When we discuss a step-by-step approach to the sales process, we're taking a scientific approach, which most people don't do. They just keep going out there and getting in front of people, smiling and dialing, whatever it is they're doing. And when you take a more strategic approach, you just get far more consistent results.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing a step-by-step process to the sales approach. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Great to see you, David. Excited to talk about this.

David: Yeah, it's great to see you as well. This actually came up because I saw this question going through a Facebook group. I thought it's an interesting topic because everybody's got their own idea of what that is, what that should be, and very few people actually have what they would describe as a step-by-step approach to the sales process, which I believe is critical if you want to be able to create consistent results.

Kevin: Why is it you think that people don't implement a step-by-step process? Is it just because they just like to shoot from the hip a little bit more or what is the reasoning?

David: Well, there are a lot of salespeople who do just like to go with the flow and they go with the conversation and everything like that.

And there are some people who can do that extremely well.

Kevin: Sure.

David: But my feeling is that even those who can do that extremely well are essentially harming themselves, by not having at least a framework that they go back to again and again and again, so that when prospects or clients inevitably get them derailed, they know exactly where to come back to so that they're not missing any steps.

That's why I think having the sales process in place is pretty important.

Kevin: Obviously, there's no universal sales approach for every industry because you know every industry is a little different, so how can a business lay out a good step-by-step sales approach that is suitable for what they do?

David: Great question. So in our business, one of the things that we help our clients with is exactly this. And a lot of our clients are in the print and promotional products industries, but this also applies to any other B2B business. It actually applies to a B2 C business. I haven't really found an industry where it doesn't apply.

And so when we initially laid this out in a program called Top Secrets of Customer Acquisition, we basically laid out six steps to customer acquisition. I'll put up a graph here to sort of demonstrate it as we're going through.

But the first step that we've identified is the targeting. Who exactly is it that I'm going to go after? Because if I don't know who I'm targeting, I've got no one to sell to.

I've got to have a really crystal clear idea of who the people are that I would like to go after. And so for me it always starts with that, who is it that I want to sell to?

Kevin: And in this day and age, we have so much data, we have so much information that there shouldn't be any reason you can't figure out that pretty precise target.

David: Exactly, and a lot of times people want to feel like they sell to everybody. But the problem is that, as the saying goes, if you feel like you're selling to everybody, you're probably not selling to anyone.

Because people don't always get it. They don't resonate with something unless they feel like the messaging is actually directed toward them.

So, it's a really good idea to. target small, Aim small, miss small, as they said in the movie the Patriot, right? Aim small, miss small.

You want to be able to do that with your targeting because when you do that, you can be more consistent in what you're saying to the people that you're approaching.

It'll make a lot more sense to them, and you'll be able to get a lot more traction with what you're doing.

Kevin: All right, so after targeting the right people, what's next?

David: All right. It's a step I refer to as hunting and gathering. This is just like, back in the old days when we were living in caves, you had to go out and do your hunting and gathering.

And this is the non-fun, non glorious, non-sexy part of selling. When we target, that's basically saying, okay, I wanna go after this kind of group of people. But the nitty gritty of it is, okay, who are they? Where are they and how can I reach them?

So hunting and gathering to me means identifying who are actually the people within your market that you want to go after, right?

So if you're targeting business to business, you want to say, am I going after particular cities, am I going after particular industrial parks? And then who are the people that I want to start with?

Because until you know that, once again, you have no one to market to. So targeting is first. That's sort of the big picture approach.

And then hunting and gathering is honing down and saying, who are the initial people that I'm going to initiate contact with?

That's what I consider to be the second step, because again, it's necessary if you want to know who you're gonna be selling to.

Kevin: Why do you consider that the unsexy or, un fun part of the sales process?

David: Well, just because it's grunt work, essentially. It's like, okay, how am I going to find these names? Am I going to go online? Or am I going to do it offline? Am I going to pay some company to be able to do that for me? To be able to identify the people who could potentially buy?

Because I want to know their names, I want to know their positions within organizations if I'm selling B2B. I want to know their email addresses, their phone numbers, I need all that stuff.

And so I'm either doing that or I'm paying an assistant to do it, or I'm paying another company to do it. So, for that reason, particularly salespeople who like being in front of people and like doing their thing and like presenting solutions, it's just not fun.

It's a tedious thing that has to happen. And a lot of times people will avoid it. Now if you think of people who may do cold calling, for example. If you've got a list of names and phone numbers and you're just doing cold calls and you haven't even really thought about where are these people and where do they come from, if you haven't done your targeting right, if you haven't done your hunting and gathering right, you're going to spend a lot of time on the phone with people who are probably not best suited to buying from you.

Kevin: That's my nightmare. Cold calling.

David: Yeah.

Kevin: Not going to lie. It's my nightmare.

David: It's a nightmare for a lot of people. And I think there are a lot of industries that told salespeople, this is what you must do. This is your job.

They equated first contact with cold calling. And one of the things I've always told my clients from the beginning is those are two different things.

I mean, cold calling is one form of first contact, but it sure isn't the only one.

Kevin: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Alright, let's go on to step three. What's next?

