Each year I go to industry trade shows, and whether in-person or virtual, I find some people who have achieved extraordinary results since our last meeting, while others seem stuck and haven't moved at all. In nearly every case, I can trace the results back to one thing -- speed of implementation. Those who take quick action on new ideas succeed, while those who don't, languish.

David:                   Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Chris Templeton and I will be talking about how your speed of implementation accelerates your results. Welcome, Chris!

Chris:                     Hi David! We all have ideas, don't we? Sometimes we take action on them and sometimes we don't, but speed of implementation is not just about taking action on our ideas.  It's about doing it quickly so we can get the results sooner, right?

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The Idea-Action-Result Cycle

David:                   Yeah, exactly. We get an idea, we take action on it (or we don't take action on it) and we get a result. We get a result if we DO take action, we get a result if we don't take action. If you were to graph this, you could sort of do it as a cycle. It's a sort of a circle or an oval.

The idea comes first.

So the idea happens, say that's a light bulb, right? So we get this brilliant idea, we're exposed to a brilliant idea or just comes in the middle of the night, whatever it is. That's the idea.

The next thing that needs to happen is we need to take action on that idea. So that's second, right? Once we take action or we don't take action, then the third thing that happens is we get a result. After that maybe we'll get another idea and the cycle will repeat. So while we can't always control the amount of time that it takes between the time we take action and the time we get a result; like if we do a sales pitch, we can't always control when we're actually going to get the sale. That's the action vs. the result.  We can often control the time between the idea that we get and the time that we take action on that idea. So that particular area in that cycle is where we need to focus our attention because it directly impacts the cycle time.

The sooner we take action on an idea, the sooner we can find out what the result of that action is.

Chris:                     I think it's a very salient point that regardless of whether you take action or not, there's a result and it's measurable, isn't it?

David:                   Completely measurable. Yep.

Chris:                     What do you think seems to keep people from implementing ideas the way they should?

David:                   Well, a lot of it goes back to fear, which is something we talked about in a previous podcast.

People are just scared of stuff and it paralyzes them into inaction.

They just don't take action on it. They get an idea, I think it's a good idea, but I'm afraid to move forward on it. It could be that, it could be a matter of priorities. I want to do it, I know I need to do it, but I have these ten other things that are pressing right now. They might not be as important, but they seem like they need to get done, so it could be a matter of priorities. It could also just be a matter of business as usual. I'm used to doing things in a certain way and it's like, I like this idea, but I don't really know if I want to do it. I don't know if I have the time. I don't know if it's going to get me the results, so all of those things could potentially play into it.

Chris:                     But if we're focused on speed, isn't there a danger of rushing through things and hurting the quality of our work?

David:                   Oh, absolutely, and I'm not suggesting that we're rushing through things in order to just get them done, but we're talking about the time between the idea and the time of taking action. If we can just tighten that up, we'll still spend roughly the same amount of time taking whatever action it is we're taking. I'm not suggesting we have to rush through the action itself. I'm simply suggesting that...

If we're able to accelerate the velocity between the time that we get the idea and the time we start taking action, that very often is going to be the biggest difference.

Sometimes the actions that we need to take could take minutes or it could take hours. Maybe it'll take days, but in more cases than not, it's going to be far less time. But the amount of time between the time we get the idea and the time we start to take action, that's where it ends up sometimes being days, weeks, months, even years. If you've ever had an idea that you thought this would be a good idea, I really ought to do it and I haven't done it yet. You're living in that gap.

Chris:                     I think a lot of the fear that you talk about is also a function of looking at what's the end result going to be versus what's the next step? And being able to take a series of next steps quickly is a whole lot different than trying to think of the idea all the way through to the end and all that that encompasses, we kind of create this fear and resistance when we do it that way.

David:                   We do, and the longer we procrastinate on it, the more that compounds because we're thinking, "Oh, I should have done this. I've been meaning to do this, this is driving me crazy." And all of that is just wasted time, wasted effort, wasted thought and it doesn't get the thing done.

Chris:                     And you know, I mean the other side of that also is that it doesn't guarantee positive results does it? I mean, we can implement something quickly and it still might not work the way that we intended.

David:                   That's right. And in a lot of cases it won't work exactly the way that we intended. Speed of implementation is not a replacement for intelligent, smart action. It's just an accelerant. And the best part about it is even if we're taking action that isn't going to get us the result we want; even if in some cases we're taking the wrong action, the reason it's okay to take wrong actions sooner is because we find out about the results sooner and then we can potentially fix it sooner. There was a great quote, Tom Watson from IBM. He said, “Solve it. Solve it quickly. Solve it right or wrong. If you solve it wrong, it will come back and slap you in the face and then you can solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it's an absolutely fatal way to manage a business.”  That's coming from Tom Watson, so I would tend to listen to that advice. I think it's good advice.

Chris:                     I think it's great advice. And if we really do focus on what the next step is, instead of being kind of overcome by fear of how am I going to get to the end? I decide that I'm focused on a process of trying the next step. "Oh, that didn't work." The consequences are much less than trying to do something from beginning to end and then having a much bigger failure that's much more difficult to correct versus these small steps. "Did that work? What can I learn from it? Did this work? What can I learn from it?"

David:                   Right. And when you do that, when you're able to minimize the time between the idea and the action, you could potentially test out five, six, ten, twenty different things in the time that it will take your competitor to test out one thing because they're delaying that action.

Chris:                     And you're going to have so much more fun if what you're doing is you're just kind of a little off the cuff, right? A little bit of this approach is, "Hey, let's just move a little bit more quickly and not feel like we have to be all buttoned up to start with."

David:                   Right. It's not completely flying by the seat of your pants, but there's definitely an aspect of spontaneity that comes into it and saying, “Okay, this is the idea. I think this is going to work. Let's test it out. Let's find out as quickly as possible if it works or if it doesn't.  If it works, we'll do more of it. If it doesn't, we'll try something else!”

Chris:                     And asking the question, “What's the next step that I can do, and can I make this a process that's enjoyable?” is going to help to set that stage and that foundation for implementing an idea and watching it go through and morph to what it ultimately becomes.  That part of the process can also be just as much fun, don't you think?

David:                   Yeah, no question. And also, I'd love to think that every idea that I have is brilliant.

Chris:                     Oh no, David, it is I’m certain of that. So are mine, by the way!

David:                   Yeah, we're all more brilliant than we realize. I'd love to think that, but the reality of the situation is that they're not all going to work. So the more we can test things out, the more action we can take, the more quickly we find out which things work and which things don't.

Chris:                     And I would just add to that, I would encourage anybody who's going through these processes to take a look at what the learning is and make that learning be a result that helps you to move forward in a better way.

David:                   Absolutely.

Chris:                     Okay, sir, let's talk about the action steps our listeners should take to improve their speed of implementation.

Indecision is deadly to sales. People think they want to buy something, but they're not sure what.  Or they know what they want to buy, but they can't decide on the style or the color, or they may know the style and color, but they just can't seem to pull the trigger. So today let's talk about making it easier for people to make a buying decision.

David:                   Hi and welcome to the podcast!  Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be talking about making it easier for prospects to make a buying decision. Welcome Chris!

Chris:                     Hi David! You know, humans have been selling things for a long time, but getting that buying decision, I don't imagine it's gotten a whole lot easier over time, has it?

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David:                   No, it doesn't seem to have gotten any easier at all. I mean for people who have been in sales for any length of time, you think about how easy or difficult it was to get people to make a decision 20 years ago, versus how easy or difficult it is now. I would say there's an argument to be made that it's actually harder now, because there are more choices,  there are more options, there's more competition. So, in a lot of ways I think it probably is actually harder now to get a buying decision out of someone than it was previously.

