The follow-up mistake that costs sales (and kills communication) is a lack of sequencing. If I've got a sequence in place that says, all right, when I get a lead from a networking function, I'm going to initially, either same day or next morning, send out this email message, which essentially says, "it was great meeting you at the networking function. Nice having a chance to talk."

Then, you include something in that email to elicit a response. Some will initiate a dialogue, some of them won't.

So from that point, if you don't hear back, you could have another one that goes out a couple of days later saying, "Hey, never heard back you on this, but something else occurred to me that I didn't mention..." and then you add something else to the conversation that could potentially be of interest to them. So you're not just hitting them with "call me, call me, call me, call me." You're actually creating value in the communication, which is particularly key when you're doing sequencing like that.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of sequencing your communication. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Great to be with you again. I really love that we dive into these things that can have such an impact on your daily business.

Oftentimes people will focus on the large things, not understanding that sometimes the smallest tweaks can make all the difference.

David: Yeah, and things like this really are kind of diving deep. And many times I know other people in podcasts or in stuff that's actually going out to the public, they'll just keep it all high level and not really get into too much.

I think we've done a reasonably good job over the years of diving a little deeper and getting into things in a little bit more detail. Because it's important for people who watch this or listen to this to recognize that there are a lot of aspects to all of this.

And we touched on this in the previous episode. We were talking about sort of the high level goals, we were talking about the high level concepts versus the nitty gritty of what do I have to do on a day-to-day basis. And this really gets more into the idea of the nitty gritty.

But sequencing is something that I don't hear many people talk about in business. And I think it's a real game changer for people in the sense that when you get this and you start implementing it, it changes the way that you interact with your prospects and clients to make what you are doing better and more appealing than what your competition is probably doing.

Jay: Yeah, such a great point. And back to the idea of focusing on the smaller stuff.

I'm weird. I call myself lazy because I want to avoid steps and reduce steps, but in the name of that laziness, I will spend weeks trying to create a system, whether it's a software system or a planning system or something, just knowing that over the long run, it's going to have such a dramatic impact.

And I can be lazy about that thing after that. And I focus. I mean, if I can reduce one little step, I'll spend weeks trying to figure out how to do that.

David: Yeah. But that's smart. I don't think that's lazy. I think it's far lazier to just go into each situation, not knowing what's going to happen, not knowing how to respond to the common objections you get, not knowing how to create a system that will allow you to bring clients through the door like clockwork.

And when you do that, you're basically going into work every day with no idea of what's going to happen. So I think that's really lazy and really sloppy and I don't think what you described is lazy at all.

Jay: Well, I don't, you know, I think you're probably right, but it is something that drives my wife crazy and it's really bad.

Like when we go grocery shopping, I have a route, and that route has a very specific design. It's based upon how the groceries are going to end up on the conveyor belt. And that's important because that determines on how they will go into the bags, because I want the bread on top and all of those things on top.

So I have this all planned and thought out from years of experience. It brings me joy, David, it's, it's a little, probably obsessive compulsive, but that's the way I am.

David: That's funny and she still lets you come along. That's amazing. But it's a great example though, because when you think about that, and there are two schools of thought when it comes to outcomes, right?

You described a more outcome driven approach. And it reminds me of the expression, the road is better than the inn, if you've heard that one.

Jay: Mm-hmm.

David: And I remember hearing that years ago and thinking, no, I kind of like the inn, right? I like, where are we going? Let's get there. Mission accomplished. Onto the next thing.

But there are people who just enjoy the experience. Shopping is a great example of that. I have never been a good shopper.

Jay: Mm-hmm.

At least before online shopping. I was a terrible shopper. As a kid. My mom would drag me around to different stores and she could just look at stuff for hours. I got bored three minutes in.

As a kid, I could go to the toy section and I could look around for a few minutes, maybe see something I liked or whatever. Then I'm done. Right? And people are just wired differently in that regard.

But I think if we really get down to the core of it, and we start thinking in terms of creating the systems and processes that will allow you to get results in your business, and tying it again back to our main topic, sequencing your communication, what this will allow you to do is to leapfrog your competition. Because you won't have to think about each step of it.

And it really ties to what you were saying about, you know your process in a store. Well, imagine that in business.

Imagine a situation where you create a sequence of communications to send out to the prospects that you want to convert, in a specific order, in a specific sequence, at a specific timeframe. You can automate that as well. And design it to accomplish a result

Too often in business because we're sort of focused all over the place, we're here, we're there, we're everywhere. We think in terms of sending a message out to a prospect and waiting for them to reply. And when they don't reply. We become confused and annoyed.

It's like, why didn't they reply? I sent you an email. Why didn't you reply? And it's cause that's not the way the world works anymore. Right? I sent you an email. Yeah, it'd be nice if it were like tennis, where you bat it across the other person bats it across, and you bat it across and you have a nice volley going.

That happens sometimes, but more often than not, it's not happening. And if you're depending on getting that volley hit back to you right away, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Where instead, if you recognize, you may have to send it across the net 3, 4, 5, 7, 10 times before it gets lobbed back, you'll be prepared. And if you prep that in advance, you are so far ahead of what your competition is doing. It's just not even funny.

Jay: Yeah, I, have this situation going on right now where somebody has sent me an email inviting me to do something. I don't know who this person is. I've never heard from them, and then I don't respond.

And then like four days later, I get an email that says, Hey, you didn't respond. And I'm like, Well, that should tell you all you need to know. And then I got another one. I've sent you two emails and you haven't responded. This person is sequencing, but they're doing it in a horrific way. I mean, by the third email, I'm like, who do you think you are?

That you can sit here and demand a response from me? And I don't even know who you are. The whole thing has soured me. I am never going to call them back based upon that type of sequencing.

David: Right. And if that's the type of sequencing we're talking about, then yeah, don't do that. That is not what I'm talking about.

It's interesting you should mention that because over the past several months I have received so many messages from people, pitching guests for this very podcast where they're saying, Hey, I think you should interview this person who's talking about this thing, and let me know if that's of interest to you.

You know, I've listened to your podcast. I think he'd be a great fit. And most of the time I get, you know, pretty much the same pitch for different speakers. So I'm on some kind of list and I normally ignore them.

But they've got sequences set up where it's the second one. Hey, just bumping this up to the top of your inbox again, you know, do you want to consider so-and-so for the podcast?

And so finally, I just put together the response that I'm sending to people, which is to say, if you listen to this podcast, you would recognize that we are not an "interview of the week kind of thing." You know, there are two of us who do this.

Jay: Yeah.

David: If we were a podcast that had a lot of people on and we were interviewing what you said would make sense, and I don't get into all that much detail. But they're basically not pitching the right thing to the right person.

And so in those situations, yeah, sequencing is not a great idea. But when you've got somebody who is engaged or would like to be engaged and you want to find out whether or not they're on board with you, when it's done right...

And that ties into the MVPs, the messaging, you know, is the messaging going to be good? Which combination of marketing vehicles you're using to reach them, and who are the people you're reaching? If you've got those three things in sync, then sequencing is going to work extremely well for you.

Jay: So let's talk a little bit more about. Sequencing. I can guess at a, couple of these things. I'm guessing like so many of the things we're talking

Wondering how to achieve your goals? Well, achieving goals is quite different than just setting them. So while the first step may be to set the goals you really want, then we have to prioritize our actions from high to low. What is the most important thing that I need to do in order to get there? Because generally, you can come up with a dozen or a hundred different things that you're going to need to do to achieve your goals. But there's probably one to three things on there that are going to be more important than the other 97.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will discuss how to achieve your goals. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, so glad to be here, David, and once again, I'm looking forward to this discussion. We hear people talk about goals all the time, and I know for me it's something that I struggle with because what will happen is I'll set those goals.

I really haven't defined how I'm going to get there, and then when I don't achieve them, it becomes something that deflates me. So I think for a lot of people, goal setting can work against them.

David: I think it can too, because I believe there is a lot of focus on goal setting, and it's something that we do, particularly at the beginning of a new year.

A lot of people focus on their new year resolutions, which are their goals. And while there's been a lot written about goal setting, the importance of goal setting, writing things down, reviewing it regularly, having your affirmations and things like that.

All of those things are certainly helpful, but they don't actually, directly connect to the idea of how to achieve your goals. And that's why I wanted to title this the way that I did, because setting your goals has been done to death, but how do you achieve your goals? I think it's interesting to explore that aspect of this topic.

Jay: Well, yeah. And one of the things that frustrates me is, when people talk about goal setting, they tend to assume that everybody's the same.

Oh, just follow this and you're great. It's like, I read The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People and what was never mentioned or considered in that was, it was also seven habits for highly organized people already.

You had already achieved a level where all you had to do was put these things in place and you're good. You can achieve your goals.

Well, what about me? I wasn't raised with systems and those kind of things, so what about me? I didn't feel like there was any place that I could implement that.

