If you’re not generating the level of sales you’re capable of in your business, the real cost of inadequate sales is a lot more than you think.

And it’s not just the cost of the sales you’re missing out on.

When you operate a business that consistently generates inadequate sales, revenue, and income, you’re effectively starving your business of the oxygen it needs to survive. Inadequate sales chokes a business, stifles its growth and can threaten its survival.

So today, let’s take a look at some of the real costs of inadequate sales in your business.

Generating significant sales in your business, or at the very least “adequate” sales is critical for many reasons.

First and foremost is the financial stability necessary for survival.

When you generate significant sales, it gives you the stability necessary to cover all your operational expenses, pay your vendors, pay your people, invest in growth, and make sure the business remains sustainable in the long term.

Your sales growth directly impacts your overall business growth, which allows for reinvestment, product development, expansion into new markets, and hiring additional talent.

It also gives you an edge that many competitors find hard to overcome.

In previous podcasts, we discussed the concept of moving from Stealth Mode to Intimidation Mode, and this depends on your ability to attract, qualify and convert more clients than your competitors.

Inadequate sales makes it nearly impossible to build infrastructure or even attract investors who could help you make it happen.

When you’re generating adequate sales and stable revenue, you can build effective processes, improve productivity, and negotiate better terms with everyone from your suppliers and vendors, to your lenders and potential partners.

It contributes to a stable work environment by giving you the ability to hire, motivate and retain the right people.

And whether you’re a small business or even a solo entrepreneur with no desire to add a lot of people or build infrastructure, having adequate sales, along with the processes necessary to be able to generate them consistently, will ultimate determine how much your business is worth.

...because no one wants to buy a business that’s unable to generate adequate sales and revenue. And most solo entrepreneurs don’t really want to run that kind of business themselves.

So regardless of your growth plans, adequate sales are key.

With all that said, some small business owners figure that even if they’re not generating adequate sales right now, it’s no big deal. They’ll figure it out eventually, or get around to it at some point.

As a result, they can plod along for weeks, months or even years bringing in just enough revenue to make themselves either mildly comfortable or not quite uncomfortable enough to do what it takes to generate the sales they need to run a fun, exciting, sustainable business.

And shouldn’t that be the goal? If it’s not fun, lucrative, or ideally both, then what’s the point? If you just want to earn a steady paycheck, you can do that with a regular job.

So if you’re still with me, let’s take a look at just Three of the Real costs of inadequate sales:

Real cost #1. Lost revenue. This is the obvious one. If you’re not generating adequate sales, then you are losing out on revenue every business day. Some people don’t think of money that they didn’t make as being lost.

But isn’t it, though?

If there are sales you could have made today, but you didn’t make them. Didn’t you lose out on that revenue? Especially if they ended up buying it from someone else?

Sure, you may sell something else tomorrow, but that doesn’t make the sales you lost today any less real.

Now if you think that mindset is too negative. If you believe in an abundance mindset and you feel like there’s plenty of business to go around for everyone. Then we’re on the same page. I totally agree.

There is plenty of business to go around for those who are willing… to do what it takes… to bring it in.  So if that’s you, congratulations. Keep up the great work.

But if you’re not generating adequate sales, then it’s likely some changes are necessary.

Real cost #2. Lost opportunity. Every sale you fail to make today, means there’s one less reorder, one less referral, one less happy customer, positive review, success story or testimonial in the pipeline.

Inadequate sales are a pipeline killer. This results in opportunity and future sales that are either lost completely or delayed indefinitely.

Life is full of opportunity. But it requires being present. You have to get in front of it. So when you’re generating inadequate sales, you are missing out on all the related opportunities you could have had.

Real cost #3. Lost credibility. When you don’t care enough to do everything you can do every day to help as many potential clients as possible, it kills your credibility.

What would you think of a doctor who could have helped someone today but who just didn’t.

How about a lawyer who could have gotten a much better result for a client, but who failed to let them know that, so they went to an inferior lawyer and got a bad result?

If you’re good at what you do, you owe it to your prospective clients to let them know THAT you can help, HOW you can help and WHY it’s in their best interest to choose you.

Then, if they still choose to not work with you, it’s on them, not you.

Listen, if you know that you could and should be selling more of your products and services than you’re currently selling…

If you’re impacted by the Real Costs of inadequate sales, including the lost revenue, the lost opportunity and the lost credibility, then go to TopSecrets.com/call and let’s discuss how we can help.

We’ll work together to help you multiply your revenue. In fact, when you join our Total Market Domination program, our initial goal is to triple your investment within the first 90 days, or we’ll keep working with you until you do.

You’ll get the tools, tips, strategies and answers you need to grow your sales and profits fast. So go to TopSecrets.com/call and let’s discuss how we can help.

Ready to Overcome Inadequate Sales?

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

Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.

Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.

Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.

Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.

Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

David: If you want to multiply money, it means you have to figure out the very specific steps that you need to take in order to make that happen.

Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the topic, Can You Multiply Money? Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey David, of course you can. I have a tree in my backyard. Money grows on it and I just have to water it every year. What else do I need?

David: Nice. No, that's great. You got a money tree. You're in great shape. When I think about the abilty to multiply money, I know that in the early stages of some of my businesses, and in the early stages of trying to figure out how to make them work, I was able to multiply money. But I was multiplying it by fractions, you know. So...

If you multiply money by 0. 5, you now have half the money you started out with. So I think we're all able to multiply money. But, ideally, we want to multiply by whole numbers.

Jay: Yeah, I agree, but we also subtract money. I'm not sure what the terminology is. Bbut a lot of times in an attempt to multiply money, if you're not careful, you're actually losing money.

David: Yeah. And you will have to invest. You'll have to make investments up front. I think a lot of times people go into business, particularly small business owners, will go in with the idea of, "well, I'll just bootstrap it."

And it's certainly what I've done, I did that a number of times and when it works, it's fantastic. And when it doesn't, it's disastrous.

So as long as you recognize that going in, it's all okay. But having that focus, what will it take to get this going? How much will it cost? How long will I have to work for nothing, if I bootstrap entirely? A lot of those questions come into play.

Jay: Yeah, otherwise it's kind of gambling. You know, starting a business is kind of a form of gambling, but the better the idea is, the more help you have along the way, the more financially stable you can be in the process, the more you increase the odds that your gamble will pay off.

David: Yeah, and it really is a gamble in the truest sense of the word. Because you don't know if it's going to work. It might work and it might not.

You may have a really good feel for it. You may have done it before and say, okay, I feel really good about this. I think this is really going to work, but it's still a bet. You're still guessing and betting that it's going to work based on what you know. You think you can multiply money, but you can't be sure until you try.

I've never really been a gambler in terms of casinos and things like that, but I guess people who do that well and know how to do it, they can go into a situation and say, "okay, I have a pretty good feel for the fact that I'm going to make back a multiple of what I lay down on the table.

And sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. And it's exactly the same in business.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. Only in business, you may put a lot of things on the line, your family's future. You may quit your job. You really put yourself out there in many ways.

I found success in making sure my family is supported with a day job and then I pursued other things on the side.

Meanwhile, I had other family members who have said, "no, I'm going all in" and they put everything at risk. And that didn't turn out so well, but you know, it depends on the individual and the idea, I think.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And I know in the early stages I tried doing sort of a sideline thing for a while and I could never personally make that work.

Jay: Yeah, yeah.

David: Because it was hard for me when somebody else was paying me money to do a job, I didn't feel like I could walk away to do my thing, so I was torn in that way.

When I was working on my side project, I felt like I should either be working on the work that was paying me or when I was at real work, I felt like I should be working on my business.

I remember quitting a job that I had because I knew I was going to start a business. And it was really like flying without a safety net. You know, the big trapeze with no safety net. Because I literally quit a job. It's like, okay, I'm no longer going to get that money and hopefully it'll work out.

Eventually it did, but it wasn't fast and it wasn't a straight line and it took some real time and some real effort and a lot of scares.

We talked about scares in our podcast at Halloween. It took a lot of that stuff in order to get to the point where eventually things started to work. And I don't know many entrepreneurs who don't go through some version of that.

Jay: Oh, I totally agree. It's a hallmark of entrepreneurship. Can you take that step into the darkness, right?