Chris:                     I absolutely agree with that. And I think you're right, it's about having so many choices, but I also think it's a good time in terms of personal service really being the thing that is such a nice differentiator for sales and now it's become so easy to buy something without even having to talk to somebody and being in a situation where you're able to provide that personal level of service really in my mind seems to be a good differentiator.

David:                   It does.  It certainly helps with a certain type of buyer who actually wants and needs that relationship. Absolutely.

Chris:                     And some people are just more indecisive than others, aren't they?

David:                   Yeah, I think they are. And you know, you look at that situation, and you say, okay, there's some people that just can't seem to make a decision no matter what. And as a sales person we say, okay, well why is that the case? Why do people have trouble making these types of decisions? Or making any decision at all, and I think a lot of it for buyers tends to boil down to some level of fear. They're afraid of making the wrong choice, they're afraid of getting burned, they're afraid of getting ripped off. They don't want something bad to happen, they're afraid of making a wrong decision and having their boss get angry.  Whatever it is, but a lot of it really just in my mind at least boils down to fear that keeps people from taking action and moving forward and at some point, then it becomes like mental programming. I program myself to not make decisions to put off decisions to hem and haw and procrastinate and it's always harder when an indecisive person is tasked with making a decision. It's frustrating from a sales standpoint when the person who has been put in charge of making that decision refuses to do it, they refuse to essentially do their job. It's very frustrating and it's rampant.

Chris:                     It really is. And I think about it, one of my approaches in sales has always been, I want to help you to make an informed decision that you feel really comfortable with. And I think we lose that. And having that approach with a prospect can really help in moving the sales along. When you look at it, how much of sales in this part of the process is about helping them to see the benefits of the product or service you're selling?

David:                   Well, I think a lot of it is about that and the key word there is helping them - and sometimes when people are not good at making decisions, it's very frustrating for us; and when we look at it and we're just trying to get a decision out of them, we can sometimes forget that the whole reason that we're there is to try to help them with some sort of issue or problem or situation that they have. That's all sales is about. It's about finding the situations, finding the pain points, the pressure points that they need help with, and then helping them with that. So yes, it's first about helping them and it's definitely about helping them to see the benefits of the products and services that we offer. Sales is often referred to as a transfer of enthusiasm. In other words, if I'm enthusiastic about my product and service and I'm a sales person, that that enthusiasm will eventually transfer to the person that I'm talking to. And I think this is particularly true of people who are less decisive. If you can get them excited about the prospect of working with you, or excited about the prospect of what the product or service that you're offering them is going to do for them, then they're going to be a lot more enthusiastic themselves perhaps about making that happen and taking the actions that they need to take on their end to consummate the sale.

Chris:                     And that really brings up the next question, which is what can business owners and salespeople do to make it easier for somebody who's really struggling with this? I mean, I think there are a lot of people that are in this situation as buyers that are genuinely struggling, don't you think?

Getting a Buying Decision

David:                   I think there are, and I'm going to start with sort of going back to my “go to” answer on a lot of things, which is that first we have to qualify them because if they don't have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend, then all the rest of it is a total waste of time. So, assuming the person that we're talking to has already been qualified, then at that point we want to say, okay, what do we do to make it easy for someone like that to make a decision? I think it's a matter of knowing and understanding the options and also the flow of the sale.  What it is that they need, what it is that you offer, and then all the options like style and color and things we talked about earlier. So, when they need it is also big, thinking through all sort of the big decisions; and if you think of it as, you know, people often refer to the idea of a sales funnel and the bigger sort of things are at the top of the funnel.  And then we get down to the nitty gritty and the smaller things at the bottom of the funnel, it's the same kind of thing. So recognizing that there are certain things that you're going to have to get on. And first is what is the solution to the problem that they have? And if you get an answer to that, yes, you have the solution, then what's the specific solution? And then what is the particular product, and then what is the size of the product and what is the color of the product or whatever, all the different factors that go into the various buying decisions, depending on what it is that a salesperson is selling.  But a lot of it boils down to that and asking lots of questions up front to get crystal clear on exactly what they need and what gets them excited, what gets them fired up - so that we're not trying to sell them the wrong thing. A lot of times the reason that people are hesitant to take action is that they're just not excited enough about the solution that we're providing or the value compared to the amount of money that is going to have to cost them. So if we're not going to cut price, and I rarely recommend cutting price, it means increasing value, which means letting them understand the value of what it is that you're selling, getting them excited enough about it. So at that point it seems worth far more than the money that it's going to cost them.

Chris:                     You bring up a really good point and I think one of the things that as salespeople, we have a tendency to forget in terms of the value that you're bringing.  You as a salesperson, if your focus is on helping somebody and not helping them just to make the sale, but helping them through the whole process and I'm asking questions throughout the process to make sure we're on the right track and that sort of thing. The value that I bring is a salesperson cannot be under-estimated. It's so important that as a salesperson I think that you recognize that you're bringing value, you're part of that value,

David:                   Right. And part of that value also I think is making sure that we are being as thorough as possible. You know, as salespeople it's tempting to just want to present the information, get a decision and move on. But particularly when you're dealing with people who struggle to make a decision, you want to make sure that you're dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's, answering all their questions, addressing as many questions as possible, asking for their input, asking for their questions, getting them resolved, and making sure that we address all that stuff as much as possible up front rather than waiting for it to become a stumbling block later.

Chris:                     And also asking questions throughout the process. “Is this making sense? I feel like maybe this is a little off. Is there something that you're not comfortable with in what I'm talking about?”, those kinds of questions in a nice and helpful way go miles towards helping to close a sale, don't you think? Absolutely. Okay. Let's talk about the action steps that our listeners can take if they want to make it easier for their prospects to make a buying decision.

There's a phrase that's been popularized in sales which says "buyers are liars." It refers to those who say they want one thing but end up buying another. I've never liked the phrase, and even though it's occasionally true, I believe there's another group that deserves the title much more in my opinion.  It's the non-buyers who are often the real liars!

David:                   Hi, and welcome to the podcast! Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will debunk the notion that buyers are liars. Welcome back, Chris.

Chris:                     Hi David. You know, it's likely that every salesperson has heard this phrase and even said at a time or two, especially when things weren't going well. So, what makes you think, David, that buyers aren't liars?

David:                   Okay. They have to prove their veracity in this podcast!

Chris:                     Are you a truth teller?

David:                   Exactly, yeah. I think if they're buyers, then it means that they bought something from you.  So even if they weren't telling you the entire truth the whole time, you were at least able to get past it. So I think the fact that they bought something, the idea of saying that buyers are liars is rather insulting to the people who actually spend money with us. I'm far less concerned about saying that non-buyers are liars because in my experience in sales over the years, that really seems to be the case that people who don't buy from you, the people who string you along, waste your time and do all that sort of thing. They're the ones who are most often telling you things that just aren't true. So with buyers, you know you're able to get past it. So to me that means that most of the liars are the ones who are not doing that. Who are not buying.

Chris:                     And from your standpoint, what do non-buyers tend to lie about the most?

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David:                   Well, there are a bunch of things and they're all familiar to anyone who's been in sales for any length of time. They say they're going to call you back and then they don't call you back. They say they want one particular thing and then they buy something completely different from someone else. They say they're the decision maker and they're not the decision maker. There are all kinds of things. They'll say they'll make a decision by a certain date and then they don't. What else?  They say they'll think about it. Anyone ever said that to you Chris?

Chris:                     No, I've never had that said to me, and I've certainly never said it to any salesperson.

David:                  Exactly, "I'll think about it." Right? And the reality is that even if we've said it ourselves, we'll think about it. Are we really going to think about it? What are we going to think about? And so, very often, even if we've done these things, we didn't mean to lie to somebody.  And maybe in our own heads we didn't think we were, but nine times out of 10 whenever we've done any of those things, we just weren't telling the truth.

Chris:                     Right, right. And it's easy to go down that road without framing it up quite that way, isn't it?