David: Yeah. And that is very common. I mean, I think everyone probably deals with that because unfortunately, when you're writing a book that's going to be on a shelf for a long period of time, you have to include things that are essentially timeless.

And The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I mean, it's such a great book. It's a very inspirational read. But when you've got rules, like "Be Proactive," that's a big, broad rule, right? And in many cases you can be proactive, but what does that mean? It gets down to the nitty gritty.

We've talked in the past about Michael Gerber, the author of The E-Myth. I love that book.

The E-Myth, The E-Myth Revisited. I read the original copy a long, long time ago, and I just loved it, because this was all about processes. And that book talked primarily about the fact that you have to have processes.

But then what are those processes, right? Because that's the part that people like you and I need. It's like, what are the processes? How do I do that? How do I make that happen?

And so much of my career has been focused on that. How do I turn this great recommendation, "be proactive," you know?

Jay: Yeah.

David: "Work on your business, not just in your business." How do I take broad statements like that? To some extent, they become platitudes, and how do I turn that into something that is actionable?

Because that is the only way you can ever achieve your goals. You have to be able to convert those great ideas into actionable tasks.

Jay: Yeah, such a key point. I think for me, what I found is I have to break it down enough to where I can feel that feeling of success instead of failure. Right?

So it's got to be minute enough to where I can say, okay, I did it. I accomplished something. And it could be something very simple. But that motivates me to the next step. I find if they're too big, then I'm setting myself up for disappointment.

David: Absolutely. But I think anyone who reads any sort of self-help material or business material, if you can take what they're giving you and then just ask yourself right away, "how do I apply this right now to my business?" Again, Seven Habits, "begin with the end in mind."

Jay: Right.

David: I mean, you could find that in a fortune cookie, couldn't you? It's brilliant advice, but it's like, oh, hey, yeah, that's really great. Now, again, in fairness, because it's an excellent book...

Jay: Yes.

David: And he goes into a lot of detail about some different ways that you can do that. But in some sense it has to be general. And that's why, if you're able to ask yourself that question, "how do I apply this right now?" It's going to get you a lot closer to being able to achieve your goals.

Because now it's not about concepts, it's about you: Your activities, your focus, and what your next step is.

Jay: Yeah, so let's get into a little bit more detail. I've asked myself, "how do I accomplish this now?" Is that a list you would write down or how would you recommend people proceed from that point?

David: Well, yeah, I think what I would generally want to start with is thinking in terms of resources. What are you going to need to achieve your goals?

Okay. because once I've written down the goal... say my goal is X amount of dollars in sales by the end of the year. My goal is to sell X number of customers by a certain date. Whatever your thing is, now you've got the goal.

All right. Well, as I said, the goal is kind of the easy part. Now we need to think in terms of, okay, what are the resources? What are you going to need in order to be able to achieve your goal?

Can I do it by myself? Am I going to have to hire additional staff? Hopefully you're not. But you need to know upfront. Because if you don't take the time to consider the resources that are needed, versus the resources at your disposal, then you won't even know if you're taking actions that are not going to allow you to get to your goal.

But if you take the time to think upfront, okay, what are the resources I'm going to need? Who am I going to need? Right? It's not just about the things. It's also about the people. Am I going to need additional help with this? And if so, what kind of people am I going to need?

There's an excellent book called Who Not How, by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy. It talks about the fact that when we're looking to get things done, a lot of times we think in terms of "how am I going to do this?" When in fact we're often better served by saying, "who can help me with this, who can help me get this done?"

And that goes back to the resources.

If you have a clear idea of what you're going to need and who you're going to need, then it's going to be a lot easier to achieve your goals. And then ultimately, how much am I going to need?

How much am I going to need in terms of resources, in terms of money, in terms of people, in terms of time?

Time is always one of those resources that you need to evaluate upfront, and if you don't do that, you're never going to get beyond the fortune cookie aspect of what it is we're talking about here.

Jay: Yeah, you've kind of brought up negative emotions with me because it reminds me, I grew up in the restaurant business. And before I became an area manager and a regional manager, I remember my area manager coming in every year and we'd have to set sales goals.

And so first of all, it was a complete shot in the dark. It was based upon air. Right? Just how much do you want to increase your sales? And second of all, there was never any instruction on how you're going to do this.

And so, how do you do it as a restaurant? I'm not in control of the marketing budget because it was a chain. So what am I going to do? Nobody ever said, well, you can increase your sales by doing A, B, C, and D.

They just came in and set this arbitrary goal, and at the end of the year I was beat up because I didn't reach that goal. And I'm like, this just becomes a bludgeon that creates disappointment.

David: Right, because the focus there is on the what.

Jay: Yes.

David: What is it that I want to accomplish? Just like we're talking about with goals. This is the goal. Okay. The goal is established very early on. But then every day, every hour preceding that, you need to ask yourself, am I on track?

And that's going to go back to, first of all, do you have a plan in place? Because if you don't have a plan to achieve your goals, then it's not going to happen. But then beyond the plan, do I have the resources? Do I have them in place? Am I firing on all thrusters?

Jay: Mm-hmm.

David: Are we doing the things that we need to do in order to accomplish it? And then also just adapting, recognizing that, let's say you establish your goals today, you lay out a plan today, and you're starting on it tomorrow.

Well, as soon as you start it, it's like that old quote, I don't know if it was Colin Powell, some military general talked about the fact that "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

Jay: Yes.

David: And it's the same thing with a goal in business. It's not going to survive contact with prospects and clients. You set your goal in terms of what you want to reach, but every day you're going to be taking actions, some of which will work and some of which will not.

At which point you need to be able to discern what's

If you want to increase revenue, upselling and cross-selling can help. So what's the difference? Upselling means selling a better or a higher priced version of the thing that they're looking at. Whereas cross-selling is making a recommendation of something that's compatible.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of upselling and cross-selling. Are you doing it? Welcome back, Jay

Jay: Yeah, hey, thank you, David. Listen, have these bad memories when I was a kid and I was working in a fast food place and the manager was always pressing me, "ask them if they want a Coke, ask them if they want fries."

And I got to a point where it's hard to upsell and I think this has grown into my adulthood. You know, I just barely got the sale and now I'm asking them for more. It's not an easy thing to do for people.

David: You know, it's interesting you should mention the fast food example because it's the perfect example. It's the one that everyone can relate to. "You want fries with that?"

Jay: Yeah.

David: Or the shortened version that you hear a lot of times, "want fries with that," as the four word upsell. And it works extremely successfully for people in that sort of industry. Because it makes sense. Somebody's coming in, they're ordering whatever, a burger or something, or they're ordering a burger and a drink, "want fries with that" makes perfect sense.

And some percentage of time they're going to say yes. And whether that is 1% of the time or 80% of the time, it's probably maybe 30 to 60% of the time, I would guess, they're going to say yes. Because it's like, "oh, all right, sure. Why not? I'm already here."

Jay: Yeah.

David: And you hit on a great point, which is that we can feel funny about upselling, if we feel like the purpose is to simply get more money out of a person. If it feels like it's completely one-sided, if it feels like it's manipulative, then we're not going to want to do it.

So I personally believe that the times that we should upsell and cross-sell are the times when we truly believe that we have an additional solution that is going to be better for them.

Now, in the fast food example, are french fries better for you on top of the Coke and the hamburger?

Jay: Yes!

David: Probably not from a, health level, but certainly from a satisfaction level, yeah, it's better. People are likely to want that. But in business, if you're selling something, and somebody comes to you and they have something very specific they want to buy, and you have something that would be complimentary to that, or something that would go with that really well and would increase the value to the buyer, then you kind of owe it to them to at least ask them if they're interested in that.

Jay: Mm, I love that. I love that idea that if you are feeling uncomfortable, maybe you should ask yourself why. And how do you feel about your product? Are you really providing a value to them or are you just trying to sell something and get a paycheck, right?

And I think we all have to ask that question about our own careers and what we're doing and what we're selling. But, you know, if you can just feel great that what you're providing them is going to improve their situation, then you're just passionate about what you're doing and that's going to come through.

David: Yeah. So when you are talking to somebody like that, if you've got something that is actually going to be a benefit to them, if it's going to help them, then it's a lot easier to do it. So that really just boils down to motives.

What is the motive? And unfortunately, I think sometimes managers, like in the situation you described in the fast food restaurant, the manager says, "just do this. Ask them if they want this. Push it, push it, push it. Sell, sell, sell."

When instead, if the manager had said to you, Hey, listen, when people come in here, they're hungry. They want something good. You know, they've ordered this, they've ordered that other thing, so they might want it and maybe they didn't think of it.

You might want to suggest that. Maybe they want dessert, maybe they want an apple pie at the end, right?

Jay: Mm-hmm.