Are you willing, and I think is a double edged sword. Yes, you gamble a lot, but also when you do take the complete step, when you separate from employment or whatever, You've given yourself a level of motivation that may not exist otherwise, right?

Because when you have to pay the bills, when you have to make the money, and you're like, the clock goes off, the alarm goes off in the morning, and you're like, "Oh, I don't know if I want to do this today." If you've got a bill coming up, you put your family on the line, sometimes that keeps you going, that in itself.

David: Yes, exactly. It's a tremendous motivator.

I think a lot of people too who have never owned a business, never started a business of their own, they tend to look at business owners and say, "Oh, well, they're rich and they have it made and they should do more. They should pay their people more or doing this or doing that."

I learned that lesson a really long time ago from an employer that I had. When I was a kid, I used to work in radio. I was about 15 or 16 and I was doing on-air shifts on the weekend and doing commercials and things like that.

They were doing a remote broadcast, so I was going to to a remote location to broadcast live from that place. And they were going to pay me like, I think it was 350 bucks. This was back in the day.

And I heard from the sales rep who sold that job or that gig, that the radio station was being paid $3,500 to do that gig. And I'm like, "Hey, wait a second, I'm only getting $350!"

Basically, I said this to my boss, the guy who owned the station, and he was a pretty young guy as well. So he had to be up to his eyeballs in stuff that I had no idea about.

And whenever you'd say something about money, he'd always rub the back of his head and he'd say, "don't count my money!" And as an employee, I thought he was saying, "don't count my money cause it's my money, and, don't count my money."

But then when I became an entrepreneur, one day I figured it out.

I'm like, what he was saying is "don't count my money, 'cause you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You have no idea what it costs to operate this place and to pay salespeople and to pay for overhead and a transmitter, you know, we're broadcasting, our electric bill, all that kind of stuff. I had no idea.

So I think it's a mistake as, if you've never been an employee, if you've only ever had a business for yourself, then you may be non-sympathetic to employees. But the flip side is also very true. If you're an employee and you've never owned a business, it's very easy to say, "Oh, well, this person is this, and this person is that."

And very likely, if you're saying those things, you probably don't know what's been going on behind the scenes.

Jay: Yeah, one of the things I used to do in the restaurant business, because, that's one of the reasons employees will steal from you, because they think you're making money hand over fist, and the world's against them, is I would sit them down, and I would show them my P& L.

I was just very open with them, and say, "look, you saw all this money, here's what we brought in, and guess what? You got paid this month, I didn't."

David: Yeah.

Jay: And they're like, "what do you mean you didn't?" I'm like, "I only get paid from the bottom line here. You get paid hourly, whether or not..." So who's taking the risk? That's what they don't understand. And so sometimes communicating that can be very important.

David: Yeah. And I remember a lot of times in the early stages of some of my businesses where I was just not paying myself at all. Other people were getting paid. I didn't tell them that at the time because I didn't want them to be scared, you know, that the business wasn't going to make it.

But I think most small business owners have gone through some version of that. And if you managed to avoid it, congratulations, well done. But most of us, it takes a lot. because you have to go through all these different iterations. You have to figure out a lot of what doesn't work before you can get to what does work.

And if you want to start to multiply money, it's going to require a bunch of experiments, some of which will fail.

Jay: Mm hmm. And I think, for entrepreneurs, if you really get to that point where you can multiply money, you can say, you know what, I spent, $8, but I made 10. So I made a 20 percent increase.

It becomes this passion. It's like a farmer planting a seed and it grows into something. To me, there's something very, I don't know, fulfilling about that idea that you've made something and you've grown it out of the dirt and then you've turned it into profit.

That's what entrepreneurship is, and people gain a real love for that.

Like, I look at somebody like Mark Cuban, he's a billionaire, but he's still investing. The guy spends all day long multiplying money, and I'm like, "you have billions of dollars in net worth. Why do you still do this?"

And it's because I get the feeling for him. It was never about how many dollars you made. It was about this skillset and the, the feeling of purpose and an achievement that you get from t

Ready to multiply your sales in the simplest way possible? In a recent podcast, I was talking about a client of ours who multiplied her gross sales from $250,000 to over a million dollars.

And while many people are impressed with that sort of growth, others are, quite rightly, skeptical.

How do you literally multiply your sales revenue in a relatively short period of time?

The truth is, there are a LOT ot ways to do it. But let's focus on the simplest approach. The one that seems to work best for the majority of people in general, and certainly the majority of our clients.

And it starts with maximizing revenue from your existing client base, while supplementing with new business.

Simple right?

In fact, it's the simplest!

Easier to say, a little more challenging to do.

But in a nutshell, here's how it works:

Let's say you sold $250,000 to your existing client base over the course of the last year, but you feel confident that you could get those same people to spend $300,000, or maybe $350,000 or maybe even $400,000 with you, with the right approach of course, over the next year.

Cool! So now you go from $250,000 to maybe $300,000 or $350,000 or $400,000. That's great!

But if your goal is to be at a million, that still leaves a shortfall of $600,000 to $700,000. Which is a big number if you're currently doing $250,000.

So if you want to hit your goal, you're going to need to focus on maximizing revenue from your existing client base, to get them to the $350 to $400,000 mark that you estimated, while also adding or layering in another $600 to $650 thousand in gross sales from new business to get you to your million dollar number.

Now, can you do that in a year?

Well, if you use the same approach that got you to $250, then probably not. Especially if you've been using that $250,000 approach and languishing in that sales range for a long period of time.

But what if you were using a different approach? A better approach?

Even better than that, what if you were using different and better approaches in Four Key Areas?

First: Client Reactivation:

Having a system to get your former and lapsed clients to reengage with you, reorder, and spend more money. Because when you multiply the number of returning customers, it helps you to multiply your sales.

Second: Account Penetration:

Getting more of the people inside the organizations you're already working with to place more of their business with you. Because when you multiply the number of people you're dealing with inside an organization, it becomes a lot easier to multiply your sales revenue with that company.

Third: Customer Acquisition:

This is the most obvious one... getting more of the prospects, essentially meaning all the people you interact with, to choose you over your competitors and place more orders with you. Because when you multiply the number of prospects convering into clients, it also allows you to multiply your sales revenue. And...

Fourth: Market Multiplication:

This is where it really gets fun. This allows you to pull more business from people, industries and markets that have never spent a single dime with you.

Think of it this way. If you're currently pulling most of your business from one primary market, whether that's a geographic market, or an industrial market, or even just a program or product specialty, what's likely to happen if you start pulling business from two markets? Or four markets? Or eight markets? You get the idea. When you multiply the number of markets you're selling to, it's easier to multiply your sales.

Of course, some of those markets might spend a lot less than the ones you're used to working with.

But... some of them might spend a whole lot more. Especially, when you're proactive about who you're targeting.

And most businesses are not.

So obviously, when you're focused on the right things, it becomes a whole lot easier to multiply your sales. It's also a lot more likely!

Of course, the big variable here is almost ENTIRELY about what you're doing, and how you're doing it. What you're saying, and how you're saying it. Who you're approaching and how you are approaching them.

If you're looking for the simplest way to improve your results dramatically, you don't have to change everything you're doing. However, you will very likely have to change how you're doing some of those things. Specifically, in the four key areas that we just discussed.

OK, so right now, at this point, after this ramble, you have three primay choices. You can:

A.) Completely disregard everything I just told you, and continue on with business as usual.

B.) Use the four key areas I mentioned as a guidepost, and take a do-it-yourself appoach to figuring out all the steps, the details, the processes and procedures to make it happen or

C.) If you're even remotely open to the idea of having a conversation about the simplest way to put our proven systems and processes in the Four Key Areas to work for you, then go to topsecrets.com/keys and schedule a call to see if it makes sense for us to talk about working together.

If it does, great! I'd love to work with you.

And if it doesn't, that's great too! We'll have a conversation, we'll get closure, and it'll probably still spark a lot of ideas about things that you can implement, on your own, going forward to multiply your sales and improve your results. So it's a win-win!

If you're open to that -- if you're open to improving your business in the Four Key Areas I just mentioned, go to topsecrets.com/keys and let's talk!

Ready to Explore the 4 Simplest Ways to Multiply Your Sales?

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

Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help.

Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here.

Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.

Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here.

Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

Million dollar ideas are just the beginning. I remember the day that I got a phone call from her and she said, "Hey, we hit a million dollars in sales for this year. I'm really excited." it's a huge thing because when you're looking to grow like that -- when you're talking about multiplying your revenue in a relatively short period of time -- there are very specific things that have to happen. Most people don't know what those things are, and even if they do know what those things are, they don't take action on them consistently enough to make it happen.

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

Jay: Hey, thank you, David. I have to tell you, this is a running joke in my home that I constantly have million dollar ideas. But I never do anything about it. And so I'll have them.And then years later, my wife's like, you told me about that, you know, five years ago, why don't you do something about it? And I'm like, I don't know.

David: Yeah. And you're not alone. I do the same thing. I think pretty much anyone I know who's been involved in business in any capacity has had ideas. And then they see that somebody else did it later.

And they're like, "Oh man, I thought of that years ago." And it's like, yeah, well, unfortunately, as you indicated, thinking about it does not actually get it done. But it's a fun topic because since we all pretty much have had them, we all have million dollar ideas, the question becomes. What are you doing with it?

Or are you doing anything with it? And as I was thinking back on this in preparation for this podcast, it occurred to me that of the million dollar ideas that I might've had, and who knows, the ones that you don't pursue, you have no idea what they're worth, especially if nobody else then comes along and turns it into a billion dollar idea, but it occurred to me that I only took action on a few of them, and the ones that I took action on actually yielded some really good results.

And the thing about a million dollar idea is... There's a time component that really plays an important part in that, right? You could say, all right, my million dollar idea is to make $25,000 a year from the time I'm 25 until the time I'm 65. So if you multiply $25,000 by 40 years, it's a million bucks, right?

But if you're earning $25,000 a year and it costs you $35,000 a year to live, then that plan is not going to work for you. But it is a plan. It's an idea. It's a million dollar idea. And so as we're thinking about things that can actually get us from where we are to where we want to be. It's a good idea to consider that.

All right. Well, what's the likelihood of generating revenue from this and how much on an ongoing basis so I can have an idea of where it's going to take me?

Jay: Yeah, it's such a great point. I think for me, the fear of putting myself out there is one of the reasons why I haven't pursued.

And I've taken, some of them were good enough. I've taken a little stabs at them and I want to be successful by just stabbing at them and not really diving in a hundred percent.

And it's not until I said, "okay, I'm all in." It wasn't the idea that was bad. It was my desire to actually put any work and effort.

I've just, I've always said, I want to have a company where all I do is come up with ideas and sell them. I don't want to have to actually put the effort into, working on them. Why can't I just earn the money from the idea?

David: Right. Yeah. It'd be great if it worked that way, but somebody has to do the work that actually generates the revenue.

But when I think about million dollar ideas, particularly as it relates to business. If somebody's doing $250,000 a year in their business in four years, that became a million dollar idea. Now, again, if that's your gross sales, it doesn't mean that you're making that much, right? It doesn't mean that you're pocketing that much, but it counts.

It's a million dollar idea, and then the question really becomes. Is my million dollar idea a million dollars in a lifetime? Is it a million dollars over 10 years? Over five years? Over a year? Is it a million dollars a month? Is it a million dollars a week? A million dollars a day? Because different businesses generate different amounts of money.

I don't know what Amazon is generating, how quickly it generates a million bucks, but it's probably a lot faster than a million a day. It could be down to the minutes and seconds, probably is.

Jay: Yeah, I really think a lot of what you're talking about is your expectation, right? you're just saying, I want to have this idea to make money, that to me really kind of feels misguided.

And to be honest with you, a million dollars does not sound like that much money anymore, right? So it's more a matter of, I think defining better what the idea is and what you want it to achieve.

Are you looking for financial freedom to where you can travel and buy nice cars? Are you just looking to pay your bills?

I think putting some better definition on it is more important than using this word million dollar and somehow that's a sign that you've been successful. Cause as you said, you may be making millions a year in gross sales, but you could be losing as much, if not more. So, yeah, you have to be a little bit more specific than that.

David: I remember when my daughter was young, we were talking about the idea of a million dollars at one point. And I said, well, think about this. Let's say you make a million dollars. You're able to save a million dollars and you've got a million dollars.

You've got exactly a million dollars in the bank. And so you go out to celebrate and you go have lunch at McDonald's and you spend $12. Now you're no longer a millionaire. Right? Because you spent your twelve bucks. Whatever it is. And, I don't know, just the idea of these money benchmarks being some form of accomplishment, I think is a little misguided.

Yeah.

And generally it's misguided by people who look at it as a goal, think that it's something to aspire for, and then if and when you get there, it's like, oh, okay, now what? You know, now you go for more, right? And no matter what your number is, even if you're Warren Buffett and you're a multi billionaire, probably another extra billion or two never hurts.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. For me, I kind of think about how I deterrnine success in business. I have steps, like you said, benchmarks. So my first benchmark is, can I just pay my bills? Right? Can I feed my family, pay my car payment, keep the electricity on?

If I can pay my bills, I've achieved a level of success because I don't have to go out and have somebody else tell me how to do my job all day for an hourly wage.

So that's goal number one. Can I pay my bills with my business year round? Then I start saying, well, can I still make the money I'm making, but do less or spend less to make it?

So maybe I only have to go into this business three days a week, and then two days a week I can be with my family or I can be tinkering, you know, with my car in the garage or something like that.

So I start to look at it more in terms of time than I do in terms of actual dollar amounts.

David: Yeah, the time component is huge and also consistency I think is huge. I had a client who signed up for our Total Market Domination course a couple of years ago. She was doing about $250,000 in sales at the time.

She wanted to get to a million dollars. And so we went over the specific steps that she would need to take to do that. And she was a great implementer. She was able to do it. And I remember the day that I got a phone call from her and she said, "Hey, we hit a million dollars in sales for this year. I'm really excited."

Yeah.

It's a huge thing because when you're looking to grow like that, when you're talking about multiplying your revenue in a relatively short period of time, there are very specific things that have to happen.

Most people don't know what those things are, and even if they do know what those things are, they don't take action on them consistently enough to make it happen.

So for those who are looking to get to benchmarks like that, if you have a million dollar idea, if you know in your bones that this thing is likely to generate that amount of money, but you're not quite sure how to get there, then we really ought to have a conversation.

Jay: Yeah, and again, we talked about scary things and the fear of the unknown in our Halloween podcast.

That's what's so hard, and one thing I keep telling people is, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. This is not the beginning of time . There are so many people out there who have done this and duplicated this over and over again.

And often times, just coming up with a unique idea, that's one of the toughest parts of the battle.

Then if you can access and not be afraid to talk to people, see people like yourself, who have done this over and over again, and who have helped other people achieve it, if you can get rid of a lot of the unknown, and then just implement your idea, how much better is that going to be for you?

David: Exactly. And so much of it just boils down to focus. It's about what are the few things, what are the fewest steps I can take, the fewest number of activities that I can engage in to get me to my goals. And a lot of times it's a lot simpler than people think. But they're so distracted with all these different things they think they have to do that they end up missing the boat.

And it goes back to your point earlier where, "hey, wouldn't it be great if I could do less things, do fewer things, and still generate the revenue?" And the truth of the matter is that if you're doing too many things, your likelihood of getting there goes down dramatically.

Jay: Yeah,...

Scary issues for business owners and salespeople often boil down to what you're trying to do versus what you're actually able to do. Those gaps are really the things that are going to make the biggest difference. And a lot of what we do with our clients is help them to identify, "all right, how can we help you plug these holes, overcome these fears, so that you can generate the revenue you need and the profit you need to have the business that you want to have."

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing scary issues for business owners and salespeople. Happy Halloween and welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Yeah, Dave, it's great to be here with you again. And I love the Halloween theme. A lot of times starting out a new business can be very scary. But also, for me the biggest thing is the unknown and how do you plan for that?

David: Yeah, that is a great one. It covers a lot of territory too, doesn't it? The unknown, because nearly everything that we think about that scares us in business is probably because we either don't know what it is or we don't know how to handle it when it comes along. So yeah, that's a really nice big umbrella one to start out with.

The unknown, which in business includes a whole lot of stuff.

Jay: Yeah, I think part of that is having your systems in place so that you're prepared for the unknown. I mean, we talk about the unknown, but in business, I think you can generally deal with those issues. If you've been in business over time, you kind of know annually where the scary times are going to be, but just starting out, it's hard to know.

