales standpoint. So for us as salespeople, it's incumbent on us to let them know, "Hey, listen, are you sure you want to make this decision based on the limited information you have?"

And if they do, then, maybe they're not the ideal prospects for us.

Jay: Yeah, I do a lot of sales now. I'm the front man for our company and I'm learning all of these things, especially a lot of things I've learned from the podcast that we do. And a lot of times when a customer has said something to me, I hear something in my head, "you know, you really should do this now."

And then I'm like, "Oh, do I want to chase the customer away? Is this the right moment?" You know, they say something to me and it's a moment to say, "no, this is why our services deal with exactly what you're saying," and to be very decisive in my response. That's going to make me look more confident and more knowledgeable to the potential client.

The other way around, if I'm hesitant, it's like, "does this guy really know what he's talking about?"

David: Yeah, exactly. And I think when we have a better idea of the facts than our client or a prospective client does, we owe it to them to say, "Hey, listen, here's what I think you might be missing."

Ultimately it's going to be their decision anyway. But I do think that we have a responsibility to point out, "Hey, look, yeah, you can do this three months from now. You can do this six months from now. You can do this next year, but what's happening in the meantime?"

And it's particularly frustrating. I had a situation recently where I was talking to someone who is in a situation where they need to grow their sales.

They were lacking the money they needed to make a decision that they wanted to make, and they decided instead that they were going to spend their money on something that was not going to produce any ROI for them for the foreseeable future. They felt like they had to get their ducks in a row before they could make the decision to do the thing that would allow them to generate the money that would allow them to pay somebody else maybe to get their ducks in a row, you know what I mean?

It's frustrating, but these conversations are necessary. And when we're dealing with indecisive people, I don't think the goal is to bully them or try to convince or cajole them into making a decision that is not in their best interest.

But if we can see clearly that it IS in their best interest, and we don't convey that to them, we allow them to go do something that is very likely going to be detrimental to them, then that's on us.

Jay: Yeah, and I think a lot of that comes down to believing in your product. If you really think your product is going to help them, then you can be decisive in what you tell them. You can honestly say, look, you really need to do this now because it's going to help you get closer to your goals.

In my case, I can say, if you don't do this now, you're going to guarantee to lose money because I deal with taxes. And you're close to guaranteeing you're going to hear from Uncle Sam soon because of how you're doing it.

I'm not hyping it up. I'm not lying. Those are absolute truths. And as you said, I am doing them a disservice if I don't let them know those things. So in those things, I'm very decisive.

David: Yeah, and I think most of us in business try to make the best decisions possible, but really it becomes a matter of saying, okay, do I have all the information I need? And if I do, then make the decision. Say yes, say no, but make the decision.

There are some people who want to sleep on it and then they wake up the next morning and they had a good night's sleep, but they're nowhere closer to a decision because they haven't actually said to myself, okay, I'm going to think about what I heard. I'm going to make the call and I'm going to announce it tomorrow. Right?

Because then everybody's on the same page. I understand where you are. You understand where I am. If we're moving forward, great. If we're not moving forward, at least we both know it. There are a lot of indecisive people who can convince themselves that they're going to do something in the near future or the not too distant future.

And they really had no chance of doing it because they're just not set up to do it.

Jay: Yeah. And this is something I struggle with. They're on the phone. I've got them excited. They're telling them they need it. And they're like, okay, when we get off the phone, I'll sign up. And then I can't tell you how many of those I've lost because I got them psyched up and the minute they got off the phone.

Let's say they were a hundred at excitement. When they hang up the phone, they're now at 95. A couple of hours pass, now they're here. And then oftentimes they're like, okay, I wonder if I can find a cheaper price. And it all comes from the fact that I couldn't close them when they were at the highest point.

And the reason I couldn't do that is I wasn't decisive. I wasn't confident to just say those words. And those words are the hardest to me, okay? Let's get you signed up right now. Here's how you do it. That's the final step I'm still working on.

David: Yeah. And I think we don't want to be in a position where we're trying to push them. You have to do it now. You have to do it now.

Because the honest truth is they don't have to do it now. But if it's to their advantage to do it now, then they really should. Why put it off? Why put it off for a week or a month or a year, if they can start getting the benefits right away.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. Any other things they can do to get over paralysis by analysis?

David: Well, some of it is just recognizing it, recognizing that, okay,...