David:                   Yeah, and without thinking of it like that, really it's less about deliberately misleading somebody and more about thinking, "Oh, well, you know, I just need to toss this around in my head for a while." And in a lot of cases people convince themselves that they actually think it's true. It reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where George Costanza says, “Remember Jerry, it's not lying if you think it's true!”

Chris:                     When you look at this, how do you think we should handle when we think - or when we know - somebody's lying to us?

David:                   Yeah, it's tough. I mean the first thing is we want to make sure we don't accuse them. “Hey, you're lying to me.” That's not good for relationship building, but we do want to try to pin them down in some ways. In other words, if they're saying they're going to call back on Tuesday and we can say, “Okay, what time Tuesday is good for you, I'll get it on my calendar.” We can do things like that to try to pin it down. We can ask for clarity, so if somebody says they're looking for something very specific, we can make sure that we ask things like: “Is there anything else you're considering? Are there any other options that you're looking for?” So, getting that sort of clarity up front rather than simply taking whatever they say first at face value and assuming it's the whole story.  It's like what they say in a courtroom, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Sometimes they'll give you the truth, but they won't give you the whole truth while I'm thinking about this... (But I'm also thinking about that and that and that.) But they don't say that second part. So that's what we're looking for. We want to make sure that we are getting the clarity that we need from people, so that it all makes sense. And we can also just request confirmation when somebody says something like, you know, they're the decision maker.  You can ask them, “Okay, so this is entirely you? There's nobody else involved in this decision?” “Oh well yeah, there are other people involved, but I'm the decision maker.” Okay, well now at least I know that. So just recognizing that the initial thing that someone says to you might not always be the whole truth. Right? You can handle it better by actually just sort of probing a little more and trying to keep things on track.

Chris:                     You know, the other thing that occurs to me along these lines is that a lot of this, what we can easily call lying is also a lot about resistance and feeling that pressure of being in a sales situation on the buying end of it and being uncomfortable. And I think a lot of what you've talked about like clarity and confirming, you know, things like who's involved in the sales process. If you do it in a way that's relaxed and doesn't feel counter resistive, that a lot of that sense goes away. And I really admire the idea of asking the questions for clarity. Hey, let me make sure I understand this. I think that really helps to get rid of that vibe, don't you?

David:                   I do. And I also think that if we recognize the fact that a lot of them don't mean to not tell us the truth, I think a lot of them don't mean to lie to us. But when we ask questions and when we gain that sort of clarity, it also allows them to really think through the situation and perhaps provide us with more truthful answers.

Chris:                     I almost feel like it needs to be approached from the sales side as a partnership to help to get rid of that resistance of “I've got to protect myself.” Prospects do this. Obviously buyers are doing this as well at some level, don't you think?

David:                   Yeah, I think so and once again, recognizing the fact that they're not setting out to do it. It's like, you know, I'll have a decision on Friday and then Friday rolls around and a bunch of things happened and I didn't really get to think about it and so I don't have a decision. It's not meaning to lie in most cases and so as we indicated with buyers, you're able to overcome it. Now if you have a situation where somebody continues to tell you stuff that is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. If they've got a pattern of it, then you really need to recognize that and say, okay, am I dealing with somebody here who just does not have the capacity to tell the truth?

Chris:                     Right.

David:                   And that happens sometimes as well, and there's a big difference between the two.

Chris:                     Don't you think that the other thing in regards to this is knowing when to "cut your losses" in a way that they recognize that you're doing that kind of letting them off the hook. “Okay. It feels like this isn't the right time” or that whatever, that lets you say, “Okay, I'm taking a step back”, and that almost gives them and incentive to take a look at their own behavior?

David:                   Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a mistake if we don't do that, particularly if we recognize the pattern and we know that, okay, it's no longer just that they're making a mistake. It's one thing to make a mistake or two, it's another thing to have a constant pattern of not doing what people say they're going to do. There's a great quote from Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach. He said, “The best rules in business that I've ever heard are, show up on time, do what you say you're going to do and say please and thank you.” If you do those three things, you're doing great. And so often in business that's not what happens.  People don't show up on time, they don't do what they say they're going to do, which is really the big one and you know the please and thank you is nice to me, but it's not as critical when I'm on the receiving end as it is to have the first and second ones happen.

Chris:                     I also think that it really goes back to this whole idea of how do you stand with the person that you're dealing with. Like if you get to a point where you're starting to change your behavior in a negative way because of how this is going, you also have to take a look at that as well and say, man, am I now because I'm getting frustrated? Am I now beginning to drive the same process with the prospect or the person that we're hoping will buy from me?  In other words, am I putting them in a situation because of my tone that they're feeling even more resistive?

David:                   Yeah. And not only that, but even our coworkers, cause when you're busy trying to chase somebody who is resisting, it's frustrating and very often we take that frustration out, not just on the person who is avoiding us, but those around us like, “Oh man,...

Lead generation is a critical part of every business because without an adequate supply of leads, it's impossible to maintain a business. So where do the bulk of your new leads come from these days and where do your best leads come from? Online, offline, or both?

David:                   Hi and welcome to the podcast.  Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be talking lead sourcing, meaning where your leads are coming from. Welcome Chris.

Chris:                     Hi David. Interesting point that you made in the introduction, which is that you may get the bulk of your leads from one source, but your best leads from somewhere else. And it does happen that way sometimes, doesn't it?

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David:                   Yeah, it actually happens that way quite a bit. And there's a very often a big difference between the quantity of leads that we get and the quality of leads that we get and they don't always go together. The places where we're getting the most leads might not be the best quality leads. I know a lot of times when I'm talking to salespeople and business owners and I ask them where their best leads come from, almost inevitably they say referrals. You know, referrals are their primary source of leads and while referrals are a great source of leads and very often a very high quality source of leads, they're not always the most prolific. In other words, you don't always get as many of them as you want. So recognizing that there's a difference between the bulk of the leads that are coming in and the quality of the leads and the fact that those are two different things can be helpful.

Chris:                     How do we go about the process of balancing that quality/quantity equation of leads?

David:                   Well, it starts with testing the quality of your leads with a consistent approach to the leads that you get. In other words, whenever we get a lead, we want to make sure that we're treating them exactly the same because if we get 10 different leads and we treat each of them differently, then we're not going to know if they closed because of the approach we took or if it was the lead itself. So we want to first start out by having a consistent approach to the leads we get in. If we get 10 leads in, we want to try to treat them as close as we possibly can to exactly the same way, then you can take a look at who closed and who didn't. And that will help you to determine which ones are good and which ones are bad. And at that point it's easier then, to start to work to get more good leads and you can also potentially work to improve the conversion on the bad leads or the ones that didn't convert. So, it's sort of a balance looking at quantity first and saying, “Okay, if I treat them all the same, which ones close?”, and then say, “All right, if they close, then that makes them by default good leads.”, and then looking at that and extrapolating from there,

Chris:                     I think you bring up a really good point, which is not said specifically, but you know, if you ask most business people about where their leads come from, their best leads, they're going to say referrals. But I'm not convinced that all businesses are doing all that great a job of tracking leads. Are you?

David:                   No, I'm not at all. And basically, it's because when I ask them, they'll tell you that.  They'll say that they know they need to do a better job of tracking their leads, but they just don't. I think most businesses do have a reasonable idea of where their leads are coming from and very often, they know that they wish there were more leads coming in. They might have, you know, one or two primary sources that they're getting leads from and those could both be reactive. And that's one of the issues that we have with referrals alone because referrals alone are very often reactive unless they have a specific procedure in place that is designed to make the referrals more proactive. If they actually initiate referrals from prospects and from existing clients in that situation they could actually create more, but in a lot of cases people get leads from referrals just because they're good at what they do and that's awesome because it's very organic. It's very typical that if you do a good job, people are going to refer you, but if you can't count on that and if you need to get leads elsewhere, then you have to look at other sources.