David: It really is. And as I was thinking about this episode and discussing this episode, I took some time, not always a great thing to do, but I took some time to think about what were some of the biggest scares I had over the years in business and what did they generally relate to?

And I didn't actually come up with the word unknown. You came up with it, but it really does take into a lot of different things. When we think about unknown, my thinking goes back to the time when you're a child and you're scared of the dark, right? And the reason we're scared of the dark is not because of the dark.

It's because we don't know what's in there. It really is about the unknown. It's not our fear of the dark. It's our fear of what could happen in the dark that could potentially be a little scary.

So as I was thinking about this in terms of business, and it goes for salespeople, anyone in business, and even people who are employed and just get a salary, there are a lot of things that can come along and make life a lot scarier.

A lot of them have to do with money, especially not having enough of it. If you're a business owner, the question, can I make payroll comes up? Can I pay my tax bills? Am I able to afford the things I need to do? Can I pay my mortgage, right, for my home or rent for my business, whatever it is So I think money is a big one and the unknowns that are related to that

Jay: Yeah, I agree. Money is the hardest one. And people, especially starting out, they don't really know and understand the term cash flow. Right?

So you may be making great money, but people aren't paying you up front or they're not paying you on a regular basis. I've worked for a company where you work for insurance companies and you had to harass them constantly in order to get your receivables paid.

And in the meantime, how do you pay for the electricity? How do you pay for your staff? How do you pay for those kind of things? It can be a very difficult situation.

David: It really can. And I think a lot of times the default is to say, okay, let's cut costs. What can we cut? And a lot of times that comes with, whatever, it can come with manpower. It can come with overhead.

And the problem with cutting overhead, or cutting costs in some cases are first of all, that it doesn't always get the job done. And second, it also then can diminish your capabilities. Because if you're having to let people go, then how are you going to be able to generate enough of the business going forward to be able to offset some of those things?

And I know when I'm working with clients, a lot of times, if their cash flow isn't exactly where they want it, or if their sales or their profit numbers aren't where they need them to be, we look at a couple things.

One is, you know, what do you expect your existing customers are going to generate for you over the course of the next six months to a year? And then where are you looking to be? And then how much of that needs to come from new customers?

Because once you've identified those things, then it becomes a lot easier. To do the math and say, okay, well, I need to bring in X number of customers at this amount per year in order to subsidize that.

So you can cut, and sometimes you have to do that. You can build, and it's often a good idea to do that.

And you can watch those margins. Because if you're generating a lot of sales, but your margins are really small, you can be spending a lot of time on sales that are not actually going to benefit you and the business going forward.

Jay: Yeah, it reminds me, you know, I grew up in the restaurant business and I used to do restaurant consulting and I can't tell you how often I would walk into a business and I'd say, well, how much does this plate of food cost you? And they'd say, I have no idea.

And I'm like, well you price it at this much per plate. How did you come up with that price? And they're like, well, it sounded good.

Yeah. Or that's what other people charge.

Yeah, and I'm like, okay, when we did the math on that plate cost, you're actually breaking even on that plate. So, people look at their profit and loss at the end of the month.

But do you know how those numbers actually came to be? And whatever business you're in, do you know your cost of goods sold? That's an important step as you're trying to figure out cash flow and all of these other things.

David: Yeah. And the goal is not just breaking even, right? Breaking even if you pay for the food, but you don't pay for any of the overhead or anything like that, you're in a lot of trouble.

So I think money is a big one. Another one that I think is really big for a lot of people is getting and losing customers.

How do I get more customers? How do I keep the ones that I have? And a lot of times it's like what you just described with the plates. They just don't know.

A lot of people just don't know what the best ways are to attract more of the customers they need into their businesses and how to retain the customers they have. They don't have processes and procedures in place for that.

And when you don't have that, you're just basically hoping for the best.

Jay: Yeah. as you know, I'm in the process right now of starting up a new business. And one of the things we decided to do was to have a soft open. And we used to do this in the restaurant business.

And that's because we think we know what the process is going to be. We think we know what our customer's needs are going to be. We think we know our staff knows how to handle all of those things.

But until that first order comes in, and then 10 people want your product at the same time it's hard to foresee what the reality is going to be. And so that's why I love the idea of the soft open and constantly reassessing your systems to see if you're able to handle whatever.

It's such an interesting thing because you have to be prepared when times are really good and things are moving well, but then you have to be able to weather the storm and you can't just hire and fire people as that ebb and flow happens. Right?

David: Very true. And I can't tell you how many times I've said to a business owner, "what is your process for bringing new customers through the door?" And they'll say, "referrals." Well, that is not a process. That is a concept. It's not a process.

And. It's good when you can get the referrals, but then the question becomes, well, what are you doing to generate them? Where are you going to look for them? Are you doing anything proactive to help that happen?

What are you doing with your existing customers to encourage them to refer people to you? And that's just the referral aspect of it. And very often when somebody says to me that their customer acquisition effort is referrals, that tells me they're leaving an enormous amount of money on the table. Because generally when I hear referrals, I'm also hearing reactive.

Jay: Yes. Yeah. And you have to be able to react to many things, but there are things that you should be very, very strategic about. We've spent, David, we've spent probably six months just working on our Google ads campaign to get the keywords right. So that we can drive down that customer acquisition cost.

And when we started out, it was about a hundred dollars a customer. And we said, "okay, we need to cut that number in half."

So we did A B testing. We did keyword testing. We made adjustments to our website. We've got it down to about $55 now, which that's amazing. Right? But it's taken six months to get to that point.

David: Yeah, and it all drops. I mean, the difference in that, it all drops to the bottom line, which is great for everything that you're doing. Now to some people, $50 for a lead might sound like a lot. It might sound like a little, depending of course, on the value of the order and the profit margins and everything like that.

But just the fact that you know your number, you know where it is, you know what that does to the business, you know where you want it to be, you know what that will do to the business. Everybody who is in business needs to have a really good feel for that.

And I think it's Dan Kennedy kind of popularized the phrase,...

Beating Inflation means you have to maintain profits, despite higher costs. In this area where I live in Pennsylvania, the cost of electricity has gone up probably 10 to 12%, just from one billing cycle to the next, because they said "we need more money. We’re jacking up the price."

It’s like death by a thousand paper cuts. It’s the situation where you’ve got this little increase here and this little increase here and this little increase here. And you don’t realize it until you go to pay the bills and you look at the numbers at the end of the month. Wow. We’re generating the same sales or even more, but we’re not making as much money.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of being profitable even with higher costs. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you so much, David. What an important topic. So many businesses are experiencing this right now. Their costs have gone up. Inflation is affecting everybody right now. So I love that you're taking some time to talk about this topic.

David: Yeah. I saw an article recently where they were discussing the fact that in the promotional products industry, in particular, what a lot of businesses are noticing is that even when their sales are even or potentially higher than they were last year, they're not as profitable because their costs have increased. So keeping at the same sales volume is not going to cut it anymore.

Jay: Yeah. And, we all hope that this is a temporary problem, but in the meantime, people have got to learn how to pivot. And I think that is one of the hardest things for businesses to do, especially quickly. The quick pivot. Like, okay, what are we going to do in the short term while our costs have gone up?

David: Yeah, and I think that word, "pivot," has probably gotten more use in the past 18 months to two years than it probably got in all of human history before that. Because everybody realized we have to do things differently. And what are we going to do and how are we going to do it? And when it comes to increased costs, the options are relatively limited.

I mean, basically, you either have to be able to increase your overall sales and make up for it with the profit that you're already getting, or a reduced profit. Or you've got to be able to reduce your cost so that you can get that spread back. You've got a cost to do things. And you've got a cost associated with what you're going to sell it for.

And the gap is where all the money is made. Without the gap, we're out of business. And so keeping your sales at a certain level is not going to do it if your costs are approaching that same level.

So a lot of it is really about identifying the primary costs in my business. And unfortunately, it's really a matter of also being rather relentless about the idea of cutting back on the things that are not currently working.

And that can be really difficult because one of the biggest expenses in a business is very often personnel. And so what that means is looking at the people that you're working with and saying, okay, who's pulling their weight? Who is more than pulling their weight? And those who aren't, what can we do to help them to pull their weight or more than pull their weight so that we can continue to grow to be able to simply offset the costs that have increased so much?