Particularly in the early stages, breaking through a sales plateau may just mean doing more of what you're doing. But generally, at some point, we hit a plateau that is created by the fact that we can't run any faster. We can't do any more by ourselves.

So we either need to implement new procedures and new processes, we need to get some help, or something needs to change fundamentally in the business in order to get us to that next level.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of breaking through your sales plateau. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: It's so good to be here again with you David, and as always, I'm very excited about this topic. I know businesses that hit these thresholds. It can be a monumental task to get to the next level and they're not sure how to do it. Is it, is it marketing? Is it adding new products? I think that's what a lot of them try to do. They're like, well, let's add 10 more products to the lineup and then we'll do it. And oftentimes that can just make the situation worse and not better.

David: Yeah, it's true. Most businesses, I think it's safe to say, at some point run into some sort of plateau. They hit a level of sales and they can't get past it. I believe in small businesses this is particularly true, where you're just working and pushing and you're trying to get to that next benchmark. And you just can't reach it.

And there are thresholds, I believe in small business, getting to your first hundred thousand in gross sales and then your first 250, and then you hit 500 and then a million and then 2 million and going from there.

And in the early stages, you can generally do pretty well, like to get from a hundred thousand to 250 is often easier than it is to get from a million to 2 million.

But most of us, at some point, will encounter some sort of sales plateau. You get there, you see it, you're targeting it, you're working toward it and you just can't seem to hit it.

And so it's really just a matter of getting stuck. It's like, I feel like I'm stuck and I'm here and I need to be here and I'm not sure what to do next.

Jay: Yeah. And I wonder how much of it is that they're not really sure how they got to the first plateau. I mean, they may think that they know,

David: That's true.

Jay: But it could be something completely different. And this could go back to something we talked about in a previous podcast: following up with your customers.

Find out why they purchased, how they feel about their purchase. Are they returning customers? Are they not returning customers? So if you didn't understand why they bought in the first place and how they felt about that purchase, it's going to be hard breaking through that next plateau.

David: It is, absolutely. And the biggest hangup that I see for most people is not knowing, "what do I do next?"

And as you indicated, people get to a certain point in some cases, they're not sure how they did it. What's that referred to as? Unconscious competence?

Jay: Mm-hmm,

David: Where I'm doing things and it's working, but I'm not even sure of what I've done. So I haven't gotten around to building a system around it to put that into place so I can replicate it.

But there's also the idea that what gets me to here will not necessarily get me to here. Right? So what gets me to level one won't necessarily get me to level two.

That's not always the case, particularly in the early stages, you can do more of what you're doing to get to a higher level. But generally, at some point, we hit a sales plateau that is created by the fact that we can't run any faster. We can't do any more by ourselves.

So we either need to implement new procedures and new processes. Or we need to get some help. Or something needs to change fundamentally in the business, in order to get us to that next level.

Jay: Yeah, something that can be very hard for people, delegation, right? Letting go of your baby, right?

David: Yeah.

Jay: That you worked so hard on. And now you're going to trust some new employee with some new aspect. It's not easy to hand those things over. But often, if you're not willing to do it, you're not going to grow.

David: That's true. And some people don't want to. Some people are like, okay, look, I don't want to have employees. I'm comfortable with the way things are. And if they are, then that's fine. If they want to get to another level of sales though, then it's really going to be a lot more about processes.

If you're determined not to get additional help, at least in terms of human resources, then you're going to have to figure things out in terms of either technological resources or being able to do more of what you need to do so that you can get to the levels you want to reach.

So in looking at getting stuck, at hitting a sales plateau that you can't reach, one of the first things I would suggest is that we ask ourselves, okay, what's causing this? Am I just not able to get enough customers?

In other words, could I handle more business, but I either don't know how to do it, or I'm not successful in doing what I know?

Or I'm doing what I know and it's not working? Because if that's the issue, if it's just a matter of getting more clients, there are very specific things that we can do to make that happen.

On the other hand, if we've got a lot of clients and we feel like we can't keep up with the clients we have, then that is certainly going to prevent us from getting to the next level. Unless we can either leverage things so we can get more from the clients we have without having to add more or we figure out how to get some help, depending on our willingness to want to do that.

Jay: Yeah. And, an important one, can we take our existing clientele and get them to come back? We've talked about this before, right. You know,

David: mm-hmm.