Chris:                     Go back a little bit and talk about the difference between handling a lead reactively versus proactively what that means to you.

David:                   Okay. Well a reactive lead is one that just sort of comes in as a result of the fact that you're doing a good job at what you're doing. That's what I consider to be a reactive lead. It just sort of happens. Proactive leads means that there is something that you are doing to initiate that lead. It's either some sort of advertising or some sort of whatever social media post or you're doing something to put your name or your information out there so that someone can then respond to it and become a lead.

Chris:                     Do you think that people should make a point out of getting leads both offline and online, or is it okay to favor one approach over the other?

David:                   Well, it's certainly okay to favor one approach over the other, particularly if the approach that you're taking is working, and I've got a lot of clients and I've talked to a lot of prospects who have been doing things successfully for years. There are some people who've been in business for a long time. They're used to getting leads offline. They're still good at getting leads offline, and that's where they're generating most of their leads. I've talked to some people, usually these are younger people who have been generating the bulk of their leads online. They continue to do so, and the idea of generating leads offline is a little off putting to them. So you have those sort of two extremes and then you have a number of people who like myself, look at both aspects of that and say, “If you can generate leads both online and offline, then why wouldn't you want to do it?” I remember years ago, maybe a dozen or more years ago, Jay Abraham, a very famous marketing guy and a lot of circles had talked about this approach. I think he called it the Parthenon approach, where if you have one source for leads, it's like having a pole with a diving board on it and instead if you have a lot of different sources for leads, then you've got a lot of pillars and it starts to look like the Parthenon, right? With lots of pillars in front of it. And I love the idea of that because of course the Parthenon is so durable because of the fact that there are so many things holding it up and when you can create an environment where you have a lot of different leads coming from a lot of different places, it just stabilizes a lot of things in your business.

Chris:                     One of the things that you mentioned early on was this idea of treating all leads the same and one of the things that occurs to me is, you know, I get a lead online that doesn't have much of an idea of who I am versus a referral from a client, how do I treat them the same and where are the differences that you see that we should be paying attention to in how we approach these leads?

David:                   Okay, that's a great question because obviously there are going to be differences in how much these people know going in and you can't just say, okay I'm going to go through one particular set of points in exactly the same order and make sure that they get it because the people who already know it will find it repetitive and the people who don't know it will probably find it helpful. But then you are creating somewhat of a different environment. So what I would say is when I talk about trying to treat leads the same, we want to make sure that there are certain points that are or have been hit with each lead. Obviously, if your referred to someone, they already know you, they already know the name of your company, they already know a lot of things about you that you don't then have to reiterate. But with a new lead, obviously you're going to have to establish some of those things. So if you put together for yourself some sort of checklist that said, okay, I want to make sure that each new lead knows these whatever, 12 things about me. And then as you're going through your conversation and your interactions with these people, whether it's via email or on the phone or in person, you're making sure that all of these points are being hit. If you can do that, make sure that the points have been hit, whether it's with you or whether it's been with the person who referred you or whether it's from the way they found your information online as a result of if they saw a video and they opted in for information from you, you already know that points one through three have been made. You can then continue from there. Does that help?

Chris:                     Yeah, absolutely! And I think that the other thing to keep in mind is also it's how you approach these people, right? I mean if I think of a referral as being a guaranteed sale, I'm probably not serving myself or my potential client versus if somebody is a cold lead actually taking them more seriously than I might be led to just because I don't know them and I don't know where they've come from. It just seems like a big piece of this is also kind of how I stand with either type of lead.

David:                   Yeah, that's a great point and a lot of it boils down to mindset. When I get a lead online and it sort of comes out of nowhere, I tend to think that it's less qualified and when I get a lead that's a referral, I tend to think that they're more qualified and they probably are. But as you indicated,...

As social media has evolved, so have the ways that people are selling. From Facebook to Twitter, to LinkedIn, to whatever comes next, we all have to be on the lookout now for when social media conversations turn salesy and every conversation is suspect.

David:                   Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be discussing the idea that as more and more poor quality sales-people turn to social media, nearly every conversation we have becomes suspect. Welcome Chris.

Chris:                     Hi David. You know it is a growing trend, isn't it? You post a question or a comment on social media. People essentially start spamming you as a result with pitches for their products, that sort of thing. Where do you draw the line between helpful content and a blatant sales pitch if you're on the delivery end of that type of thing?

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David:                   Yeah, it's a great question because as salespeople and as business owners, we know that we want to have conversations online that could potentially lead to a sale but we don't want to do it in a way that is just us being obviously self-promotional. So there is a fine line there, and I've really noticed this recently over the course of the past really month or two. Particularly even in the past few weeks I've become more and more aware of it. And as I have, I've just noticed it everywhere. It's like that thing where you buy a certain type and color of car and then all of a sudden you keep seeing that.

I've been seeing this on social media all over the place lately. Someone will post a comment and in fact, a situation I had recently was I had asked a question on social media. I asked if people got their leads primarily online or offline and I had some people who came in and they said, “I get most of my leads online,” I got some people who said, “I get most of my leads offline.” And then I had somebody who just posted an ad for their place because they help get people leads online. So essentially they hijack the thread and they're sort of spamming people with a response. And I thought, it's so foolish and shortsighted to do that because if they had actually responded and said something like, "Well, you know, we used to get them online, but now we get them offline and we've developed a few strategies that have helped us to do that." Then they could at least start planting seeds without being obvious about - here's my link, go click and buy from me. And I think that's where people are getting a little more skeptical.

Chris:                     One of the things that I always noticed, I was in web development for many years and the thing that I loved in web development was people that had bad web developers that would come to me, because of the bar was so low that really exceeding expectations was so easy. And I think that this is exactly the same thing where you've got somebody who doesn't have the presence of mind to say, hey, how can I help somebody to understand or have a different perspective on the question that's being asked? Like you asked and talk about solutions that work without it being a pitch and still make it clear that that's what you do, but it's more informational. And I think that this just creates this great platform to exceed people's expectations. But that's a great way to knock people's expectations about you down to pretty much the basement, don't you think?

David:                   Yeah. And so much of it is just about being a decent human, you know, it seems so simple. It's like that book, Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten or something that was out had a long, long time ago. But that idea just sort of be nice to people, treat people well. It's all such basic stuff, but it's basic for a reason... because it's important. And I had a situation recently on LinkedIn where when somebody new would connect with me, I'd send them a greeting message and I would just basically say, “Hey, great connecting with you on LinkedIn. If there's anybody in my network that you'd like to meet, please be sure to let me know, I'd be happy to arrange an introduction.” because I figured, okay, that's just sort of offering something that's nice and helpful. And there was this one guy who replied back and he's like, “Well, why would you do that?” And I'm like, “Well, because if we're connected on LinkedIn, if there's somebody that you'd like to meet, if I know them, I'd be happy to arrange an introduction for you.” And he's like, “Well, how do you make money doing that?” I'm like, “Well, I wouldn't necessarily make money by introducing you to someone, but if it's helpful to you, this is supposed to be social networking. So this is an opportunity to network. That's why I figured I would do this.” I'm like, “You don't have to. If there's nobody in my connections you want to meet, that's fine. I don't have to introduce you, but I'm putting it out there, making that available.”  So very skeptical, very skeptical. And so he finally came back and he came up with somebody that he wanted to meet. So, he gave me the name of the person that he wanted to meet, and I said, “Okay, fine. I'll arrange an introduction.” So I sent a message through LinkedIn to the person that I was connecting with and letting him know that this other person I was connecting with wanting to meet him and gave him the information, said, if you do want to connect, by all means, please feel free to do so. And so, then this guy who I had now referred to, this other person I'm connected with, sends me this message saying, “Oh okay, thanks.” And then he gave me a list of seven other people in my list that he wanted me to connect him with.

Chris:                     Wow.