Jay: Yeah. I think the knee-jerk response from most businesses is let's find a way to increase sales. But you know, they have to understand that depending upon their profit margin, if you increase your sales by $10, that may be $1 to the bottom line.

But if you save a dollar in costs, that's a dollar to your bottom line. If you save $10 in cost, that's $10 to your bottom line. And so increasing efficiency, like you said. Maybe help train or implement better systems. I think all of those things go a long way to saving. You know, a dollar saved is a dollar earned, right?

David: Yeah, exactly. I think you're right, particularly when it comes to small and medium-sized businesses. Generally small and medium-sized businesses, we want to hang onto our staff. We want to keep our people. We recognize that we've got responsibilities to people other than ourselves.

What I've been seeing though in the news lately, is that a lot of larger companies see this stuff coming and they're like, okay, we're cutting costs. We're laying off 10% of our workforce, that sort of thing.

So it's different, depending on the size of your business and depending on your mindset, what you are willing to do and how much pain you're willing to take when it comes to absorbing some of these extra costs.

Jay: Yeah, I've seen several industries that have decided, well, in the short term, like in the pandemic, we're going to look at the services we offer and maybe we're going to scale down on those services.

So like in the restaurant business, we saw both for health reasons, but I think also for cost reasons, we saw dining rooms shut down.

And I know restaurants right now that aren't going to reopen their dining room because they pivoted towards delivery and towards maximizing their drive-throughs.

And so now they don't have the cost. You don't have to have two people at a cash register every time. You don't have to have labor in the dining area. So they changed their entire model and saved a ton of money in doing that. And I don't know that they're going to go back.

David: Yeah. And similarly, I think there are a lot of restaurants in particular that when they were forced to shut down, and they didn't pivot, a lot of them just never came back from that.

They just didn't make it. They closed their doors and they called it a day. And then there are the hybrids. There are the restaurants who did pivot. They switched to take out or delivery. And then when they were allowed to have people back in, now they had the benefit of both.

I know there are places that we go to around here. Normally we would go out to eat and when COVID happened, we started taking advantage of pick-up or take-out. And we even continued to do that afterward. Because I'm used to it now.

Whereas before I would've never thought to do that, because it's like, oh, it'll be cold by the time it gets home. But then you realize, eh, so what? You heat it up again and I can be home instead of being somewhere else.

So they've got the best of both worlds now. Because they can have a full restaurant and they can also have people lining up for takeout. So they can actually be generating more business than they would pre-pandemic.

Jay: Yeah. And I think, unfortunately, and you kind of mentioned this, when costs go up or when you know your profits go down, one of the first things that's always cut is marketing.

And if you are in certain businesses and you offer those marketing services, you've got to convince those businesses to stay with you. And that it's important that they continue to market.

David: Yeah. And especially if they now have to create a new message for their people. If they have to say, come to us now for takeout, instead of coming into the dining room, that's a different message.

And so if you eliminate the marketing that conveys that messaging, you're not going to be able to pivot because nobody's going to know what it is that they need to know about how to do business with you going forward.

But that's a great point. And when we think about the costs, again, a lot of times it's personnel, it's marketing, and it's overhead. What are the costs that I'm running into on a consistent basis that are costing money?

Nearly everything! The cost of internet service, the cost of phone service, and the cost of electricity. I know in this area where I live in Pennsylvania, the cost of electricity has gone up probably 10 to 12%, just from one billing cycle to the next, because they said "we need more money. We're jacking up the price."

It's like death by a thousand paper cuts. It's the situation where you've got this little increase here and this little increase here and this little increase here.

And you don't realize it until you go to pay the bills and you look at the numbers at the end of the month. Wow. We're generating the same sales or even more, but we're not making as much money.

Jay: Yeah. And I think one of the hardest parts about this is I think most businesses know that inflation is going to go down, that this was caused mostly by the pandemic.

And so it's like, how do I? I don't want to cut staff because I know, and I hope, that six months from now, three months from now, whatever demand will be up and costs will be down. And so, how do I navigate this madness in the short term?

David: And I think for small and medium-sized businesses, in particular, there are sometimes situations where somebody has been sort of hanging on by a thread.

There might be employees that maybe have not been pulling their weight for a long time. And when things are going well, you can afford to carry them. But when things are not going as well, you have to look at that and say, okay, can we continue to essentially subsidize this person?

Because the other people in the organization are having to pick up the slack. Can we do that? Can we continue to do that? And it's an individual decision for each person in business.

But for everybody who is still working, and I've been hearing a lot lately about the big resignation, is that what they're calling it? The fact that there are so many people who have just left jobs over the course of the past year and a half?

And it has an impact. It has an impact on the business. It has an impact on coworkers, and it has an impact on the way that a business is able to deliver the products and services they offer.

So there are a lot of moving parts with this. But looking at the primary costs in the business and saying, okay,...

The truth about the law of attraction is different from the book and movie. If you're feeling frustrated in your business, ask yourself, you know, am I really clear on exactly what it is that I'm building here or the thing that I want to build here?

And to the extent that it's not coming together, how's your vision? Are you very clear on what that means?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the truth about the Law of Attraction. Now, this applies to business, it applies to life.

If you're familiar with the movie The Secret and the book The Secret, there's been a lot of talk about this concept, the Law of Attraction. It basically says that we attract into our lives the people and circumstances we need, based on essentially the vibes that we're putting out.

Jay: Well, and I was just sitting here thinking, I must not be putting out very good vibes.

David: I'm sure it's not that. But... I think sometimes when people get into this mindset, they can get frustrated, because if you think that all you have to do is really want it and it's going to come to you, it's not quite the whole story.

And I think the movie and the book called The Secret probably caused some people some problems with this. And part of it is because that movie, a lot of it was based on a book called The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. And if you read that book, you recognize that there's a whole lot more to it than just trying to attract it with your mind.

I mean, you actually have to follow up. You have to do some things afterwards if you want to try to get the results that you're actually looking for. So I feel like what they did in the book and the movie was kind of a disservice to the whole concept, which I think can be valid, if you follow up with it.

Jay: Yeah, I've always kind of felt, you know, talking about this, that it's more about a change in mentality than it is that you'll speak into the universe and the universe will grant you this wonderful thing out of the kindness of its heart. That because you've said these things, it's just like setting a goal.

Right? And so, when you hear things spoken, when your mind hears them, when you speak them with your mouth, it's different than just thinking about them. And so, over time, I think it changes your behavior, which leads you to that thing that you, quote, spoke into the universe.

David: Yeah, I believe that entirely as well.

I think that when you are focused on a goal, when you're focused on trying to accomplish something in your life, when your mind is going in that direction, it is a lot more likely to get you enthused about it, get you thinking about it more and get you taking action on it, which ultimately is what is going to lead to the success.

Now one aspect of it that I think is really important, on the front end of that, is that you have enough belief in what it is that you want to accomplish, that you continue to look for the ways to make it happen.

Because if you don't believe you can do it, obviously you're not going to do it. I think that's pretty much a given. If you don't think you can do something, if you don't think you can accomplish something, then you will very likely not take the actions necessary to make it happen.

So in those circumstances, it's kind of a given that you won't succeed. But if you've got the consummate belief in what it is that you want to do and what you're pursuing, then in a lot of cases, it will allow you to start to see the things that will make it possible.

So when people talk about the idea of attracting the people and circumstances into your life, I definitely believe there is truth to that, but I also think a lot of that might've been there to begin with.

But when you're aware of it, you're going to be more likely to see it, you're looking for it, you're going to be more likely to find it, you'll take action on it, and that's when it actually starts to pay off.

Jay: Yeah, I really like that you're building awareness because you've spoken these things and you've kind of made these mental goals. Whereas before, if you hadn't taken the time to even assess what you want and talk to yourself about what you want, kind of make these mental goals, then when that person enters your life or that opportunity arises, you're not going to see it for what it is.

'Because you haven't planned ahead, you haven't made a mental note that that's specifically something that you wanted or needed.

David: Right, you're not tuned into it. And, you know, the mind has this particular activating system that many people are aware of. It's the part of your brain that notices the things that you're interested in.