David: Apple pie. I'm saying yes to an apple pie, right? And if you don't ask, you don't get, and it's very easy for them to say no. Now, there are situations, and I've heard it referred to, particularly in online situations, where there are online upsells where you buy something and then it asks you if you want to buy this and you want to buy that and you want to buy this.

Yeah, I've heard people refer to that as upsell hell. Now, if you get somebody involved in that, then that's not good. But if you make a recommendation that makes sense for them, then I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I also have heard this, you know, back to the fast food example, when the person who's embarrassed to do it, they say, my manager wants me to ask you if you, and I'm like, oh, that's just the worst situation.

But I think, you know, I've also had like servers say, " you should try this because it's really good."

David: Yeah.

Jay: And that's different, right? That doesn't sound like an upsell. That doesn't feel like an upsell. So how you go about it, and are you passionate about it? Do you really believe that?

David: Right.

Jay: That makes all the difference.

David: When my son was traveling, he was in Italy with some of his friends and they went out for dinner one night and they went into this restaurant and the waiter was very happy to see them. Americans there to spend money, and the waiter came over to take for order and one of the guys ordered chicken and he said, "no, no, no, no. You don't want the chicken. It's terrible here, get the steak," right?

Now there's an example of an upsell, I guess.

Jay: Yeah,

David: Upsold them from the chicken to the steak. The steak was a lot more expensive. Was the chicken there really terrible? I have no idea. But he presented it in a way that made them think, all right, I'll get the steak.

And it was entertaining, too. So I think there are ways of engaging in this type of behavior where if it's not manipulative, and it actually gets them a better result than you might as well do it.

You know, another thing I think that people should consider is that when it comes to upsells and cross cells, it's not something that always just has to take place at the immediate point of purchase.

I mean, obviously that's a great time to do it, but if someone buys something from you... in the promotional products industry, I mean the, examples are kind of easy. Somebody buys t-shirts or sweatshirts, "want caps with that," right? Would be the equivalent of french fries.

And you can ask and they can say yes or they can say no, whatever it is. But if you don't do it at the point of sale, you could contact them back maybe a few weeks, a month later. Hey, I just wanted to let you know we just got this new product in. I think it would go perfectly with those shirts you got.

Would you be interested in having a look at that? Right? And that's an example of an upsell or a cross-sell that could take place later. So it's not like, If you didn't do it the first time, you can never do it again. There are plenty of opportunities to do that throughout the sales cycle.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. And the other thing, I've seen some research and it's something that I've implemented that has helped me get over the upsell thing, is that research that I've seen shows that the time when people are most willing to spend more with you is when they just spent with you. And that seems counterintuitive, right?

Like, I just got this money out of you. You just spent money and you're willing to spend more. That doesn't feel exactly right.

David: Yeah, but again, if you go back to the fast food example, it does make perfect sense. I'm getting this and I'm getting that. Do I want this too? Yeah, sure, why not? So there is that aspect of it.

Now, outside the fast food example, it might not be quite as obvious and there might not be as much of a connection. But once again, I think if we get beyond the idea of selling product, and we get more into the idea of satisfying the customer, what is the customer looking to get from this experience?

So in a promotional products example, am I looking to buy shirts? Not so much. I'm looking to buy awareness of my business. Maybe I'm looking to have people wear this thing and have people see it and recognize my business. Perhaps I'm looking for a sense of affinity, that the people who wear it feel good about my company.

So there are very deep things that I could be looking for in this purchase. And so if I'm able to connect my additional recommendations, my upsells and my cross cells to those types of things, the things that motivated them to want to do it in the first place, then they're going to be a lot more likely to say yes.

But they're also going to be a lot more likely to appreciate the fact that you thought about what they actually want and you're trying to deliver it to them.

Jay: Yeah, and then you're avoiding that salesperson feeling and you're more like a consultant, as we've talked about so many times in these podcasts.

I think the other thing that you have to remember, just from a pure business standpoint, we talk about customer acquisition costs a lot, and if you can upsell somebody, That's product on top of your initial acquisition cost.

And then if you can cross-sell them, take your existing lead database and cross-sell them into other products, that by far is a better way to do business than constantly having to find new customers and always paying that cost to get those new customers in the door.

David: Yeah, absolutely. One of the other things that we've done in our training is al

How much time do you spend chasing prospects who will never buy? If somebody is not responsive, you can decide, do I want to continue to pursue this person? Or do I want to leave them to my competitors? Let my competitors chase that person. If they're disqualified, you don't have to spend time with them at all.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the idea of converting more sales: turning leads into customers. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. Such a pleasure to be with you. This is kind of the secret sauce, right? I mean, if we could all increase our conversion rates and bring down our customer acquisition costs that's where the rubber meets the road.

David: Yeah, in a lot of cases it's a really critical part of it. I think some people make a mistake upfront when it comes to conversion. They want to try to convert everyone. You know, they just meet somebody for the first time and they immediately go into sales mode.

And I think that they can really save themselves and other people a lot of time and a lot of aggravation if they actually start where it really should begin with a little bit of qualification. Trying to find out if they have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend, those kind of things.

Because a lot of times there are salespeople who will spend weeks, months, years pursuing somebody, just to find out once they get an appointment with them that they weren't qualified to buy to begin with. And you can eliminate that right up front. Save yourself a world of heartache.

Jay: Yeah, I love this point, David. I can't tell you I've had this happen, you know, I'm on the phone with somebody and talking about the product and things like that, and then after asking some questions, I realize this is not a good fit. I don't have the services they're looking for.

And I could have saved us both a lot of time if I had done a little pre-qualification before we got started.

David: Yeah. Or if that's happening on the first call, then you're pretty good at that point. But literally, I know there are people who have gone to networking functions for a long period of time, and they're talking to people and trying to get them to agree to an appointment, and then they finally agree to the appointment, and then you get out there and you're talking to them.

I had this experience myself early in my career. I'll never forget it. There was this guy and I thought he was going to be a great prospect, so I tried to get an appointment with him. He agreed to the appointment. I showed up at his place.

His place was a dump and he didn't show up for the appointment, and I was sitting there looking around and I was thinking, "okay, why am I here?" And so a little bit of diligence upfront and a little bit of qualifying goes a long way.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. And I also think technology can do a lot of that pre-qualifying, right? We had the experience where our Google ad buy was not targeting the right people. And so I was getting all these calls and I'm like, "wow, look at these leads we're getting."

And it turned out I was just wasting time. So I'm wasting money on the Google ad buy. And then I'm wasting money fielding all of these calls. That's just, you're spinning your wheels at that point.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And when you think about it, pitching unqualified prospects is the single biggest time waster on the planet. So if we can avoid that, we're going to be a lot better off.

Jay: Yeah. I think there's a tendency though to think, "oh, we can sell anybody." Or I think the other side of that is if you're not pre-qualifying, then you don't have a really good idea of how effective you are as a salesperson, because you're comparing it to every person you talked to.

Like, I've talked to a hundred people, my close rate was 20%. Well, if 5% of those were never going to be a lead for you, or never going to be a customer, then you're not really using accurate numbers. Right?

David: Yeah, exactly. Everything's skewed when you're doing it that way. So, I mean, I believe qualification upfront is really important and systematic follow up is another thing.

If you're not following up systematically with people, which means that you are in touch with them at the times when you need to be in touch with them, then you're also going to be at a big disadvantage.

Jay: Yeah. and that's really an area where I struggled a long time ago, and that is if I didn't get them right away, then I'm going to move on to the next person.

David: Mm-hmm.

Jay: And like you said, it's about relationships. And again, I love technology that can do a lot of this stuff for you, drip campaigns and those kind of things.

David: Right.

Jay: But because somebody down the road, they don't need you now, that doesn't mean they're not going to need you in the future.

David: Yeah, and so if you've qualified them and you know that they would still be a good prospect for what you're selling, then at that point you want to make sure that you've got something in place, whether it's inside a crm, however it is that you're doing, so that you know that you are in touch with them until they're ready to buy from you.

And when we talk about systematic follow up, it goes far beyond the, "are we there yet" approach that a lot of people take where it's like when you're traveling in a car with small kids and they keep saying, "are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

And there are some salespeople who do that. They just call and say, "Hey, you want to buy, you ready to buy? You ready to buy? Are we there yet?" And that's not what I mean by systematic and or strategic follow up.

Jay: Yeah. I think part of that is you start to seem desperate, right? And I think what we need to avoid, and I'm really learning this, is the feeling that I'm a salesperson and they're a potential lead. If they feel like I'm a salesperson, then I've already lost kind of the battle, right?

So, whereas if I'm a consultant, if I'm somebody who can help them grow, if I'm somebody who they have a relationship with, who they feel really cares about them, then that's a real advantage.

But if they just feel like this is sales to potential client relationship, that's a much harder road to go down.

David: It definitely is. And when we think about it, you know, once you've qualified somebody and you've got your follow up in place and you're interacting with them. You know, part of the deal then is persuasion.