David: Okay, step three is first contact. Now, one of the things that I do here, I've got six steps, but I do pair some of these steps together. So, I consider step three to be First Contact and what I refer to as the three by three follow up procedure.

And the reason I put those two things together is that a lot of times we reach out to people and then we never reach out to them again, and we're not sure how often to reach out to them.

Do we keep pursuing them forever? At what point do we disqualify them? And so what I've done for our clients is we put together what I refer to as the three by three follow up procedure, which basically is a series of contacts initiated over a relatively short period of time, a period of a couple of weeks.

That gives you enough opportunity to be able to be in touch with the person, but without driving them crazy.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: So, as part of the process, the reason I group them together is that you don't want to do your first contact unless you are committed to doing the follow-up necessary to be able to then get to the fourth step, which we'll discuss in a moment.

Kevin: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so well let, let's just move on. What is the fourth step then?

David: Okay, so the fourth step then is, and it's going to be two steps again, but I'm putting them together. It's Qualifi...

Kevin: Four A and four B!

David: Yeah, exactly. Four A and four B. It's qualification and segmentation. Okay?

So we're initiating first contact. We're initiating the three by three follow up procedure for the purpose of getting them qualified in or out as quickly as possible.

And so essentially we're segmenting them into groups so that we know exactly how to follow up with each one. Most salespeople don't really do this.

I mean, even the ones who are using a CRM, they're usually gathering the information. They're in touch with people, they're keeping track with their notes, what they're saying to the person, maybe what next steps are and things like that.

But one of the things I always encourage our clients to do is to qualify them in or out and get them segmented into one of five levels of qualification.

So really quickly, the way that this works is that every single prospect you ever come into contact with, and every client you ever have, will always, only ever fall into one of five levels of qualification.

Either they're ready to buy now. "Oh, Kevin, I'm so glad you called. Can I please buy your stuff," right?

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: Usually the smallest group.

Kevin: Right.

David: The ones we're ready to buy now. Second group are those who have specific dates in mind. "Oh, listen, that sounds really good. I've got an event coming up in September. Don't have anything until then, but yeah,...

What are the things you can control in your business? What are the things that we can look at? Identifying the very specific companies, the very specific industries that we need to be able to interact with, to be able to get our customers as close to what they need as possible.

We might not be able to get them exactly what they want at the price they want it. But most of them are going to understand that. Most clients are not going to blame you for the fact that the economy is doing certain things, or that there are things happening in the world.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, cohost Kevin Rosenquist and I will be discussing focusing on things you can control. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: Hey, it's great to be here, David. I always am a big preacher around the house of "control what you can control." You know, I can't do everything. So control what you can control. So I'm excited to talk about this.

David: Yeah, it's a really good topic, both from a personal standpoint and from a business standpoint. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day of what's going on outside our own environments. Especially with the news. Everybody's talking about different things that are happening regarding the economy, the stock market, all kinds of things that are happening.

When we focus too much on the things that are outside of our control, we basically abdicate the things we can work on that move the needle for us.

Kevin: Do you feel like people are even more focused on stuff they can't control? Like what's happening in the world and in the news now because of how much news is thrown at us in so many different ways with social media and whatnot?

David: I think so. Yeah. I think it's always been like this. But yes, it does seem to be more of an epidemic lately, than maybe it has been in the past.

I remember being exposed to this concept, I think it was in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Stephen Covey was talking about your sphere of influence.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: Where you basically draw a circle and you say, okay, inside this circle is what I can control. And everything outside. It is what I can't control, which is basically the world and everything else. Right.

Kevin: Which is, which is a lot of stuff.

David: It is a lot of stuff. If this is the circle, then everything outside the circle off into infinity is the stuff you can't control. Exactly.

In a situation like that, the more you focus inside your sphere of influence, the bigger it gets.

So when you're focusing on the things that you have control of, you end up having control of more things.

When you focus your attention outside the sphere of influence, the smaller it gets. That's because you're not working on the things you can actually control.

And so for those of us in business... When we are able to really pay attention to that, you can grow your sphere of influence. You can control more of your own environment to accomplish the things you're looking to accomplish.

Kevin: Absolutely. So let 's get a little specific here. Let's talk about sales for a second. 'cause one of the things I think about with sales is that sales teams can get really tied up with market conditions and what competitors are doing and all that.

How can sales teams kind of focus on what they can directly influence.

David: That is such a brilliant example because it's so true. In sales meetings very often you'll have conversations. "Well, this person's doing this, or this person's doing that. Or these people are cutting their price." It's all valid.

Those are all things that may actually be happening in the marketplace that we have to respond to.

But the first thing to do in that situation is to say, how can we flip the script on this?

How can we turn this into something that we can do that is going to be better, different, and received by the market in a way that makes what they're doing less important.

Because we're not going to be able to control what they do, or how they do things. That's outside our sphere.

Now, being aware of those things is good. But then it really boils back down to what are we doing in our business that is causing that to be a problem to us?

Because if we're doing things well in our business, then whatever it is that they're doing shouldn't be a problem.

Of course, that's not always the case.