So, a common example is if you just got a certain kind of car, or if you're looking at a certain type of car and thinking about buying it, chances are you'll be seeing it all over the road now, because it's now in your mind and you see it and you recognize it.

So, there's a little bit of that. But the primary thing that I think is important for anyone to consider as they're trying to accomplish things in their lives and in their businesses is that the idea, the goal is a great beginning.

And we'll be talking about this in future podcasts, but then ultimately, it's what comes from that. The ideas that we get, the things that we take action on, that's ultimately going to help us to get there.

Jay: Yeah, and I've always felt like, and I think this is kind of the core of what we're talking about, that it's very important to not just think about something.

That you attach benchmarks to it, you attach follow up to it. Maybe you work backwards from that thing, that you don't just put it to chance. If you work towards that thing then first of all the odds of it happening are going to be much greater and you've gone out, and you've taken it for yourself anyway

David: Yeah, and I know we don't normally get to woo woo in these podcasts, and I'm not looking to really do that today, but I think that there's been so much talk about this over the years that it's at least worth having a discussion about for people who may be thinking that, you know, they're doing everything they can to accomplish what they're looking to accomplish, and they don't realize that there may be some steps that are missing.

There's a quote from St. Augustine that says, Pray as though everything depended on God, work as though everything depended on you. And I think that's sort of a different take on it, but it covers kind of the same thing.

If you take responsibility for what you're looking for, and I really love what you mentioned, about the idea of those benchmarks, because if you've got something that you want to accomplish and you're keeping track of each benchmark along the way, then you will be more likely to see the people and circumstances that are already there that will allow you to get to the next benchmark.

When you just have your eye on the goal and you're not really thinking in terms of all the interim steps in between, you can really miss out on a lot because you're looking for this and right now you're only ready for this.

Jay: Yeah, you know, I've spent a lot of time studying highly successful people, Elon Musk, Bill Gates you know, very, very successful people, and none of them sat around and waited for anything, right?

Mark Cuban, and even after they have found incredible success they didn't say, okay, got what I wanted. They continue to work aggressively every single day. And I think about what would I do if I had that kind of money?

Would I continue to work? Or would you find me on a beach somewhere? You know, this is a mentality, it's part of them. It's their love. It's their passion. I think it has very little to do with money.

David: I agree. that's the result of sort of doing the things that you're good at and the things that you love exceptionally well. When you do that and you're able to impact enough other people, and I think that's a key component that's often missing, is that they're great at what they did and they pursued it with passion.

But what they were pursuing was able to impact enough other people, that they were able to generate the result. They were able to generate the revenue, which is essentially the reward for being able to serve or service enough people so that it comes back to you like that.

Jay: Yeah. So I think it's about, you know, kind of thinking about those things that you want to achieve, creating a plan to get there and working as hard as you can, to achieve that success.

David: Yeah. I know personally, the times in my life where I was really focused on a particular goal, especially business, we're talking business here. I have an idea for something. You have an idea for a business or you have an idea for a product. You have an idea for something. And when you believe in it enough, and when you're passionate enough about it, It just seems to almost take on a life of its own.

You sort of know what to do next. You see the opportunities and you take them because you know how it fits in. And pretty much every major success that I've had in business has rolled that way.

A lot of times when you're just sort of trying to slug something out and you're trying to figure it out and things aren't coming together. I think some of it has to do with the vision. Either the vision isn't clear enough of exactly what it is that you want this thing to be, because you have to have that first.

Just like building a house, you have to know what it's going to look like. You want the blueprint before you start nailing boards together. So you need to have a clear idea of it first, because when you've got that clear idea, then it becomes a whole lot easier to build.

Jay: Yeah, it's so true. I mean, I've been caught kind of in no man's land where I kinda believe in what I'm

One of the real benefits of ChatGPT to grow sales for our clients is being able to utilize that technology to create something that will get you to be able to attract clients rather than having to chase them down yourself.

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing using ChatGPT to grow your sales. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey David, I'm really excited about this topic today. You know, I figured ChatGPT and AI is either going to help with your sales or it's going to become self aware and try to destroy us all. Hopefully it's Just the first one.

David: Yeah, I agree. I don't know if we talked about this in a previous podcast, but whenever I'm using ChatGPT, I always make sure to say please and thank you. And the reason for that is I figure when the AI comes to take over and destroy all the humans, maybe they'll kill me last.

I don't know if that'll work like that, but that's my thinking.

Jay: Well, very important, but I'm blown away by this technology. We've talked before about not having to reinvent the wheel. I think that that's what is available here.

When you can ask a computer to do something and it recognizes what you're asking it to do and then it goes out and it, accesses all of this information that has been downloaded over time.

It's a mind boggling tool, but once again, if you don't know how to use it, if you don't know what its potential is, then it's not going to be of any value to you.

David: Agreed. And one of the things that I noticed in the early stages, if you just start playing around with it, you type things in and you're like, wow, this is like magic.

And then as you start to use it and ask it questions, particularly when you're looking to maybe flesh out an idea or something like that, you've got a basic concept and you want to use it to help flesh out an idea. For me, that's when I really started to see its limitations in the sense that it can only provide you information that it has.

It can only provide you with information that it's either seen somewhere before or that it's found on the web. However, it identified that information. And so what I've noticed is that when you're trying to dive into something, if you've got an idea, that's relatively unique, something that you're thinking about that you'd like to flesh out, you can go to ChatGPT and start asking it questions about that.

And it'll give you some stuff that's helpful, but. I've never found it able to give an actual breakthrough. I still think a lot at this particular point in time. It seems to me that the breakthroughs still have to come from us. And then if we talk to ChatGPT about some sort of concept that we're developing, I'm sure it'll start picking up on it and then it may start disseminating it again.

But I think that's one of the limitations. And so when we think in terms of using it to grow sales, My view is that it's a great starting point when you're just looking at a blank screen and a blinking cursor and saying, okay, where do I get started with this? I think that it's a great starting point.

And even when you start asking it questions and it comes back with responses, a lot of the responses that it comes back with, you might have to dig deep until you find something else that's worth asking it about.

So in the early stages, I think we tend to view it like we're going to ask it a question, it's going to give us the answer and we're all set. In reality, I have not found it to work that way, unless you really don't have a clear idea of what you were looking to begin with.

Because basically I believe that if you think that ChatGPT is doing a better job of creating content than you do, then you probably want to work on your own skills in terms of coming up with ideas, because I have found that some of it is sort of recycled content.

Jay: Yeah, I've had that very same experience. I think it's a great tool. Like if you have an idea and you want to see how prevalent it is, you can ask, an artificial intelligence like ChatGPT and see what's already out there.

Cause like you said, it's aggregated all of this information. And I love it for writer's block and writer's block isn't just for writers, it's for you and your advertising and your marketing.

If you don't know where to start, oftentimes that's a perfect way to start because it will fill in some blanks, even if it provides you something that you don't like, that oftentimes is enough.

You know, I had a boss that, I knew that all I had to do was put something in his hands and then he would know immediately if he liked it or not and be able to fill in those blanks.

But if you asked him to just come up with it on his own from the very beginning, he wouldn't be able to do that. So oftentimes it's just something to get rolling and the juices flowing.

David: Yeah, recently I've actually been using it for the show notes for our podcast. And so what I'll do is take the actual transcript of our podcast and feed it in there and say, "please provide show notes." And it will very often come up with some really good things.

It'll come up with some great bullet points. It'll come up with some things when we post the video on YouTube. I'll ask it to come up with keyword optimized description for YouTube and it'll do that. And also the list of the keywords that it's optimizing for. And that's been very helpful.

So when we're using it like that, it can be great, but it still requires us to go through it and look at it because there are still going to be situations where it'll come back with something and I'll think, oh, well, it missed this. I feel like this point is more important than maybe what it came up with.

But that's also very subjective, right? We each have an idea of what we're looking to try to do when we're trying to communicate in a podcast or in anything that we're putting together.

Anytime we're putting anything out to people, we have a really clear idea of what we're looking to communicate. Maybe we're not communicating it well enough that ChatGPT can pick up on it and say, "Oh yeah, this is where you were going. Here's where I think you were going."

So in that sense, it's like getting an objective sort of third party opinion. But it definitely requires probing. It requires the prompts. And there are some people who really focus on that. There are people who are really good at creating prompts so that you can ask the same question, but in a completely different way where you're telling it, I want you to view this from the standpoint of a seasoned direct marketer with years of experience in getting response, and have an answer from that perspective, because the answers you get that way are going to be a lot different than if you just ask it to answer the question.