You know, what are we saying that is going to entice this person to want to move forward? Essentially, are we hitting their hot buttons? What are their hot buttons? What are the things that are motivating them to either take action or not take action?

Because if you're not doing that, once again, you're going to have a lot of difficulty converting.

Jay: Hmm. Yeah. This kind of goes back to the pre-qualifying you talked about. You're not just finding out if they're a fit for your product. You're finding out what their specific needs are.

Because how often have you been in or anybody been involved in. I'm pitching a sales strategy to them and it doesn't meet their needs. And what I've done is I've conveyed to them that I didn't listen or that I don't know their business.

There's nothing worse, in my opinion, if somebody's trying to sell me something and they haven't taken the time to really figure out who I am, what my needs are, what is my business model? That can really be a detractor to the process.

You can lose the sale if you are going down the wrong path.

David: Yeah, you definitely need to keep it focused on them. A lot of times we make the mistake of talking about ourselves and our product and our capabilities and how great we are and it's like, you've lost me at hello. When you do that.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I've been there like with somebody else and we walked in the door and we were both supposed to be part of the sales process and before there's even a hello, they're like diving into the product and opening the book and this is what we have and what we have.

And. I'm just like you got to at least take a few minutes to set some baseline relationship and ask some questions and pre-qualify even there, if you've pre-qualified them before you've arrived.

I think that pre-qualify is really, I think there is a pre part, but there's a constant requalifying that happens as you go along.

David: Absolutely, and people are constantly cycling through the five levels of qualification. Sometimes they're ready to buy right now. Other people have specific dates in mind. Still others are open to it. They're generally receptive. Sometimes they're disqualified, and sometimes they'll just ghost you. They're just unresponsive.

When you recognize that they're five essential levels, then you know exactly how to follow up with each one, and it becomes a lot more systematic.

Jay: Yeah, and I love that you've broken these things down into different levels. Because that makes it really easy to classify. And that's the problem is you may have a sense that you want to do this, but you really don't know which buckets to put people in. What are those buckets?

If you can have a system where you're not giving a lot of thought, you're just like, boom, this one goes here, this one goes there, then you can spend more time working on the right buckets, I'm guessing. Right?

David: Exactly. Because if somebody is not responsive, you can decide, do I want to continue to pursue this person, or do I want to leave them to my competitors? Let my competitors chase that person. If they're disqualified, you don't have to spend time with them at all.

But if you focus on those first three buckets, the ones who are ready now, the ones who have specific dates and the ones who are generally receptive,...

A lot of people think the goal is to get likes and engagement, but when it comes to using social media in business, conversations and conversions are the metrics that matter. That's what results in sales. The rest are vanity metrics. Those who think it's all about views and clicks might be missing the point.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the best use of social media in business. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David I feel like this is one of those areas where I don't feel confident in myself, but I'm not in a position yet where I'm going to hire somebody to do it.

And so, it's hard to get motivated every day, because I know it's an important part, especially in my business. Most of our leads come from the internet and social media, so it's like I don't know that this is something I should be handling myself.

David: I think a lot of people feel that way, and for many of us, social media can be a huge distraction.

And in some cases, like, well, the best use of social media is to keep it turned off if you have to actually get things done. But there are benefits to it when it's used properly, and part of our Total Market Domination course involves working with our clients to help them through the best forms of first contact with a new prospect.

And one of those methods is social media. I mean, you can be doing it via cold calls, you can be doing it via networking events, direct mail, lots of different ways to initiate first contact with a new prospect. But many people like the idea of using social media, particularly because it is a one-to-many method of reaching people.

You can post something on social media one time, and hundreds of people could see it, or thousands of people could see it. And so it allows you a great deal of leverage much more than if you're making one phone call at a time or meeting one person at a time. So there are definitely benefits to utilizing it.

Of course, with the benefits come the flip side, the detriments that go along with it in some cases. One of the things that a lot of people seem to struggle with is that they go onto social media with one purpose and they end up doing 10 other things that they didn't plan on doing when they got in there.

They don't end up doing the thing that they actually wanted to do. And so a lot of it, I think, boils down to the fact that we're not sure what to do. In a lot of cases. We're not sure, well, what should I post? What should I say? What should it be designed to do? And there's so much talk among so many people about creating content, and I've done classes on this.

The fact that content is kind of a misunderstood word. If you think about what is content? Well, content is whatever's in something, right? If you've got a bag, whatever's in that bag is the content. Could be something good, could be something very bad, right? But whatever's in the bag. So if you think of it like that and you say, okay, I have to create content.

Well, yeah, but you need to do more than just content. You want to make sure that whatever it is that you're dispersing to the masses has enough value for people that they say, wow, that was actually worthwhile. That was worth my time. So a lot of what we focus on in the communication aspects of what we do with our clients is related to how do we do that?

How do we create value in our communications? And I know I'm sort of rattling off all kinds of different things that could be entirely different podcast subjects. But coming back to the idea of the best use of social media, if you think about what it is, I mean, I've got an idea of what I believe it is.

Do you have any thoughts on that before I spill the beans on what I think here?

Jay: Well, I think it's going to be different for everybody and what type of clientele you have. I'm guessing a key part of this and we've spent a lot of money on my end doing this. Is identifying who our end user is, what, what type of client are we trying to attack?

When we first started it, we were and I've told you this story before, we were attacking so many leads. It was blowing us out of the water. But the leads were not closing, and so we had to narrow that field, finally to a point where we could just get potential leads.

In order to do that, we spent a lot of time around a table figuring out who that potential client is and what are the keywords that are going to be interesting to them?

And when you talk about posting content, if you're just shooting in the dark and you haven't identified who your target is, then you're going to spend a lot of time on social media spinning your wheels, and you may be chasing people away or just making them disinterested because you haven't put in the time ahead of time to really have an impact.

David: Yeah. When I think about having an impact on social media. And I want to be really transparent here too. I have not used social media nearly to the extent that other people have to get clients. We have other methods of first contact that are extremely effective that work really well. And so don't look to me as the expert on this, but what I can tell you is that to the extent that we have done this effectively, the way that we've done that is using social media for the primary purpose of initiating conversations.

So when I think in terms of the best use of social media, For me, but I also believe for most other businesses, the best use of it is to be able to initiate a conversation with someone else. So if I'm able to post something that's interesting enough to get someone to comment back, and then I can reply to that comment and then they reply to that, now we're actually in a conversation.

And of course, conversations is exactly where sales happen. You don't have sales generally, if you're a salesperson without having a conversation. Now that could take place via text. It could take place via Messenger. Maybe it takes place in comments. It could take place on the phone, in person. Lots of different ways to do it.

"When it comes to social media in business, most people focus on likes and clicks. And while that might feed the algorithm, I still believe the metrics that matter are conversations and conversions. Conversations and conversions result in sales. The rest are vanity metrics." -- David Blaise

But if we think about it from that standpoint, it makes things a little easier, because when we're on social media, we are programmed to think in terms of likes and think in terms of shares and things like that.

And likes and shares are fine. Shares are probably better than likes in my view, because it gets it in front of more people. And if the content is good, then it expands your horizons a bit. But if a bunch of people like your stuff and it doesn't lead to conversations, then what really happened?

Their likes might get it in front of more people, because I think that's how the algorithm works. But, if people are not actually engaging with it and initiating conversations with you, then I believe there's a lot of opportunity that is lost.

And when you talk about delegating this kind of thing, hiring other people to create social media for you. If they don't know what the goal is, then the stuff they create is not likely to produce the result.

When they think the goal is to get likes, then they're going to create content that is designed to get likes. If the goal is to interact with people, initiate conversations with people who could potentially buy from you, then what we're doing on social media has to be completely different.

Jay: Yeah, such a great point.

I also think you know, you talked about conversations. It actually has become a very important part of the algorithm that you get comments and more importantly, that you reply to those comments, whether or not they're important or not. If you could reply in such a way that they respond back then that's going to increase the algorithm.

So that's an important part just to get it seen by more people. But then if they're actually interacting with you, you're now building the relationship. And I think oftentimes we forget relationships are the most important part of our business.

Anytime I close a sale, when I'm done, I almost feel like I've gained a new friend. And in a lot of ways, I have. Somebody that I'm providing a service for, they appreciate that service. And it all starts with a conversation somewhere, like you said, on the phone, in the comments, that's where it's all going to begin.

David: Yeah. I think also tracking what's going on is important, and a lot of people don't do that. They have a vague idea of, oh, this got a lot of likes. I got a bunch of comments here or there. People seem to like this one or that one.

But none of that is really tangible enough to be able to justify, in some cases, the amount of time that goes into it. So if you track how much time you're putting into it and you're able to track how many leads you get as a result of it, and by leads, it may just be something as simple as having a conversation with someone, whether it is in the comments or whether it is through DMing, that type of thing.