Jay: It's going to be easier to get an existing customer to repurchase if they were satisfied and if that's your type of product. Some products are one and done, and that's just the way it is.

But if you can have a product where they're like, I like this, I need more of this. I want to come back for this... having systems to remind them to come back, drip, programs and those types of things, to get them to be a return customer. That could be the biggest source of your income. And you're not spending extra money to acquire new customers.

David: Exactly. And when we get to a point where we know we want to be somewhere, and we're not quite there, identifying what that biggest bottleneck is, is one of the most important things.

There's a big distinction between the idea of potential, where I could potentially be, and what's keeping me from getting there. And a lot of people focus on the idea of adding more potential.

Well, maybe if I add this or I add this, or I add this, I add all these different things for the potential of getting to where I want to be. And instead, to get past that, what they really should be looking at is "what is the bottleneck?"

What is the single biggest contributor to the fact that I'm not there yet? What is the one primary thing that is preventing me from getting past that?

Is it the people? Is it the customers I'm interacting with? There are a lot of businesses who, if they want to reach their sales levels, they're going to have to jettison some customers who are not spending as much money with them.

A lot of times, low-dollar, low-profit clients who take up a lot of time, who are very demanding, can take up valuable time that could be spent with people who understand and appreciate better, the value that you bring to the table.

So if it is a situation where you don't want to add staff, then you're going to have to be extremely selective, going back to another point we raised in a previous podcast, about the people that you bring in the door to begin with. The prospects and clients that you choose to interact with.

Jay: Yeah, and in that case, you're going to have to have a system to identify what type of customer they are, classify them and then figure out is this the type of customer that we want?

If it is, then you're going to want to target them and focus more on them. If it's not, then you're going to kind of want to let them slowly disappear so that you can focus on the ones that you want.

David: Yeah. And I think for a lot of us, if you've been in business for any length of time, you have a favorite customer or two. And so a really easy exercise you can do is take a look at those customers and say, okay, what do they have in common?

What is it that I like about them? Is it their attitude? Is it the way they communicate? I mean, communication is huge.

One of the very first things that will tell you if you've got a problem client is their unwillingness to communicate. If they're not communicating the way that you need to have them communicate in order to fulfill an order or get the work done, that is a relationship that's really in trouble.

And, in hindsight, every time I've had, in business, a relationship that didn't work out, it almost invariably came down to a problem with communication. Where the person that I was trying to help was not willing to communicate enough to allow me to do that. And in today's society, in today's economy, we refer to the term "ghosting," where you're trying to reach somebody and they're not getting back to you.

And that's a bad sign. When people do that to you consistently, you need to ask yourself, okay, is this the type of client that I really want to continue to interact with on an ongoing basis? Or am I better served to find clients who are open, and willing to engage, and responsive, so that we can do the things that we're setting out to do together?

Jay: Yeah, I love that. And also the customer who is responsive to your suggestions and ideas....

From a sales mindset connection standpoint, market domination starts with the idea that it's possible. And if you're not sure that it's possible, ask yourself this, your very best clients. When they think about who to go to for the products and services you offer, who do they think about?

Obviously, if they're your very best clients, it's you. They're thinking about you. So you've already achieved a level of mindset or market domination with your very best clients. That demonstrates that it can be done. So then it's a matter of saying, okay, well, how can we do this with other people?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Bianca Istvan and I will be discussing the topic of the sales mindset connection. Welcome Bianca.

Bianca: Thank you so much, David. Very happy to be here with you. And I'm just curious, what do you say to people who think mindset is woo-woo?

David: Yeah, there are a lot of people who feel that way. To some extent, I've been one of them. And in fact, Bianca is our newest addition to our team here at Top Secrets. She and I actually met in a clubhouse group years ago, and we were talking about the idea of mindset there.

And I said, well, I'm not really all that much into mindset. Most of my training is about the specifics of what to do. And Bianca said to me, well, I don't think so. Everything you talk about is pretty much mindset related. And I didn't realize it at the time, but it really kind of opened my eyes to the fact that, yeah, a lot of what we do, even though it's not geared to be about mindset, is about mindset.

So the whole woo-woo thing really kind of touches a nerve with me because I felt that way in the past. It's like, oh, mindset, well, no, you just need to do the stuff. But the reality of the situation is that if you don't have the right mindset, if you're not willing to take the necessary actions, then you're not going to be able to get there.