David:                   And I replied back, and I said, “I'm sorry, I can't actually spend my entire day connecting you with people. And if there's somebody who I connect with new, I'm happy to connect them with one person, but I can't spend sort of the rest of my day or the rest of my life connecting you up with people. Let's see how it goes with the first one and we can go from there.” And the guy wrote back, and he said, “Okay.  So, there it is.”

Chris:                     That was his response?  “So, there it is”?

David:                   “So, there it is.” So it's like, okay, there's the catch. The catch is that you're only going to introduce me to one of the people who's on your list.

Chris:                     Wow.

David:                   Now here's somebody who didn't make any attempt at all. I don’t even think he said thanks for the referral to the first person, but it's like he saw, okay, hey, here's this idiot who's willing to introduce me to as many people as I want. I guess that's what he thought. Although I didn't say that, but it's like he went in with this idea of you know, that there was some sort of catch or whatever, and he ended up creating his own scenario. He ended up creating his own result because a result of his behavior it’s like, do I want to connect him with anyone else ever again? No, probably not.

Chris:                     I certainly hope not, no.

David:                   And I almost feel bad for the person that I connected them with, although hopefully that person realized that this person might not be worth connecting with. But so this whole idea of conversations being suspect, it goes a number of different ways. One is that there are some people were just suspicious of everything, even when they shouldn't be.

Chris:                     Right.

David:                   And then there are other people who sort of fall down the rabbit hole where somebody starts engaging them and then the next thing you know they're buying stuff that they didn't mean to buy. So, there's definitely a balance here.

Chris:                     But congratulations, by the way - when we connected on Facebook, I saw that and it blew me away. Here's a whole different approach David.  It was like, wow, this guy wants to help me and it's so easy to fall into these default thoughts about how can I get on LinkedIn and make the most business, and it's the kind of thing when I see that kind of response like you had, Hey, let me know if there's anybody in my network that I can connect you with. It goes to exactly what I was saying earlier. It totally changes the perspective that I have of you because you’re thinking in a way that serves others and that's how you end up serving yourself, isn't it?

David:                   Yes. And the other thing that it does is it lets you know what people are made of; because you'll be sending something like that out. You're making this offer, “Hey, if there's somebody I can connect you with, let me know.” And some people reply back, and they'll say, “Oh hey, thanks. Can't think of anybody off hand. But I really appreciate the offer. If there's anybody I can connect you with, please let me know as well.” And nine times out of 10 there's not and I'm not looking to be connected with somebody else, but at least at that point we've had a friendly exchange and we can take it from there. The other thing is you find guys like this guy who is just paranoid and so you recognize, okay, this is not the type of contact that I would like to maintain long term, but it allows you to start to establish those real relationships, which we've talked about in previous podcasts.  When you think in terms of networking, can we establish a real relationship with a real person? Something else that I've been really focused on recently with social media is connecting with people who I really enjoy connecting with, who are fun, who love business, who want to grow their businesses, who want to grow their sales. Of course, they're the people that I can help, which is why I want to interact with them, and so what I've started doing recently is when I invite someone to connect o

Do prospects ghost you? We've all been through it. You have a great conversation with an excellent prospect. They say all the right things and respond to you perfectly. It sounds like an ideal match! The right product or service for the right prospect at the right time. We just need to iron out a few details to get things wrapped up, but then they stop taking your calls. They stop responding to email. They ignore your texts. So, what do you do when people ghost you?

David:                   Hi and welcome to the podcast today cohost Chris Templeton and I will be talking about what to do when prospects ghost you. Welcome Chris!

Chris:                     Hi David. You know, salespeople have been dealing with prospects disappearing forever, and this term ghosting. I just heard about it recently and I wasn't quite sure what it was. It's apparently not the scary kind of ghosting, but it's really become popular as social media and texting have become more and more prevalent, hasn't it?

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David:                   Yeah, it really has, and I think there's an argument to be made that this type of ghosting can actually be more scary. If you're in sales, it's probably scarier to have this kind of ghosting than to have what's traditionally viewed as ghosting.

Chris:                     That’s a great point.

David:                   And everybody has experienced this, as you've said, it's been happening forever. But this term is kind of interesting and I think from what I've seen, it's developed recently as part of the social media culture where you're having a conversation with someone and then they don't respond.  And it's their turn to respond and they don't, and you send a text or you send a social media message and you don't hear anything back and they just basically disappear. So, while it's found its way into the personal culture, I think for anyone who's been involved in business or sales for a long time, they're totally familiar with the concept. They understand immediately and instinctively what it means. And of course, then the question is how do you make it go away? How do you keep it from happening? Which is what I'd like to talk about in this podcast.

Did the Prospect Really Ghost You?

Chris:                     Well and this goes back to that whole question that we've talked about of kind of our default definitions. And I think especially as salespeople, we have a tendency to go to the place of saying, “Oh my gosh, I've been ghosted.” When maybe I haven't even been ghosted. And so, when you look at it, how can you tell if someone's ghosting you or if they're just slow to respond and busy?

David:                   Well, that happens a lot. There's a lot of times when people are just busy, they're tied up and they may not be intentionally ghosting you but you're not hearing back from them. And the only real answer to that is time is the final determinant of that. Time is the only thing that will tell you for sure whether they're ghosting you or whether they're just busy. If they're just busy at some point they will become less busy and you will likely hear from them again. But all of us in business have to determine sort of our threshold, our tolerance for pain. How long are we willing to endure a relationship that is completely one sided? If we're sending texts or if we're sending social media messages or if we're leaving voicemail messages for people, how long do we want that to go on? And there are some salespeople who will continue to pursue a prospect for months or for years.  And I don't know, I guess that could work. I think to me it strikes me as a bit desperate. One of the things that we've always done in our organizations is we've sort of set a limit as to how many times we're going to continue to pursue a particular prospect. And I think it's a good idea for everyone to do.  Say, “Okay, this is going to be my limit.” I'm going to go this far and then I'm not going to continue to do that. Part of it also though has to do with the messaging because the way that we communicate to people is also going to help to determine or dictate the response that we get. And if people just think you're going to keep chasing them and chasing them and chasing them and they just feel like you're going to be there whenever they decide to get back to you, then there's not a lot of incentive for them to do that in a prompt and timely manner. But if people recognize that your time is valuable as well and that you're actually looking for a response, then they might be more inclined, at least the ones who are serious might be more inclined to be more responsive.

Chris:                     I think one of the things that we should dig in a little bit deeper on is, you said sometimes it's just a question of the messaging and you know, what - if all it is, is this sense of, Hey, what's going on? Or you know, I really want your business or that sort of thing. Talk about good messaging and how that can help this process along.

David:                   Right. Well, some of this also goes back to what we had talked about in a previous podcast in terms of just conversation that helps to foster a relationship, essentially relationship building as opposed to straight out salesmanship. Okay, where ‘sell at all costs’ if that's the goal of the conversation; then people are going to be a lot more likely to ghost you, because they feel like the conversation could be one sided. The advantage that we have when we're good at what we do in whatever profession we're in is that we can talk to people about the types of situations that they're having, the types of struggles they might be dealing with. We can talk to them about how we could potentially help them with those things, and it doesn't mean that we have to constantly be immediately selling them on it. So simply having conversations that are helpful, that are useful, that get them thinking about the things that they would like to have happen. All of that can be done in a way that is not totally self-serving and when we do that, we are going to be a lot more likely to have people want to continue those conversations.