Then you've got some metrics. You've got some basic metrics to look at, to say, "okay, I put an hour and a half into this and I had two people enter into conversations with me." Is that worthwhile? Well, let's keep track of those two people. What happened? Were they even prospects? Did you get them qualified as quickly as possible?

Were you able to sell to anybody who might have actually been interested in buying? Was it worthwhile? Because if you can make a decent volume sale with an hour and a half involvement on social media, then you can say, all right, that was worthwhile.

If you put in an hour and a half on it and you have no conversations with anyone,...

Are your priorities BS? Well, focusing on that area in particular, looking at what are the things in my life that really are important to me? What are the actions that I want to take and need to take that are important to me? Even if they're not urgent, how can I get those things scheduled so that they have a better likelihood of getting done?

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the topic Are Your Priorities BS? Welcome, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David, as always, such a pleasure to be with you. And another great topic. I think that it's so easy to just do the squirrel thing or the squeaky wheel gets the grease and we don't really know what our priorities should be a lot of the time that's half the battle I think.

David: Yeah, I think that's true. Knowing what our priorities are and recognizing that a lot of times they're not really what we think they are. And most of the time when I talk about stuff on these podcasts, it's not because I'm particularly smart, is because I feel like I've made every stupid mistake that anyone can make.

And so if I can help our listeners and viewers to avoid doing some of those things, then that's a pretty good service. And when I think about priorities and I reflect on the priorities that I've had over the years and over my life, I recognize that we have priorities that we really put out there.

We say, okay, this is what's important to me. What's important to me is my family. What's important to me are my friends. What's important to me is, whatever, losing weight, like if we have goals, my my priority is to do this and to do that, and all these different things.

And then when we look at our actions and we realize that our actions don't really line up with what we say our priorities are, it raises the questions are our priorities BS?

And I think in some cases, even when we don't realize it, they might be.

Jay: Yeah. First of all, I'd say there's nothing wrong with learning in the school of hard knocks. I mean, sometimes those are the best lessons we can learn. But I also think it, we can spin our wheels a lot trying to reinvent the wheel, so learning from other people can help expedite that process.

Right? Which is why I'm glad you're so willing to share the trials that you've had. I think that that's so critical. But I think you're right. We've talked a lot in the past about self assessment. Can you really look at yourself and know what your weaknesses are and what your strengths are?

And oftentimes, I think you're right. We think something is a priority for us, but in the grand scheme of things, and according to our own actions, it's really not. And we're kind of fooling ourselves.

David: Yeah, and the way that I've actually sort of worked through some of this is recognizing that there's a really big difference between our stated priorities, the things that we say are priorities to us, and then our actual priorities, meaning the priorities we act on the things that we do, the actual steps that we take or don't take.

Because if our priority is to spend time with our family and our actions are that we're working all the time and we're not spending time with our family, then we have two different sets of priorities, our stated priorities that always sound good, and then our actual priorities, which is what we're doing on a daily basis.

Jay: Yeah, I see this all the time in like TV reality shows. I don't know why this comes to mind, but you see people saying, my family is the most important thing to me, and they're working 80 hours a week at their career, or their job.

And I'm sitting there thinking, Hmm, no, I don't think you really understand what your priorities really are.

David: Yeah, and most people are sincere, I think, when they say those things. It's just that in many cases, life interferes. And when we allow life to interfere, then it turns out that our actual priorities are different than the ones that we're telling ourselves and telling other people.

Jay: So how do we sift through that? How do we do that self assessment and really identify what our core priorities are, and maybe we need to identify them as BS and head in a different direction.

David: Well, I put together a worksheet. You can download it here. It's very simple. It's basically got stated priorities on the left and actual priorities on the right, and what you do is you list down on the left hand side all the things that I tell other people and that I tell myself are my actual priorities.

And then you just keep an eye on what you're doing every day. Did I take action on my top priority on the left hand side of the page? And if I didn't, what did I do instead? If my goal is to write a book and instead I slept until 10:30, then I've got a stated priority and I've got an actual priority.

And so when I'm working with clients, these are some of the things that we look at. What is it that is most important to you? What is it that you believe, that you truly believe is most important to you? What do you believe your priorities are, and then what are the actions that demonstrate what your actual priorities are?

Jay: Yeah, and I think, people have specific priorities, but they get trapped in the every day. So it's not like it isn't my priority and the priority's not really BS. What is BS is that I'm, not doing anything towards it. I'm letting my business run me instead of me running my business.

David: Yeah, I mean, a personal one for me is like I've been losing and gaining the same 10 pounds for probably 20 years, right? So if my priority is actually to lose 10 pounds or whatever it is. But then I have a conflicting priority, which is, "oh, dessert!" Right? Then those two things are in conflict.

And every time I choose the dessert, which is the actual priority, it's the action that happens over the stated priority of losing the weight, then it really is BS. It's BS to say that this is the goal, if the actions on the right hand side of the sheet are not going to correspond to that.

And that's where I feel like, by calling ourselves out on it, it might encourage us to take the actions that we need to take to accomplish the results we're looking for and to really get our priorities in order.

Jay: Yeah, and let me tell you, there's nothing to be ashamed of, of breaking even on weight loss. David .Losing 10, gaining 10, at least you're not completely losing that battle. So that's something to be proud of. So we talked about the worksheet and identifying your priorities. And making sure they're not BS.

I'm guessing then you want to set a path, you've got to break that down into smaller chunks or something. You can't just say, "oh yeah, that's my new priority," or that I've identified it. You've got to talk about how you're going to get there. Right?

David: Right. So when we look at the left side of the page and we compare it with the right, and we determine that, okay, our actions are not in line with our priorities, then it's a matter of looking at each of those priorities and breaking each of those down into projects and tasks essentially.

So a project is anything that requires more than one action. A task is basically one action, right? That's the way I break it out. So if there are a series of three or four things that I need to do to accomplish that, then those are three or four tasks.

If there are three or four or five or 10 related things that belong to an entire project, then I put it in the form of a project. And the way that I manage my time is that I use a time planner that allows me to use different colors for different things.

So I use one color for projects and another color for tasks because I can look at it and say, okay, here's a task. This is something I can knock out relatively quickly. And when you know which goals, which priorities your projects and tasks line up with, then you can always be taking action on something that is actually important to you.

Jay: Yeah. And I think you've hit on something very key as part of this process is by writing things down, by having a color code, by doing those things, you're giving yourself kind of back testing, right?

So you can look back and say, okay, you know, do a monthly assessment. I know people who spend a couple hours on Sundays just reflecting back on their previous week and saying "Did I really make my priorities, priorities?"

And so that process of writing it down, whether it's digitally or some people still use day planners, you know, they actually still use paper. That drives me crazy. But I understand, because that's got to be an important part of the process.

David: Yeah. And I think the calendar is really an important part of the process because we could do another podcast called "To-Do Lists are BS," right? Because I feel like in a lot of cases they are.

If you have a to-do list that has a hundred things on it and you don't get to most of them... If you're getting to the most important things, then it's worthwhile. But if you're not, then how do you fix that?

And generally, the only way that I've ever been able to fix it is to budget time on the calendar for those specific activities, block it off just like you would any other appointment and say, "okay, from this time to this time, this is what I'm doing."

Turning off the phone, not answering calls focused on doing this just as if I were having a meeting or an appointment and making that appointment with yourself. I'm sure I'm not the first person to recommend something like that, but for me, just moving things from a to-do list onto a calendar helps a great deal. As long as you're willing to follow through on what's on your calendar. And if you're not, yeah, then you got some real issues.

Jay: Yeah, it's really a place where I struggle. I kind of have a good idea where my priorities are, but moving them into a schedule,...

Unqualified prospects can be a huge waste of time. Lately, I've been on a bit of a kick in terms of commitment versus interest. If you're interested in the possibility of working with us, that's very different than if you're committed to getting the results you want in your business and working with us to do it.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the pursuit of unqualified prospects. Welcome, Jay!

Jay: Hey, it's so great to be here again, David, and I always love the topics that we get into. I think usually, I'm in pursuit of just any prospect. I don't give a lot of thought to are they qualified, are they not?

It's like, just send me all the leads and I'll sort through it. I'm sure I'm wasting a lot of time doing that.

David: It's funny, isn't it? It's like just looking for warm bodies. Anybody who can fog a mirror, right? And to some extent, that's part of every process. Because we really don't know who's qualified and who's not until and unless we have a qualification procedure in place to figure that out. Or if we just get good at it from having conversations and hearing what people say.

So I think you're right. I think no one really sets out to pursue unqualified prospects. But to some extent, we all do it every day.

Jay: Yeah, exactly. I will tell you that as a company, we've done some things. when we first started using Google ads. It was crazy. I mean, we were getting so many responses. And then after taking all of these leads and calls, we realized that 90% of them were not good.