Jay: Yeah, I would say that, you know, with you uploading entire show transcripts, I think my concern about that is eventually, ChatGPT's going to be your co host instead of me. We're heading down that path.

David: Might just be your co host instead of me. I mean, it could go either way, Jay, but no, I think it's interesting because part of what we need to do as well is to sort of train it to our own voices.

And so one of the things I've done there is if I want it to sound more like me, I'll submit something that I've written myself, whether it's a previous synopsis of a podcast and say, "please follow this format and try to write it in this voice." And I will generally get better results.

So if you want to be able to shorten the curve, if you want to be able to save yourself a lot of time, I think there are a lot of great ways to do it with ChatGPT, particularly as we're talking about if you're starting out by getting something, starting with something rather than starting with nothing. That's very helpful.

If you can start to talk to it about the kind of voice that you want it to write in or create in, that's very helpful. And in this situation, in sales, we could be talking about different approaches to your sales pitch, what it is that you're saying to people, what it is that might be missing.

So if you were to say, okay, I'm going to record my next sales presentation and you were to do that and then take your part of what you said, and how you set it, and feed that text into ChatGPT and ask it, what am I missing? What could I have done better? What should I have said differently?

It's going to have recommendations. And they may be good, they may be bad, but the most important aspect of it is that it will give you some things that you can look at and say, "Oh yeah, there's something I haven't thought of."

So I personally believe the biggest advantage to it right now is that it will allow us to clarify our thinking in a way that will make what we say and what we wish we would have said more in tune, right?

It'll allow us to actually say what we want to say the first time rather than looking back later and saying, Oh, I wish I would have done that differently.

Jay: Hmm, great points. It's very interesting to me that we have this great tool that's been introduced to us. But still, if you're not willing to put in the time and effort to hone it, to train it. We're still back to garbage in, garbage out, right?

And so, just like any other tool, if you want to use it properly, it's going to take time and effort to get there. I do think right away, just getting those prompts sometimes is enough to get your gears churning and so it's like having a sounding board, you know, somebody you can just talk to.

I hate to say it that way and just bounce some ideas off and you'll get some feedback instantly.

David: Yeah, and when you ask it something and it comes back with a response that's not quite what you're looking for, a lot of times what I'll do is I'll say, "please rewrite that with" then whatever the changes that I want to have mad

Your process for goal achievement is key, because you're doing a lot behind the scenes before anyone even knows that you're alive. And so we're essentially moving from that -- being invisible and working hard behind the scenes -- to ideally, at some point, bursting on the scene and being recognized as a force in your marketplace. But none of that happens by accident and it doesn't just come from setting goals. It requires having those processes in place.

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

Jay: Hey, David. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to be with you. I'm going to be brutally honest here. I'm really good at setting goals, but I'm not very good at mapping out how I'm going to accomplish those goals.

I think it's good that I've taken that first step, and I kind of have a mental idea, but I never really go back and say, "yeah, I accomplished that thing."

So I think I'm missing some of the motivation to set more goals because I think that's one of the key things about goals is once you've checked 'em off, you should feel good about yourself and then do more goals. And I don't know if I ever reached that point.

David: Interesting. And I think a lot of people feel the same way. I know I've certainly had that situation over the years and still do to some extent. And we had actually talked about goals several weeks ago, but what I really wanted to get into this time around is the idea that it's great to have the goal, but it's like looking at the top of a ladder and you say, okay, that's where I want to go.

Or it's like looking at the sky, that's where I want to go. But ultimately, the goal isn't what's going to get you there. The goal may motivate you, but the goal is not going to get you there. Ultimately, it's the process that's going to get you there. Assuming you have a process.

So if the goal is to generate a certain amount of revenue in your business, or have a certain amount of money in your personal bank account, or start a business, whatever your goal is, the next step is to say, okay, what are the specific steps?

What are the combinations of tasks and projects that are going to be necessary to help me achieve that goal? Because the tasks, the individual things I have to do, and the projects, essentially the things that are composed of a bunch of tasks, are what's going to get us there. And the combination of these things is essentially the process.

If my goal is to generate a certain amount of sales revenue, and I'm not there yet. A process that I generally want to start with is to say, Okay, let's take a look at exactly how much your existing clients are worth to you. What did they spend with you last year? Okay? And then, do I think they're going to spend more than that, less than that, or about the same this year?

And generally, you'll have a reasonable idea of that. Whether it's going to be about the same, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. You won't know for sure, but it's a great place to start. So then you say, "Okay, if I figure I can count on my existing Customers for this level of revenue, and I'm looking to get to this level of revenue. Then how do I fill that gap?

Because if this is the goal and this is where I am now, then we have to look at the process that's going to get us there. What's the combination of tasks and projects that will allow us to reach that revenue goal?

And when we focus on that, everything we do, during any given day is now leading toward the goal, as opposed to just having scattered focus, just doing a bunch of different things, kind of thinking about our goal, but not exactly sure how we're going to get there.

But when you start to think of it in terms of these types of steps: tasks, projects, and ultimately your process, that's what's really going to make the biggest difference.

Jay: Yeah, I think if you don't do that, it can be really demotivating, right? I think I've told you in the past, when I was in the restaurant business just starting out, I would have an area manager come into the store and we would set goals, and the first one is always what you're talking about.

How are you going to increase sales? And he would just increase our sales on the goal by ten percent, right from the previous year and never tell me what I can do to, you know, I'm new, "okay, how am I going to do that? What are the steps?"

And it was just this arbitrary number that he came up with and never trained me or told me how I could accomplish those things.

So then the follow up is like, "oh, you didn't achieve your goal." And I'm like, "well, you never told me how to achieve my goal," right?

David: Yeah, the what is very often easy, it's in the how that we get into all the details. And that's what's missing with a lot of people .And that's why when we work with our clients in our Total Market Domination course, majority of it is the how, the specific steps that need to be taken in order to get to the desired goal. And when I say how, it doesn't mean that you have to do it, either.

It means somebody has to do it, right? So you can get into this idea of who versus how, which is a great book, by the way. Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy wrote a book called Who Not How. Excellent book. But that concept still requires somebody to know how to do the things.

So either you're going to find somebody who has that skill and you're going to get them to take those actions, or you're going to have to know what to do, either do it yourself or train someone else to do it so that those things can be done.

And then when you start focusing on that sort of approach, that becomes your process. You say, "okay, when I take this action, then I am likely to get this result." And then you look at those results and you gauge it based on what you're expecting. And then you tweak and adapt it as you go.

But ultimately it's all about the process and whether the process is figuring out what to do or knowing what to do and then taking the action to do it, or whether the process is identifying the right people that you need to bring into your organization to help you with it, it ultimately all boils right back down to the process.

Jay: Yeah, I think it's so important to say it's not all on you, right? Identify those things that you need to do and put the other things on other people's shoulders so that you can focus. I also love how you pointed out that as you're assessing your goals, if you're not getting there, you need to tweak and change.

I think sometimes we just say, Oh, that was it. Didn't work. So I guess that that goal wasn't right and so again, you've demotivated yourself instead of kind of reworking that goal.

David: Yeah, and so often we don't even realize how close we are to something until it actually happens. And it reminds me of that analogy about how an airplane is off course for 90 percent of the flight.

And so the pilot's job is to make constant little tweaks to get you back on track toward wherever it is that you're going. So you take off, you're headed in a direction, and then there's a little bit of wind and it sends you one way and then they have to compensate for it.

So most of the little steering we do, even when we're driving a car, your hands are moving slightly back and forth. And the reason it's doing that is because you're slightly off course most of the time.

When you use an analogy like that, and when you recognize that it's exactly the same in life, it's exactly the same in business, you're going to be off course, most of the time.

And so you have to just keep adapting and keep making these tweaks to make sure that you're back on track and following the path that you've set, which, of course, in what we're talking about today is your process, the tasks, the specific things that have to be done, the projects, the longer term things that require multiple actions and the ultimate process that you're using to get there.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I also think when you talk about, you know, find the who, I think that one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is they don't, and I really struggle with this, they don't share their process with other people.