Chris:                     It's such a great point. And again, I think the other thing that I would look at also is if you've figured out kind of where your end point is, one of the things that I heard as a strategy and it's served me well over the years; is at some point if you don't get a response just saying, “Hey, I just want to check in with you and make sure that everything's okay with us because I'm a little surprised I haven't received a response. If I've done something, boy I'd sure like to know what it is that I could do to get us back on the right track.” Something that you totally own and the kind of the strategy behind it is, but when it's not accusatory, like “Where have you been?” And it's just like, “Oh my God, if I've done something to offend you…” typically you'll get some kind of response saying, “Oh Hey, I'm really sorry.” And there is this... I think it becomes almost a desire to strike that feeling from the person who sent that note. And it's heartfelt, you know? I mean usually if there's somebody who hasn't gotten back to me that I think I've got a decent relationship with, it's an authentic and honest question and so that may be another way; and then I think from that point on, can't you just move to kind of putting them on an automatic message?  Here's our email newsletter, that sort of thing?

David:                   Yeah, we refer to that as a drip campaign and there are people who if we've haven't heard from them in a long time but that they have signed up to receive our newsletter, that type of thing, they can continue to get that for as long as they want to get it. Or until we get to the point where we say, okay, this person has received X number of newsletters. They haven't opened any, they haven't clicked on anything, they haven't responded to anything. Now we're going to make the decision proactively to remove them and sometimes that's a good idea as well, because if you have a lot of people who are getting your stuff and not engaging with it; that's going to impact your deliverability rates, it’s going to impact who's seeing your stuff on social media. So, it's a good idea to do that sort of cleanup every now and then to make sure that you're not just putting stuff out there to people who have absolutely no interest anymore in what it is that you're talking about.

David:                   And so, go back for me. Talk a little bit from your standpoint about how you determine if somebody's just been slow to respond?

David:                   Well, once again, it just goes back to how long it's taken. And you know, you had mentioned a great one to get people re-engaged, which is basically finding out if there's something you've done. And we've sent out emails that had subject lines of “Is it something I've done?” And that's typically the kind of thing that someone would think of in a personal relationship - Is it's something I've done? It sounds very personal, but it tends to get a decent response. Years ago, when we had our retail mail order catalog business, we used to send out postcards to people that we hadn't heard from in a while. People who hadn't ordered our stuff in a while. This is pre-internet, which is why we were sending out physical postcards, but we essentially would send out a postcard that said the same thing.  “Is it something we've done?” And so, it would be personalized it would just be a postcard. It would have your name at the top and it would say, “Dear Chris, you know, it's been quite some time since we've heard from you. We've appreciated your business over the years, but we haven't heard from you in a long time…” and then headline would say, “Is it something we've done?” And then it was just go on to say that because we value y

In this excerpt from a live Top Secrets teleconference, industry entrepreneur and business consultant David Blaise discusses your strategy for growing sales and profits...

Is your business invisible? Many businesses and professional practices struggle, not because they aren't good at their chosen profession, but because they're essentially invisible to their target market. They may be great at what they do, but they're not yet great at attracting, qualifying and converting enough high quality prospects into clients. So the problem isn't competence, it's entrepreneurial invisibility.

David:                   Hi, and welcome to the podcast today co-host Chris Templeton, and I will be discussing the fact that many businesses are essentially invisible to their ideal target markets. Welcome, Chris.

Chris:                     Hi David. Entrepreneurial invisibility. I have never heard it phrased that way, but it makes a whole a lot of sense. You know, in the movies invisibility is like this superpower, but it's not really an advantage in business, is it?

David:                   Not so much. No. When you're suffering from entrepreneurial invisibility, it means that the people who could most and best take advantage of what you offer, just don't even know you're there. They don't even know you're alive.

So in Harry Potter, if you've got an invisibility cloak, it's an advantage because you can sort of sneak around and find out what's going on and people don't know you're there. But if you're in a market and you've got an invisibility cloak on and people don't know you're there, it just means they're going to buy from someone else.

Chris:                     But isn't it kind of an overstatement? I mean, most businesses really aren't that invisible are they?

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David:                   I don't think it's an overstatement at all. Actually, I have seen over the years that many businesses are invisible to the people who matter most to them. Now, if they've got a client base, then obviously they're not invisible to those people; but if there are people in their market who could conceivably buy from them who don't know who they are, don't know what they do, have never been approached, I've never heard about them, doesn't recognize their authority in the marketplace… Then yeah, they are essentially invisible to those people.

Most businesses that I talk to, they feel like they want to be able to attract more clients, they want to be able to bring in new prospects, they want to be able to convert more of the people they're already talking to. And a lot of that frustration stems from the fact that people are not seeing them, they're not seeing them for what they are. They're not seeing them for what they can do. And once again, if they can't see you, you're invisible.

Chris:                     Well then, the only solution is a website. Right, David?

David:                   We’re going to go back to that?  Talking in the last three podcasts on how websites are not the cure for everything!

Chris:                     Not the cure for everything!  So you know, what do you think it is that is so common? Cause it is common in business, isn't it? This invisibility and this, I want to say it's almost a resistance to doing the things that create the visibility that we all want as business owners.

David:                   Yeah, well a lot of people just don't even really think about it. I mean they don't think about the fact that they are invisible to the people that they really need to be visible to. That's probably not perfect English, but you get the point.

Chris:                     Yeah.

David:                   There are a lot of people in their market who just don't know who they are, and they've never really thought about fixing that situation. And one of the reasons that I titled this the way that I did, is that I want people to recognize that if you are in fact invisible to the people who could buy from you, then you're at a distinct disadvantage because they just have no opportunity to make that happen.

So recognizing that it's the case, there are people who could buy from you but they can't because they don't know who you are. That's certainly the first step. And then adapting your approach, changing your approach so that you can take off the invisibility cloak and start being visible to the people who need to know you're there.

Chris:                     So what does that look like? I mean, what do you think that we can do to help businesses to get to that place?

David:                   Well, we're going to be hitting very specific action steps as we get toward the end of the podcast where we will give them a roadmap for that. But I mean the short version of it is that they're going to need to start thinking in terms of: who they need to approach, how they need to approach them, what they need to say, how they're going to say it, and how they're going to communicate it.

So becoming visible to your prospects and clients, it's going to also involve identifying who those people are. And so, I mean, there are a number of steps to it, but we will get to all of that.

Chris:                     So, do you think that if I'm a business owner who's invisible to my clients, is it fair to say that most competitors are somewhat invisible to theirs?

David:                   Yeah, some are. Maybe not all. Some are going to be visible to different segments of the market. So when you run into a situation where you approach a new prospect and they say, “I already have someone I'm dealing with.” In that situation, you were invisible to them previously, the person that they're interacting with was visible to them because they're interacting with them.

And what you'll find is that if you're going into a market and you're running into the same competitor over and over and over again and people are saying, I do business with this particular company or this particular person, then that person has visibility in the market that you don't have.

If you're going around from business to business, or person to person and you're finding out that there are lots of different people that they're doing business with. No, I'm doing business with this person or I'm doing business with that person. Then there are lots of different people who are visible in the marketplace and so what you want to ask yourself is: How do I become visible to the most important people, the people that I determined are most important in this market? How do I create that visibility and how do I maintain it?

Chris:                     And it goes back to that idea of; am I asking the solution-oriented question? If I'm asking,  "Why am I not more visible?", that's probably not the way we want to go cause it's so much more problem-oriented. But when you say, "How do I become more visible?" Now I'm opening myself up to the thinking that I need in order to begin to solve that. Isn't that true?

David:                   Yes. And also who do I need to be visible to? Who are the people that I need to create that visibility with? So when you start asking those types of questions and when you start putting together processes and systems that are designed to make you more visible to the people who can spend money with you, then of course it's going to start to happen.

Chris:                     So when you look at this, is your sense that what a business just to do is spend a lot of money to be visible to the very best prospects?

David:                   Not necessarily. And I would say in most cases the answer is no. Many businesses probably spend too much money creating not enough awareness and remaining invisible to too many people. John Wanamaker had a famous quote. He said, “I am convinced that half of my advertising is wasted. Trouble is I don't know which half.” And most of us in business have dealt with some version of that or other.