Because, our key words that we were using for Google were bringing us the wrong type of client that we couldn't help and that we couldn't close. So once we just did something as simple as figure out our keywords, wow, that saved us a lot of time and money.

David: It really helps to dial it in, doesn't it? When you're more specific and it, you're right. It could be the difference of one additional parameter, one additional thing that you're saying in the messaging that you're putting out there. Because all of that's going to contribute to the type of people who respond to your ads when we're talking about leading with advertising.

Jay: Yeah, exactly. The other thing we found is a seasonality to it, and you and I have talked about seasonality a lot when it comes to sales. But we've found that the same keywords don't work the same all year long, that there's different motivations that things change. And so, we're kind of starting to keep track of that now for the first time, and I'm excited.

You know, we probably won't reap the benefits of that until next year. But that's how far ahead we have to be, to know when and how to start pivoting and adjusting.

David: Yeah, I can see exactly how that could be the case. And it's something that you discover through doing it, right? Through iterations. You try different things and you say, Hey, this isn't working. This used to work. What's the reason for that? So a lot of it too is sometimes talking to people.

One of the things that we've done for a long time is when people make a decision not to work with us, or sometimes, if someone expresses interest in working with us, but then doesn't follow through, we'll reach out to those people and find out.

"Hey, it looks like you were thinking about contacting us. Looks like you were maybe thinking about scheduling a strategy session with us. You didn't do it. What was it that held you back?

And the answers you get from that can be extremely helpful in terms of finding out what might also be holding other people back.

Jay: Yeah. That is so powerful. I think sometimes people are afraid. They've turned you down and they're afraid that if you make another phone call you're going to be bothersome to them.

But if you do it in the right approach, or it can even be done in a form, a survey after the fact. You know, some way to kind of gather and harness that information. Something really obvious might rise to the top and you're like going, "oh my goodness, why didn't we think about that? It should have been so easy for us to see," but we get that tunnel vision so often.

David: Yeah, and everything's obvious in hindsight, right? Once we figured it out, I was like, "oh, of course. How did I not know that?"

You know, one of the things, too, that I think about unqualified prospects is that they're everywhere. Right? They are everywhere.

And I know one of the early mistakes that I made in my business was assuming that everybody was going to be qualified until they proved otherwise. And that's a tough mistake to make, too.

Jay: Yeah, totally. I mean, you have to be proactive about this process. If you're letting them decide if they're qualified, well then again, you're going through a pile of paper, a pile of leads, whatever it is, and you're honestly just wasting time and time is money.

And if you can get that down to where, your close rate you know, instead of one out of a hundred, you can get, five out of 20 because you've got 20 good leads instead of a hundred anybodies.

That could change your whole life. It could change your whole business with just that one simple adjustment.

David: Yeah. And numbers like that frequently do. They change everything. They change your life, they change your business, they change the number of sales you're going to make. They change everything.

And when we look at it, and think in terms of the fact that, yeah, we have to determine if somebody's qualified to do business with us. But on the flip side, they are also deciding whether or not we are qualified to do business with them.

So as you pointed out, sometimes people think they're qualified. They think that perhaps they want to do business with us. But then when we have questions, when we ask them some things, we may determine that it's not a good fit on our side.

It has to go both ways. One of the things that I've always maintained is that when two parties to an agreement want to put something together, they will figure out a way to do it. But if one of them doesn't, it's not going to happen.

If you and I are talking about putting something together and we're both pretty excited about the idea, we'll make it happen. But even if he or she's not saying it, if one of us doesn't want to make it happen, there will be excuses. Things will come up and it just won't end up happening.

So when you realize that and you say, "okay, well these people think they're qualified to do business with me, I'm either going to have a conversation with them or not." I mean, if you can determine that somebody's not qualified ahead of time, you can potentially avoid a conversation. Normally, if somebody is excited about doing business with us, we want to at least have the conversation.

But very early on in those conversations, you can usually figure out whether or not it's going to be a fit. And if is, then great. You move forward and you work with them. And if it's not, you determine that as early as possible. Then you either recommend another solution for them, or everybody just sort of moves on and goes from there.

Jay: Yeah. This is such a unique and powerful, perspective. David, I was talking to a financial planner the other day and I was asking him, "so what is your criteria for a new client?" And he said, "well, we sit them down and we interview them to see if they meet our standards for a new client.

I was sitting there going, wait a minute, you interview them? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? That they're assessing you to see if you're good for their business? And he's like, "No, we decided years ago exactly what our potential client looks like. We know who we can help and who we can't.

And if we choose the wrong client, then both sides are going to be dissatisfied because we didn't do the work upfront to see, like you said, if there's going to be a cohesive, kind of gel between the two parties.

David: Right. And the other reason that I think he's right is that we can only ever decide if we feel that someone is qualified to do business with us.

We can't decide it the other way. So if you think about it from the standpoint of a financial planner, yeah, they need to decide is this person going to be a good fit for us? Do they have enough money to invest? Do they have a similar philosophy to the way that we operate? And if those answers are yes, then it makes sense to work together.

On the other side, the client is thinking, "okay, is this person on the same wavelength as me? Am I going to trust this person with my money?" But those are the decisions that that person gets to make, right? The client makes a decision. And the organization, the salesperson makes a decision. They both have to come to positive decisions if they're ever going to move forward.

And the thing is, we can't decide for the person. We can try to convince or persuade them to do business with us. But generally, it's far easier to find people who you resonate with and who resonate with you so that you can just put it together.

Everything becomes a whole lot easier when you're on the same page. Like I said, when two people want to do business together, they'll figure out a way to do it.

Jay: Yeah. An d it's because, you know, and we've talked about this so much, it's about relationships. no matter how you slice it, there's going to be a long-term relationship between the two of you. It is going to be about more than just picking up the phone and calling you.

It's going to be, "Hey, how's it going?" There's going to be understanding of each other's lives and each other's needs. I will tell you another point is I'm getting really good, because I spent so much time on the phone, at figuring out which clients are going to be so demanding that they will be problematic well through the process.

...

To stand out from competitors, start with what makes you different. Identify your ideal target market. It's largely going to consist of people who want to do business the way that we do business. Then matching up our style of business with the way that they want to do it.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will ask the question, what makes you different? Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Thank you for asking me to be with you again. David. I love this question. Because if we don't know what makes us different, I think it becomes harder to sell or to present yourself or anything else. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and playing to your strengths is key.

That's obviously something we should be doing. But I've met a lot of people who don't have self-awareness. They wouldn't be able to answer this question. So they don't really know where to focus and they're kind of haphazard.

David: Yeah. In the promotional products industry in particular, people struggle with this. You have all these distributors who are essentially representing very similar lines of product. Often it's the same lines of product from the same manufacturers.

So a lot of people look at that and say, "how can I be different if I'm selling exactly the same products as all the other people that I'm competing with?" And if you ask that question in a rhetorical sense, "how can I possibly do it?" You're doing it wrong. You need to actually ask yourself that question in a way where you demand results of yourself.

Sit down and bullet point it out. What is it that makes me different? What could make me different? Many times I ask the question in live seminars. I say, what differentiates you from your competition? Sometimes people will shout things out and somebody will say service, right?

And I'll say, who here feels their service differentiates them and sets them apart? 40% of the hands in the room go up! And I say, okay, keep 'em up and look around. Can you all be right? Can your service differentiate you from the other people who have their hands in the air?

And it's kind of a rhetorical question, but the answer kind of has to be yes. It has to be yes. I have to be able to differentiate myself in a way that justifies my existence in the market. And so I can be different. I can be different than you. We can both be great potentially in different areas. You know, if you think in terms of the Walmart approach, you know, their thing is cheapest price.

Ideally, we don't want to be that in our market, right? But there is probably something that we can do that will better serve the clients that we're looking for than what other people in our market are doing.

Jay: Yeah, it's such an important question if we're all selling the same product. Then what's going to make somebody choose me over somebody else?

And we talked about it in the last podcast. Relationships can be a, a certain part of that, but our systems are turnaround. You know, there's so many things we can look at internally to say that we live up to that.

I think the other hard part, and maybe it's an important part, is to figure out how to assess what your competitors are doing.

If you're losing sales to your competitors, can you try and assess what they're doing that is making them win and you not?

David: Yeah, and for a lot of people, the difference between an online business and an offline. Is like night and day. Very often there are offline businesses that are trying to compete with online businesses, which have a completely different set of rules and a completely different set of benefits.

So very often, rather than saying, how can I compete with this website or whatever, it's often better to say, how can I be competitive among the people who aren't really interested in buying from a website, the people who are actually interested in buying from a human? If I'm selling as a human, right? If I'm selling through a website, then I have to ask the opposite question.

But there's always something that we could and should be doing that will differentiate us from our competitors, and that's what we need to find out.

Dan Kennedy, the marketing legend, I remember he said in a seminar one time, the question that we really need to ask ourselves:

Why should I do business with you versus any and every other option available to me, including doing nothing? And I was like, wow. Mind blown. Right?