They don't seek mentorship. And so they're reinventing the wheel. You know, a lot of these things have been tried and tested and you can skip a lot of pain and a lot of hassle if your who includes somebody else, just another ear call you, right?

You know, bend people's ear and see what they think. And like I said, I really struggle with this. I do everything quietly. And if it doesn't work, then I'll go, okay, I should do something else. Cause I don't want somebody else to know that I failed.

David: And of course you haven't failed until you've decided that you failed until you give up on it, right?

Because a lot of times we can be trying the same thing and it's not working. It's not working. It's not working. And you keep doing it. And then eventually it works. So it's like, okay, but if you quit before then, you may consider it a failure, but it might not have failed as long as you keep going.

It's also interesting when you talk about the idea that people tend to keep to themselves and they don't share stuff. That's really where we came up with our brand, TopSecrets.com, is the idea that not so much that these things are impossible to find out. It's just that they're not often shared.

A lot of sales and marketing training boils down to essentially fortune cookie kind of stuff. Be good to your clients and they'll be good to you. People do business with those they know, like, and trust. And these platitudes are maybe a little helpful, but until you know how to put them into action, until you know the specifics of, "okay, what do I do with that information? How do I get people to know, like,...

When we talk about the idea of effective follow-up in sales, what does that mean? It’s effective in terms of making sure that we’re on the same page with the person, making sure that our conversations are moving forward, making sure that their questions are being answered, and ultimately getting to a decision.

Are we going forward with this? Are we not? And if so, when is that going to happen?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing effective follow-up. How much is too much? Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you, David. Such an important question. And again, something that I struggle with. You know, I have a customer management system, and it shows me I talked to them three days ago.

And it comes up on my tasks and it says it's time to talk to them. And I find every time I go through this emotional thing. Are they going to think I'm bugging them too soon? And a lot of times I'll say, let's give them three more days or let's give them two more days because I guess I'm not ready to talk to them or I'm afraid I'll be a bother.

David: Yes, and you're not alone. Because it's pretty much impossible to know exactly how often to call any one given prospect, let alone all of them. It's not like there's one rule where you say you must call every other day or you must call every three days or every week or whatever your thing is. I mean, there are rules that have been put in place for salespeople to do that, and maybe it's not a terrible thing, but a system like that pretty much guarantees that you're going to be wrong as often as you're right.

And so, if you understand that going in, one of the things that I think it's important to recognize is that people are going to sort of telegraph how annoying you're being, or how often they want to be in touch, want to have you in touch. And if you ask them more directly, they'll be a lot more inclined to give you an honest answer.

If we make up our minds that we're going to contact this person every so many days, and that person doesn't want to hear from us that often, then obviously we're setting ourselves up for failure.

So a lot of times, if we can find out from the prospect roughly how often they would like for us to be in touch with them, and it's easier to do with established clients, where you know them, they know you. With prospects, it's not as easy.

But in the early stages with a prospect, we need to be in touch more frequently in order to get to decisions about qualification levels. Are they actually qualified to buy from us? Do they have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend, the interest?

Do they have any of those things? And if we can't determine that in the first conversation, we need to have a second conversation. But of course, their level of interest in that first conversation will also help us to determine, well, how much time should I give this person?

And when I think about how much is too much, one of the things that I've seen a lot, and I saw it myself, in my own behaviors in the earlier stages of my sales career, and then in a lot of other people along the way, is that since we can't know how much is too much, many of us in sales tend to err on the side of too little contact rather than too much.

And we talked about being a pest in a previous podcast. I don't want to be a pest. Therefore, I'm not going to pick up the phone and call. And the problem with that is that if we're not in touch with them, when they're ready to move forward, then someone else is going to get that business.

So we have to find this balance of, yes, I don't want to be a pest, but also I'm not going to abandon this person so that somebody else can get in there and get that business while I've been working to cultivate it over a long period of time.

Jay: Yeah, and it could be that depending on what type of product, there's a time limit as well. So if they don't get their order in within three weeks, you're not going to make their deadline. So that could affect how often that you're going to talk to them.

One of the things that I've found in my business is to just flat out, ask them to schedule a follow-up appointment. You know, we've just had a discussion. I'm going to send you the information. Would you mind if I reach out to you on Friday at this time? And I find that that works very well.

I've got that relationship going. You know, we're friends now after 20 minutes. And they're more than happy to set a follow-up appointment. If you're in a situation where you can do that, that's ideal.

Because once I lose that scheduled appointment, now we're playing phone tag or text tag or something else. So that's always my first attempt anyway.

David: Yeah, and I think that's a really great point. And it's critical, particularly these days, because reaching somebody when they're not expecting you is very difficult.

The other thing that it does is when you schedule a follow-up call on a certain day at a certain time, If they're going to ghost you, you'll find out sooner rather than later. Right?

Because if you leave it open ended, "Oh, I'll give you a call in a couple of days," or "give me a call after you've had a chance to review the information." you don't know what to expect.

Because if you say, "give me a call after you've had a chance to review the information," it could take them 10 minutes. It could take them a month. You just don't know. So by doing exactly what you just suggested, suggesting or scheduling a time for your next contact is really the smart move.

I think at this particular time in history to not do that is really setting yourself up for failure.

Jay: Yeah, and it's hard. I mean, at first I'm like, you know, I'm feeling pushy again, you know, but I do that after we've had this great conversation, they're saying they want to use me, there is no better time that I'm going to find to schedule a follow-up appointment.

If I let them off the line and then later on text them and say, "hey, can we set up another time?" I've probably already missed the opportunity. So there are moments to strike that, if you don't do it, you may never get again.

David: Right. And we can ask them, "when would be a good time to get back in touch?" If they need to review that, when would be a good time to get in touch?

And then if they say, well, you know, why don't you give me a week and it's Thursday, you can say, Oh, okay. Well, should I give you a call same time on Thursday?

Jay: Yeah.

David: And they can say yes or no. They can schedule something else, but at least you'll have an idea. And that way it also sounds like their idea because you ask them, when would be a good time to get back in touch?

They tell you a timeframe and then you just pin them down to a time that's based on the timeframe that they gave you. So now it's not you being pushy and trying to schedule a call. It's you listening to what they said and delivering what they asked for.

Jay: Yeah, I like that. Again, anytime you can avoid being a salesperson and get them to initiate is so important.

I've also come to realize that it's not something that I should fear. It's actually something that makes me look more professional and more interested in them. Right? And say, let's set up a time. You're interested right now. When can we talk so that we can get this process started?

It doesn't make me look pushy. It makes me look professional. And it took me a while to come to that realization.

David: And professional is the key word right there. Because if you think about the way that actual professionals behave... A doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, whatever -- anybody that the world considers to be a professional -- they're not just going to say, "oh yeah, well give me a call later," or whatever.

They're going to schedule an appointment, if an appointment is warranted. They're going to determine the timeframe. You're going to get agreement, you're going to agree on the date and the time, and you're going to follow up. Because that's what professionals do.

Leaving it open-ended is very often comfortable for salespeople who are afraid to ask for the commitment.

But then, for the little bit of anxiety that could be created by asking for a date and time to follow up, they're creating a world of anxiety because they have no idea what the next step is, when the next step is, or if that person is going to be available to take it with them.

Jay: Yeah, and then the other thing I find is that because people can schedule on my calendar without me there, I may fill up, and now when I should be following up with that client, I'm taking new calls, and as we've kind of talked about before, suddenly that person could be getting pushed to the background. And they're the one that I could make the sale with instead of these new clients.

So I found that I have to be very purposeful about scheduling that follow-up. Even if they won't set a time with me, I set a time so that it's blocked out on my calendar. Otherwise it'll disappear.

David: Yeah. You know, something else I find in sales, in particular, is that the term follow up, it's a term that we use freely, we speak of it very often. But it's not an ideal term to use with prospects and clients.

Jay: Agreed.

David: Because it is seen as such a salesy kind of term. And so when, even if that's what we're doing, if we know that we're calling to follow up with someone in a week and we schedule a time, when we get on the phone with them, it's probably best not to say, "I'm calling to follow up."

Jay: Yeah.

David: It's "okay, hey, we scheduled a time, looking forward to continuing the conversation." Something other than those words. And it's a small thing maybe, but I find that it's a small thing that really helps to set the stage for what the conversation is ultimately going to be.

...