In fact, I would argue that John Wanamaker was an optimist because in a lot of cases, if you're spending money on advertising, 90% of it could be wasted or 95% could be wasted. If you put something out and it reaches a hundred people and three people respond, that means 97% of it was wasted. But you're doing it for the 3% that responded. And so we need to look at all of that and say, you know, "What am I doing? How am I doing it? Who am I approaching? What am I approaching them with?" And it all starts there.

Chris:                     And you know, in today's day and age, it's so easy to measure these things, to have a landing page for each specific ad, where you can see what your dollars are versus what your impressions are. The people that actually filled out a form or whatever the next step in the sales process was. I think a lot of businesses just don't even understand how easy these things are to do.

David:                   Right, and how it does make it more cost-effective? When you're talking about the expense of this thing, it's really less expensive when you do it the right way essentially. And within each market, there's always a subset of the market. There's a subset of people who are worth more than the others in the market, and I generally refer to this as a sub market in our Total Market Domination course within every single market, whether it's a geographic market, whether it's an industrial market, a niche, whatever it is.

Within each market there is a subset or a submarket, it is going to be the most profitable and it's less expensive when you're able to target fewer people who have a higher ability to spend money with you than it is if you're trying to reach everybody, and that's a big mistake that people make. When you get good at identifying, targeting, qualifying, and converting those people, that subset of the very best prospects, it is really cost-effective because you're no longer wasting time on low-dollar, poor-quality prospects.

Chris:                     And I just, you know, I go back to this whole idea of people being stuck,...

I can't tell you how many times people have told me that they need to bring in more clients before they can invest in either the training or the marketing that would allow them to bring in more clients. And while it's easy to immediately recognize the flawed catch-22 logic of this situation, I can tell you that those struggling with customer acquisition right now are often blind to this fact and paralyzed into inaction.

David:                   Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be talking about the Catch 22 of Inaction. Welcome Chris.

Chris:                     Hi David! You know when you talk about this Catch 22 of Inaction, you're not really talking about people being lazy or unmotivated, are you? I mean they could be working hard, putting in a ton of hours and sometimes all that action just does not create what they want in terms of sales.

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David:                   And that's exactly what happens. And you're right, it's not about being lazy. It's not about being unmotivated and they could be working a lot. In fact, a lot of them are. They're doing a lot of things that maybe are not working the way that they'd like. So yeah, it's not necessarily inaction in the sense of not doing anything. It's inaction in the sense of the wrong action. They're taking the wrong action. So maybe we should call it the Catch 22 of Incorrect Action.

Chris:                     Ooh, I like that.

David:                   Maybe that would be a better description. But really what we're looking at is having conversations with people who are too afraid to move forward because they seem to be stuck with whatever it is that they're doing.

Chris:                     So, talk about that. Talk a little bit about when a client says to you, “You know, I need to get clients for my business, but you know, I just can't afford to spend anything on training or advertising that would allow me to start attracting those people.” What do you say to them?

David:                   I say, what are you talking about? No, I don't say that. That's what I think. That's my inner monologue.

Chris:                     Are you kidding me?

David:                   It's a catch 22 you can't see that? You don't see that? Seems so obvious, but it always seems obvious to us when we know. It's like if you were playing chess with Bobby Fischer or whoever the current chess champion of the world is, that person is going to immediately recognize things that you might not always see. And so many business people, they love what they're doing, they're great at what they're doing, but they're not necessarily great at attracting the customers who need what they sell. So, they don't quite know how to do that. And so, they're doing things, they're taking actions that they think are going to help, but that, in effect, don't help. So, what I actually tell them is I first try to point out the catch 22 and in a lot of cases that's not particularly effective. I say, “Well listen, in a sense you're saying it takes money to make money and I don't have any money, therefore I can't make money, but I'm in business anyway.” So you need to sort of see it for what it is. Some people do see it, and some convince themselves that they're completely powerless and they insist on waiting until things get better. And I've heard that from more people than you'd think, where it's like, well, I can't do anything right now. I just need to wait until things get better and things do not just normally get better, particularly when you're taking the same action. It's Einstein's definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We've all heard that a hundred times, but it lives, you know that statement lives on because it's so true. Those who see it, those who recognize, okay, I'm going to have to do something different, I'm going to have to break this cycle; can sometimes pull themselves out of it and take some action. They can say, all right, you know what? I'm going to find the money or I'm going to allocate the money. Even if it's a little, I'm going to set something aside to try to get something going here, and if they're willing and able to do that, then they can start to create different results, but the people who convince themselves that it really is a catch 22 I will absolutely do this once things get better. In a sense there's almost no hope for them, and I hate to say that, and it's not like there's completely no hope for them, but in a lot of cases, if they don't change that mindset, it's going to be very difficult for them to succeed.

Chris:                     One of the things that I think about a lot is you can have two types of thoughts. One is problem-oriented thinking and the other is solution and I think what happens is, when you're in waiting mode, you've become beholden to those thoughts of the problem. You know? And I saw something recently that said, instead of saying I don't have the money to do that, how could I find the money to do that? Or I don't have the time to do that. If you switch the question, just change the question a little bit to, how could I find the time to do that? That alone can start to break that stuck in waiting mode.

David:                   Yeah, it does. Because by changing the question, you're actually programming your brain to give you a better answer. When you tell your brain, I can't afford this. Your brain says, okay, I don't need to think about that, but if you change the question as you just suggested to how can I afford this? Then your brain says, Hmm, how could I afford this? Because most people in business are spending money every day, every week, every year on overhead that is not contributing one thin dime to their profitability and we waste money, month after month, not even recognizing it. We don't ever realize we're spending this money anymore, but it's consuming. It continues to go regardless of whether or not we're bringing in more revenue. So, if you recognize that and you say, Hey, look, I'm putting out money every month, either way. What if I were to try to re-channel some of that into something that would help me to bring more money in? Then at least you're on the right path.

Chris:                     And to go back a little bit, you think about waiting. If you think of that as procrastination, really what you're talking about is this constant barrage of telling yourself that I don't have enough money, enough time, whatever the case may be, and really making that change to something that's much more solution-oriented is going to make all the difference in the world.

David:                   Yeah, and you're also delegating to reactivity. I don't even know if that's a real term, but what you're doing is you're saying, I'm going to wait until some unnamed force, or some thing happens to make things better. I'm going to wait and I'm going to react to something that I don't even know is there. I remember Zig Ziglar had a great quote. He said, “Don't wait for your ship to come in if you haven't sent one out.” And I thought that's a great quote. And a lot of people do that. It's like I'm waiting for my ship to come in and once my ship comes in, man, I'm going to do this. I'm going to invest in advertising. I'm going to invest in my training, my education, I'm going to train my salespeople. I'm gonna do all this stuff when my ship comes in, and they haven't sent a ship out. And there's another great one, Earl Nightingale, I remember hearing this, years and years ago. He said a lot of people, they'll approach it as if they're approaching a furnace and they're saying to the furnace, give me heat and then I'll add the wood. And it doesn't work like that. You've got to be more proactive. And when you're waiting, when you're delegating to reactivity and essentially saying, okay, when this good thing happens out of the blue sky, it just is going to happen. Then when that happens, then I'll take action. You never control your own destiny that way. You can never control your own destiny if you're going to wait for some unnamed thing to happen before you're willing to take action.

Chris:                     And you must see this over and over again. I, as I understand that you've done lots of trade shows over the years. You must see people coming back year after year with the same problem. And it's gotta be kinda heartbreaking.