But I've considered that question so many times over the years. And the last part of it, "including doing nothing" is huge. Because the biggest thing that people tend to do when they're not buying is they're deferring.

They're delaying, they're not doing anything. So the answer to that question has to position us in a way where doing business with us is better than them continuing to do what they're doing or doing nothing.

Jay: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And such a great point. I'm just sitting here thinking about ways to differentiate myself. I personally am somebody who I don't want to talk to anybody. I want to do it all online.

In fact, I will look for every last option to do it online. But if I'm looking for it online and then suddenly I get something in the mail that is a free piece of, you know, talking about promotional products. No website is going to do that, right?

And so now I have something tangible and there's a name attached to that. And if that gets followed up by a phone call, then that's a way in the door, that a website is never going to do.

A website is going to sit there. They're going to do their Google ads and everything else, and they're going to be competing for the same space in those search engines.

And so for you to try and rank even at a place where you're going to get seen can be very difficult. So, the website path, I think in many ways is the harder path if you're not already dominant in that area.

David: Right, and so many of the people that we work with are individuals or small businesses that are looking to get attention. They're looking to create awareness in their market. They're not sure how to do it. They look at all the online solutions and they get overwhelmed by that.

But it really is apples and oranges. And one of the analogies I use very often is it's the difference between the kind of person who is going to hire a contractor to put a deck on the back of their house or go to Home Depot, buy the lumber, buy the nails, buy the tools, buy the saws, and do it themselves, right?

The people who end up going to the websites are the do-it-yourselfers. And so for most business, If you don't want to compete with that, then you need to make sure that that's one of your differentiators. That you're looking for the people who would much rather interact with another human being.

And even those who might prefer to do business online, like you indicated. If I can do it quietly myself, I'm happy to do that. The only time that's really different is that if you're going to buy something and you know somebody and you trust somebody in that realm, then you're actually kind of excited to pick up the phone.

When you want to buy something from somebody that you know and like and trust, as the old saying goes, you're excited to do that. You'd rather do that than go online and find it. Which also goes back to our last discussion about relationships.

So, When we think in terms of what makes us different, a lot of it should be addressing who is our ideal target market? And it's largely going to consist of people who want to do business the way that we do business, and then matching up our style of business with the way that they want to do it.

But identifying those people and disqualifying those who don't meet those criteria are really the quickest ways to do that.

Jay: Yeah, I love that because I think so often in business, we feel like we have to sell to the whole world, like everybody is our client and that makes it very hard to zero in, very hard to market to. You're going to dilute your marketing power when you do that

And what also occurs to me, David, is that you can do both. I mean, in the business model I'm in, we have a website that gives information. But we also offer a free 20 minute consultation. So now you've got kind of both. If they just want information from the website, then great.

If they want to talk to a human being and have specific answers to their situation, then great. And we do well off of both of those models. So it's not like you have to pick one over the other. But one of the things I think is very important is you have to have somebody during that consultation who is good.

And if it's you, then great. But if that 20 minute consultation is a sales call, then you'll have blown your credibility. You need to make it a legitimate consultation where you provide a value and a service.

If they just get a sales call, man, I will hang that phone up so fast, you know, and move on to the next person.

David: Right. And I think for a lot of people, a lot of businesses, a lot of salespeople, the website is a good place for them to be able to deliver information that will advance the sale, advance the conversation.

So if you've got access to resources like that, you can say to someone who would like to interact with a human being you can go to the website, you can download that, or if you'd like, I'll email it to you.

And the people who want to do business with humans might say, "yeah, just email it to me. I'd rather do that." So identifying your target audience, letting people know the way that you do things. Those are the big differentiators that people are looking for. And at that point, a lot of it becomes simply finding the right audience.

Not trying to convince or persuade people who are not interested in doing business the way you do business to change their minds. You another great analogy that I love is,...

Strengthen client relationships if you want to increase repeat business. Some people feel like they can get more attention from a salesperson calling than they get at home because maybe they feel like this person's listening, paying attention and then asking about it.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will discuss how to strengthen client relationships. Welcome back.

Jay: Hey, David, once again. It's great to be here and I think that this is another really, really important topic. The key word for me is relationships. I think that oftentimes you see people with a business model who want to "turn 'em and burn 'em," so to speak, and they don't think about that word, relationships and how important it is.

David: Yeah. And very often, even if they don't intend to do it, the tendency among many salespeople is to get in there, make the sale, move on, get to the next one, get to the next one, get to the next one. And when it happens this way, it's very difficult to really maximize the value of those relationships in terms of dollars, but also just in terms of the relationship itself.

When you do that, when you just get in there, you sell something and then you move on to the next one, you're not really building and nurturing a relationship, which is critical if you don't want to have to constantly replace the clients that you're losing because you're not maintaining those relationships in the first place.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is that there is for most companies a customer acquisition cost. And so if you've already paid that cost to get that customer, well, that goes away if you can build a relationship and they continue to use you. That to me is just such an important approach.

If you're just doing it one at a time, you're going to pay that cost every single time, and it's going to lower your profit margins.

David: I completely agree, and people talk about that sort of thing all the time. We all know that it costs a whole lot less to resell an existing customer than it does to find and sell a new customer.

We all know it intellectually, but it is rarely practiced as well as it could be and should be within most businesses. You know, an analogy that helped me a lot was when I realized that when we're building a client base, it's a little like building a brick wall. You know, you get that first brick in place and then you get the next brick in place and the next brick in place, right?

So your first year in business, you've got this sort of layer of bricks. These are each of the initial customers that you brought in. And then, your second year in business, if you're able to maintain all the customers you brought in the first time, then you can add on, you can layer in another layer of bricks, another layer of customers, and then your third year you can build in a third level and you can continue to grow it like that.

And eventually you've got this great monolith of exceptional clients who continue to pay you money on an ongoing basis. But the problem is that we are not able to retain those customers. You get a crack in that, one of the bricks disappears from the first level, then your second year in business, you're starting out by plugging the holes.

You have to replace those missing customers. And so everything takes a lot longer. You're essentially reconstructing your customer base, and a lot of it is unnecessary if we would just focus on strengthening and maintaining those client relationships.

Jay: Yeah, and there's several ways to do that, right?

Phone calls, emails, drip campaigns from your customer management system. There's a lot of ways to do that. But I got to tell you, you know, as somebody who's on the phone all day long doing sales, when I already know that person and they know me, it's just easier all the way around.

I mean, it just feels so good when I call 'em and they're like, "Hey Jay, how's it going?" Instead of, "what do you want?" You know, "I don't have time for you." It doesn't just affect your sales, I think it affects your peace of mind, right? To work with customers who know you and like you, and know you provide a good service. That's just a great feeling and it really helps motivate you, I think, to move forward.

David: Yeah, and so much of it is a mentality issue. If we go into that call with the idea of "I want to sell this person something." With every single call, then that's not going to build and strengthen the relationship. Sometimes those calls are just designed to find out how they're doing, what they need, what they're struggling with, how the last thing that we sold them worked out for them, what's working for them, what's not working for them. Because those are the types of things that many salespeople never bothered to do.

They're just so busy, as you indicated, just sort of churning and getting from the next customer to the next customer, to the next customer that they miss out on, okay, well what happened with that order? What happened with that thing you bought from me? Did that work out well? Are there things that could have been done better?

If you're buying something for me, and this is particularly true in the promotional products industry, where sometimes people will buy promotional items and we'll contact them back and say, Hey, how did that promotion go? And they say, you know what? It's still here in a box by my desk. We haven't given them out yet.

Well, that's not going to get the job done, right. Not only is that not going to get you a reorder, it's not going to get them whatever result they wanted from buying that product in the first place. And so those are the types of things that need to be corrected.

So very often, what I recommend for my clients is that when there is follow up, effective follow up on a sale, it's not just about, are you out of the thing you bought for me yet, and do you want to buy more? It's about how did that go? What might have worked better? What other alternatives could and should we consider? Because that's the type of thing that allows them to recognize that we're actually trying to solve a need for them.

We're trying to solve a problem as opposed to just providing them more and more stuff.

Jay: Yeah, I love this concept. Something as simple as a follow up call to say how did that work out? And if it didn't, help educate them on how they could do it better and come up with strategies together to make it work, and not make it sound like I'm just pressuring you for more product.

I think that that builds a powerful relationship. And maybe they don't need more product right now. But because you've taken the time to do that, it's one of the things I love about your brick wall concept is you may not even be calling the first layer right now.

But you're going to get surprise orders from them that you weren't expecting because they're starting another campaign or whatever. So it stops being just when I call, I get an order. And starts being this constant income stream from all of these relationships that I've built over time. And that's a lot less work, right?

David: It is a lot less work, yes. And one of the things that we focus on in our Total Market Domination course with our clients is the idea of creating value in every communication with a prospect or client.