So it seems to me there's always a mindset element that has to be there, whether or not you really want to think about it.

Bianca: That's so true. And you know, for me, it's great to see that. I mean, you have this ability to connect with people on another level and that's, you know, congrats to you for having this mindset. Fantastic.

David: Well, thanks. And so do you. And that's actually how we started communicating was in this clubhouse group and so when we connected again recently, I just thought it would be so great to have you on our team because I know that that's an important aspect of what you do and your communication with people has been great.

So I'm really glad we've been able to put this together. But for most salespeople, it seems to me that mindset may be in the back of their mind. They may be thinking about it, but for the most part, they're probably just thinking, How do I make this next sale? How do I make this next contact? And so while I don't think you have to spend a ton of time thinking about mindset every day, just recognize that if you don't at least have it going on somewhere in the back of your mind, you're probably not going to do the work you have to do in order to get it started.

Bianca: Yeah, that's so right. And I know you talk a lot about the first contact and what that means, but please tell me, you know, why do you think the mindset is so important when having the first contact with your potential client?

David: Well, first contact is difficult for a lot of people, and a lot of people think of first contact as just being cold calls. And that's one example of first contact. And in those situations, mindset is really hard for some people. J just the idea of the fear of picking up the phone is an issue for people, which is all a mindset thing.

If they can't get past that, if they can't Overcome the mental blocks that are involved in having to pick up the phone and initiate contact with a stranger, then it's definitely going to impact them. But it doesn't just mean for cold calls. Some people feel the same way about a social media post. I'm posting something, I'm kind of afraid to put it out there, I'm a little nervous about it.

And until you get to the point where you can get your mindset working for you, you're not going to be successful with it. It reminds me of that quote from William Shakespeare, who said, Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. And what that means to me is that if we're afraid to do things, we're not going to take the actions, and then it's impossible to get the results because you're not taking the actions.

Bianca: Wow. With that, I have another question. I think that's important for people to hear as well. Like what are the mindset aspects of the Total Market Domination program? So what's the secret?

David: That's a fun one. Total Market Domination, because some people hear that title and they're like, that sounds crazy. That sounds like too much. It's over the top or whatever. But there is definitely a mindset associated with market domination. For some people, it is crazy. It's like, oh, market domination, I want to take over the world.

That's not what we're talking about when we refer to market domination. What we're talking about is creating an environment in which your very best prospects for the products and services you offer, Know who you are and know what you do so that they can make a thumbs up or thumbs down decision about whether or not they want to do business with you.

That's it. Because if they have the ability to do that, then you at least have a shot at the business. And to me, market domination doesn't mean that you get all the business because no one gets all the business. But what it does mean is that they know enough about you that they at least know that you do what you do so they can potentially choose you.

If they don't know that, if you haven't created that awareness, then you can't dominate anything. And in every market, there are winners and losers. There are leaders and followers. And the leaders are those who are creating that awareness among the people in their market who need to be able to buy from them.

And the followers are those who are just watching what everybody else does and then trying to take action on that.

So from a mindset standpoint, market domination for me starts with the idea that It's possible. And if you're not sure that it's possible, ask yourself this, your very best clients. When they think about who to go to for the products and services you offer, who do they think about?

Obviously, if they're your very best clients, it's you. They're thinking about you. So you've already achieved a level of mindset or market domination with your very best clients. That demonstrates that it can be done. So then it's a matter of saying, okay, well, how can we do this with other people? How can we do this with total strangers?

Or how can we do this with people who may have heard of us before, but who have never really taken on action on anything that we did?

Bianca: Wow, I'm actually goosebumped, you know, and hearing your answer because it's so important when you work with someone, especially, you know, to connect with them just beyond of the professional level and to work with the mindset as well.

And what's the best way for people to reach out to us? I think that would be my last question.

David: Yeah, well, best way to go is to go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with us, and let's figure out exactly where you are in terms of being able to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish.

Some of it may be mindset, which we can certainly address, but a lot of it may be the specific actions that you're either taking or not taking that need to create that awareness among the people that you're looking to reach. So if you're looking for help, TopSecrets.com/call, and we look forward to talking with you.

Bianca: Likewise. Thank you so much.

David: Thank you, Bianca.

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