David:                   Yeah. Yes and no. When it comes to people coming back year after year, suffering from the same problems. And the reason I say that is that some people do return. A lot of them are embarrassed, you know, particularly if we had talked, the previous year, about something they wanted to do and they didn't take action on it. A lot of times they're embarrassed, like, yeah, you know, we talked about doing that and then we didn't and I got sidetracked and other stuff, but I did put together a new website and that didn't do anything. We talked about that in a previous podcast. Yeah, so some of them are embarrassed and a lot of them are out of business. Frankly, that's what happens. We've met people at trade shows, we've talked to them afterwards. We followed up about helping them with what they were looking to accomplish and a lot of them are like, well, when this happens, when that happens, then we'll do it and we would stay in touch with them. We'd stay in touch with them a few weeks at a time, a few months later it was always, "not yet, not yet." And then eventually you call, and they're gone. They're out of business. They just couldn't do it because they were waiting for this unnamed thing to happen, that just never happened. I think reactivity is deadly... And maybe that should be the title of the podcast. I think reactivity is deadly when we are just waiting for some outside thing to happen instead of taking charge of

The holidays are here! So, in this podcast we'll discuss how to make the very most of the holiday season in terms of planning, relaxing, networking, and strategizing.

David:                   Hello, happy holidays and welcome to the podcast! Today co-host Chris Templeton and I will be discussing how to make the most of the holiday season. We've got a nice fire going, we've got some chestnuts roasting, a warm cup of holiday cheer. So, I'd say we are all set to get started. Welcome Chris.

Chris:                     Hi David. Thanks for having me. Nice to feel so warm all over, ready for the holidays!

David:                   Nice, isn't it?

Chris:                     So you are talking about the holidays and you're also talking about talking business. Don't our listeners deserve just a little break?

David:                   Yes. And don't we deserve a little break?

Chris:                     Absolutely.

David:                   Yeah, we probably do, but I think if many of our listeners are like me and perhaps like you as well, we may be thinking business even when we're taking a break. Even when we're relaxing, sometimes things are going on in the back of our minds. And I think a lot of us, during the course of the holiday season, we do like to take some time to sort of relax, recuperate a bit, but then as that happens we get a bit of a break in the action, and in a lot of cases that's when some of our best ideas come to us, isn't it?

Chris:                     It certainly is. I was writing as you were talking about back of the mind. So much happens back there, especially when we give it a break and when we kind of turn off the front end activity, doesn't it?

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David:                   Yeah, and that's why I really love this time of year because I think it's a great combination of that. Of course you're getting toward the end of one year, so you're able to think back in terms of what worked well and what didn't work as well. You're able to think forward in terms of what do I want to have happen next year and work toward that. You maybe get a little bit of time off, hopefully you do.  If you're able to take the weekend before and you're able to take the weekend after and you get a break during the week, it does provide some opportunity to just sort of relax a bit, think about stuff and figure out where we're going next.

Chris:                     And I think it's just a really important point to just say to your listeners: You know what? It's okay to relax. It's okay to take some time off and let that behind the scenes brain of yours work and come up with some new ideas. Give yourself permission to let yourself go a little bit for the holidays, don't you think?

David:                   Yes. Not only is it okay, I would argue that it's necessary because if you don't do that, then you never really get to that point of rest where your brain can come up with things that it's sort of free-styling in a way. When you're focused too much on work all the time, you're just putting out fires or you're thinking about what needs to come next, then you end up getting stuck. And so, it's nice just to be able to clear your head a little bit, enjoy yourself, relax, and allow some new ideas and new thoughts to pop into your head.

Chris:                     So when you think about it, what do you think the best mix of relaxation versus thinking, planning and strategizing should be?

David:                   Well, I imagine it's going to be different for everyone. Some people already relax more than others and some people tend not to relax more than others. So depending on where you are on that spectrum, that's going to impact it. But if you are the type of business owner or salesperson or business professional who is constantly engaged, who doesn't take the time to just sort of throttle back for a little while and allow some time to pass and clear out your head, then this is really a great opportunity to do that. So if you're not doing it, I would encourage you to do so. If you are the type of person who takes regular breaks and mental hiatuses so that you can allow the thoughts to come to you, then great, you're already doing it; but when we look at that mix of sort of relaxation, creative thinking, planning, strategizing, perhaps goal setting this time of year.  It's just a nice time to be able to take a little bit of time and do that.  As far as percentages are concerned, I think that's going to vary, but in a lot of cases you'll know. If you're feeling burned out, if you feel like you just really haven't had an opportunity to chill out, then maybe you need to take a little more time this year than you've taken in the past. If you have a fairly balanced existence as far as that's concerned, then maybe it's not as much of an issue and you can think about some things in terms of what you'd like to have happen in the coming year and use the holiday season to be able to start processing those thoughts.

Chris:                     I think about the person that you mentioned earlier that's going a hundred miles an hour. They're putting out fires all the time, and I think they're the ones that probably need this more than anybody else. But what do you do for somebody like that who's a pro? They're working hard and the holidays roll around, they're like, I can't turn this off.

David:                   Right. There are a lot of people who struggle to turn it off and I know I've certainly fallen into that category on more than one occasion. And even, you know, we just had Thanksgiving not too long ago in the US a few weeks ago and for that holiday weekend, I know that there were times where I felt like perhaps I should be relaxing a little more, but an idea will pop into my head; and next thing I know I've gotten my phone out and I'm adding notes to take care of things for when I get back. And to some extent it might be the nature of the beast. It's not that we need to constantly turn things off mentally, but we need to allow ourselves at least a little bit of flexibility, a little bit of time, so that our brains can relax and generate some new ideas and different ideas so that when we're ready to engage again, we've got some stuff to work with.

Chris:                     I think the other thing to keep in mind is just like we talked about, give yourself permission that it's okay for you to turn things off regardless of how that goes. Don't fight it. And then the other thing is people say you've got your phone all the time. Well, this is one of those things where you can decide what to turn off, but also take the time when that good idea pops into your head and get it into some kind of a system, someplace written down that works for you. And I think that's the other thing is just looking at this whole thing and saying, yeah, take the time to give yourself a break, but don't pass up those good ideas.

David:                   Right. And at the beginning of this podcast we'd talked about a couple of things. We talked about the idea of planning and when I'm talking about planning, I don't mean that you really have to put your head down and do a lot of hard work in terms of planning, particularly during a week like this. It's a nice time to just sort of relax and just maybe let your mind wander a bit and think in terms of what do I think I might like to have happen over the course of the next year. Right? Even that type of thing that's sort of brainstorming counts as planning. You can start to plan what you'd like your year to look like and then we also talked about relaxing, being able to take the opportunity to just chill a bit, relax the brain and allow those thoughts to come. We also touched on the idea of networking.  I had mentioned that at the start of the podcast and during the holiday season we don't really think in terms of networking, and I don't even necessarily mean it from a business standpoint, but the idea that we're going to be interacting with other people.  We'll be interacting with friends, we'll be interacting with family members, we'll be interacting with people perhaps that we don't know. It's a great opportunity just to have conversations that allow people to get to know us better, allows us to get to know other people better and to just have that sort of open communication. So even from a networking standpoint doesn't necessarily have to mean business, but if you're having a conversation and you find that you're able to help someone with what you do, then by all means those conversations can certainly be had. Finally in terms of strategizing, the whole idea of just taking a little bit of time and thinking through, "What is my strategy, what do I want to happen over the course of the next year, and then what are going to be the actions? What will be the specific things that I will do to start to make that sort of thing happen?" It's just a nice time to be able to think those things through and to start to take action on them.

Chris:                     I have two comments. Number one is when it comes to a lot of what you're talking about with the planning and the strategizing, especially; I think it's a good time to be in kind of solution mode or dream mode. You know, this is what it would be really nice to have happen in the coming year and just be a little more loose with it. Doesn't that make sense?

David:                   I think it makes perfect sense and once again, we're looking to try to find that balance between allowing our brains to rest and also to be able to generate those sorts of ideas.

Chris:                     So how do I turn my family and social events into networking events? David, I don't know that I want to…

David:                   No, I don't really know that you want to do that either. I'm not really suggesting that you do that....