So if somebody bought from you previously, when we're reaching out to them, it's not just about asking for the order. It's about creating value and asking yourself a question, how can I create value in my next communication?

Whether it's an email or a text, or a phone call. Not just the idea of "checking in" or "seeing how you're doing," but being able to say something that will actually create some value for them in terms of an idea, a thought they didn't have, a concept they hadn't considered before.

Something that allows them to think, "oh wow, that's great. I hadn't thought of that." And then for a lot of people, Potentially automating that sort of thing. And that's another one of the things that we get involved with in our program, is allowing our people to create, set up drip campaigns that are designed to create value for the prospects and clients, even when we're not physically in front of them.

Because too often, one of the reasons that follow up doesn't happen is, oh, well I don't have time. I'm too busy. I'm distracted. Right? I'm busy dealing with other clients.

But when you are able to. Create value in your communications and potentially stack that value in the form of messages that are going out on an ongoing basis to create value for the specific purpose of creating value for those customers. It creates a level of loyalty that most people never see.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I also think, you know, when you talk about value in emails, I know from my own personal experience, going through all the emails we get, and let's be honest, we get so many emails. When they're just like, "Hey, we've got a special on this." I'm like, "delete."

But when for example, if I got an email saying, here's a promotional product success story, right? Something like that, to me I would be much more likely to read that if I rely on promotional products. Because I know that's going to help me. And educate me a little bit.

So we try that in every one of our drip campaigns as well. We've got to have something more than just a price point or a sale, something valuable that will draw them in. And also, I think it helps them know that you care, you want to educate them. So again, it changes that relationship. So, so important.

David: And when we think about the idea of building relationships or strengthening relationships, obviously it involves communication. Business relationships are very much like personal relationships. So it requires communication.

And sometimes we can even build into our nurture campaigns,...

Don't feel like you're earning what you're worth? Consider this: When you outproduce what you earn, it creates friction. It creates a bit of tension. And in most well-run businesses, the organization says, "this person needs to be compensated more."

If that's not happening in the organization you're with, if you are outproducing what you're earning, it means that there are plenty of opportunities for you somewhere else that will actually recognize and appreciate that value and reward you accordingly.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be asking the question, are you earning what you're worth? Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David, it's great to be with you again. And as I was thinking about this question, I realize I'm not sure I know what I'm worth. I know some people who say, my time is worth this much money. If I'm not making it, I have to change something or do something. I'm not there yet. I'm just not.

David: Yeah. I think you're not alone. I think there are a lot of people who struggle with this. The real challenge comes in the last half of the question. You know what you're worth because you can't answer the question until you determine that part of it. Are you earning it?

Well, I don't know. I have to know what I'm worth. Or I have to decide what I'm worth, choose what I'm worth. Choose what I think I'm worth. I've said this to a number of people over the years. The reason that I ended up getting into business myself is that I couldn't find anyone else who was willing to pay me what I thought I was worth.

Right? You work in different jobs and say, okay, I feel like I'm worth more than this. Well, when you start your own business, you earn what you're worth. Because if you're not producing anything, you're not earning anything. And if you start earning, then whatever you're producing justifies it.

And so essentially you're earning what you're worth. But even with all that, those of us in sales or those of us who own businesses, may still feel like the work we're doing is costing us too much in terms of time and energy and effort and not producing what we're looking for in terms of financial results. That's why I ask the question.

Jay: Yeah. I think it is so important that there's other ways to be paid for your worth. You know, if you're in a place where you get job recognition, where they listen to your ideas, where you can climb up the ladder, for a lot of people that's worth more than the bottom line paycheck. Now, if they're not getting enough to pay their bills, then obviously cash is king.

But all the surveys I've seen say that people would take less money if they felt like they could get rewarded in other ways. Now, when you're working for yourself, that equation changes completely.

David: Yeah. And I mean, a lot of times people start their own business. They do their own thing because they figure it's going to give them all sorts of time freedom and things that they don't have in a regular job. And very often they find out it's exactly the opposite.

I think it was Michael Gerber, the author of the EMyth who talked about the fact that there are a lot of people who work for other companies and they say to themselves, "okay, this guy's a jerk. I'm going to start my own business."

And they stop working for a jerk and they start working for a maniac... themselves. And when I heard that line I'm like, "that is so true."

So often we will do things in our own businesses that we would probably never do for another employer. We wouldn't put in the amount of hours, thought, and all that sort of thing.

Now, there are employees who do that. There are employees who are really focused on that and who really give their all to a job. But when you are an entrepreneur, particularly if you're a solo entrepreneur, when you're doing your own thing, you're the business.

And so the things that you do have to count, they have to matter. And the actions we take have to generate. enough of a result that we're able to get the kind of money that we need to make just to maintain the business, let alone earn a good living.

Jay: Yeah. And don't you think we kind of romanticize what it is to be an entrepreneur? To be a small business person?

You know, we picture all the good. , you know, all the freedom that we're going to have and everything else. And sometimes what we did is we gave ourself twice the work and half the pay. And so, it becomes hard when you think, what your worth? But you just can't figure out how to get there.

David: Yeah, exactly. And it is very romantic in the early stages. You have this idea of what it's likely to be like. But that is often very different from how it actually works out.

So whether someone is an employee or an employer, the idea of earning what you're worth starts with identifying, okay, well, what am I worth or what would I like to be worth in terms of dollars, in terms of time freedom, in terms of relationship freedom, all that sort of thing.

Because it all plays into it. If you are a people person and you like interacting with other people, and suddenly you're forced to work by yourself from home, that's going to be an issue for you.

So for some people, currency is interacting with others. And so we have to think in terms of what's important to me as far as my work life is concerned?

Does it involve interacting with a lot of other people? Does it involve learning things? Because there are some people who are real learners and they like to constantly be learning new things and testing new things and applying new things.

And for them that can really get them fired up and that can be a form of currency as well --learning new things, growing within a job, growing in terms of responsibility. Because all of that is designed to increase your worth to the business, but really, ultimately to the market, which is the most important thing.

If you're able to increase your value to the market, the people who buy from your company, then your value goes up. And sometimes we try to increase our value to an employer, and maybe the employer just has a certain view that's not going to line up with that.

So I feel like whenever we focus on trying to increase our value to the marketplace, we're likely to create better results.

Jay: Hmm. I think that's an excellent point. I think also if you can really establish what your time is worth, if you can come up with an equation, then you can start knowing when and how you should delegate, right?

Because if you are doing things that are not worth your time, then you're wasting time. You know, we talk about time capital, right? And we talk about delegation a lot on this podcast.

But if you think your time is worth $150 an hour and you're doing something that you could pay somebody $18 an hour, well, then you're not going to make what you think you need to make. And so you've got to figure out those equations. And sometimes it takes time to do that.

David: Yeah, exactly. And it's also important to think in terms of what is it that's holding you back? We need to focus on what is the bottleneck that is keeping us from earning the amount of money we want to earn or whatever it is that we want to earn as a result of the work that we're doing.

And just as in manufacturing, in the book The Goal by Eli Goldratt. He talked about the idea that there's usually one primary bottleneck in a manufacturing organization. It's easy to visualize, because if there's one machine in the middle of a company and that's designed to churn out the product and that machine is broken, you'll have people on the front end of the machine who are trying to load it up and they can't do it.

You'll have people on the back end of the machine who can't unload it. And shipping people who can't ship it, and salespeople who can't sell it, because they can't produce it because of that one thing.

When you are in sales yourself or when you own a business yourself, it's not always easy to see the one thing that's keeping it from happening. Particularly when you're in sales.

Because we think of sales as reaching out to people, talking to people, having conversations, closing sales, delivering product, that sort of thing. But within the sales process itself, there are various stages.

Is the bottleneck in the prospecting that I'm doing? Am I reaching out to the wrong people? Am I attracting the wrong people in the marketing that I'm doing? Are my conversations not going the direction they need to go?

Am I not being persuasive enough? Not responding to questions and concerns? Am I not addressing complaints? There are a lot of different areas there, and just one of them can be the same bottleneck as the bottleneck in the manufacturing facility.

If you've got one particular thing that is slowing you down, the most important thing you can do is to identify that one thing. Because everything else you do around that is not going to produce the result. All the potential that you have for growing is behind that rock, essentially.

If you're going down the street and you come to a place where the road is completely blocked off, there's a gigantic boulder and there's no other way to get there, you got to figure out, "how am I going to get around this boulder?"

Same thing in sales. We have to. What is it that is keeping us from earning what we feel we are worth? Now, sometimes it could be we just think we're worth more than other people think we're worth, at which point we either need to start our own business or we need to prove it.

We need to generate results that are far more in excess of what we're being paid to demonstrate that we're worth it. And when you start to do that, when you take responsibility, it's a whole lot easier to start moving toward getting paid what you actually feel like you're worth.

Jay: Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right....