I mean, there are things that they'll do that are going to cause us to have to adjust, adapt, all that sort of thing. But when we focus on the things that are actually within our control, then all of that becomes a lot easier.

Kevin: Sticking with sales a little bit, I feel like a lot companies or a lot of sales teams have a really long sales cycle, which can make it really tough to focus on the things you can control.

Is that something you see? Is there any advice for people on how to take their sales cycle and bring it down to a place where they can manage it better?

David: Yeah, that's a great question as well. I think a lot of times the sales process is maybe longer than it has to be, depending on the frequency of contact and the way that we're able to interact with people to accelerate it.

Now, as you indicated, there are some professions where the sales cycle is going to be longer in some than in others. you can't really change that.

The only thing you can really do from a circle of influence standpoint in terms of what we can do, is to make sure that we are there in front of them in advance of every bit of information we need from them, all the things that we're going to need to be able to get from them, and to make sure that they're staying on track with whatever they have to do in order to move the sales process forward.

Kevin: Mm-hmm. You know, we talked a little bit last episode about automation, ai, stuff like that, which I'm sure it's going to come up probably every episode.

But can businesses get too distracted by that, where they're not focusing on what's already working and they're just sitting there chasing the next cool new thing?

David: I think shiny object syndrome is real. Yes. That can definitely happen. I imagine that's happening in some organizations. In a sense I almost wish that more people were paying attention to it and trying to figure out how to integrate it now as opposed to later.

It seems to me that a lot of people are sort of thinking about it in general terms and focused on it in general terms, which is sort of outside the sphere, right?

So if we're looking into things like how to best use AI in our business. Then you want to say, okay, well how can I apply it with what I'm doing now?

What can I do to be able to utilize AI to allow me to be in touch with these people in a better timeline, a better timeframe to be able to provide them with more helpful and useful information in a faster way so that we can keep things moving forward.

So I think as long as we're utilizing the tools that we have available to us to be able to focus on our primary goals of whatever growing business, growing sales, making sure that we're outperforming our competition, then we're focused on the right things.

Kevin: How do you kind of coach people or business owners when you talk to them about staying with the times, but not going too far and chasing that shiny object?

Especially if someone may be not all that tech, you know, they might be tech averse. So like how do you coach people?

David: A lot of times in the conversations I'm having with clients, the shiny object thing is definitely an issue.

So part of it is just pulling back on that and saying, okay, let's see how that actually works into what you need to do. Because it's really tempting. You see something shiny, you want to go after it.

I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people and they're like, well, you know, I want to focus on sales, but I really need to get my website done first. And I'm like, okay, well, that's usually a big project. It usually takes a lot of time, more time than you need.

It usually takes more money than you need and it needs to be funded by something.

So there's an example of where I will say to a client, listen, I think if we focus on this one thing first, we can allow you to generate the money, the revenue you need to be able to fix up your website without you having to take a lot of time to do it because you can pay somebody else to do it.

So I think a lot of it boils down to identifying what is the thing that they really need to get done so that we can then gear their time and attention, gear their activities toward the activities that'll make it happen.

Kevin: About five years ago, almost exactly I think, we had one of the ultimate things that we cannot control in a pandemic.

How do some businesses Thrive? What do they do differently in those situations to stay alive? I mean, obviously certain ones, there's only so much you can do, but when you saw what businesses survived or even might have thrived during that time, what did you see them do?

David: The biggest thing was the ones who stuck their heads in the sand, they were DOA.

They were just out of luck. Because they were too scared to move and too scared to move is not a good recipe in business.

So at the time, the biggest focus that we were working on with our clients was to make sure that they were just remaining engaged. They were getting in touch with their prospects and clients in the ways that they could, because all of a sudden it all changed.

Right? And there are salespeople who only sold face to face. So the first thing for them is, okay, can't sell face to face. How are we going to do it?

Which different marketing vehicles are we going to use to reach people? Is it going to be more email? Will it be more text? Is it going to be more Zoom meetings? What is it going to be?

...

We'd love to help you to get from here to there in terms of eliminating waste in your business. When you're focused on getting those things done and when you've got processes and procedures in place to allow you to accomplish it more quickly, then everything gets a whole lot better.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing eliminating waste in your business. Welcome, Kevin.

Kevin: Great to see you. David. Excited to be here.

David: I'm excited to have you here.

Kevin: Yeah, so we're talking waste, obviously waste in business. There's different kinds of waste.

A lot of people will immediately think of money, but that's not really what we're talking about, is it?

David: Well, some of what we're talking about, I guess. Yeah. There's been a lot of talk about finding and eliminating waste in the news. So I thought, how does that really apply when you're operating a business?

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: Anyone in business, particularly small to medium sized businesses, must be aware of the fact that there is always likely to waste in the business.

And as you pointed out, I mean, very often it starts with money. We're afraid that we might be wasting money, and in many cases we are.

Kevin: Sure.

David: But for most businesses who are reasonably run well, that's usually not the biggest thing.

Kevin: What would you say is the biggest thing, or can you give me like your top three?

David: Okay, sure. Yeah. I think for most of us it probably starts with time.

Kevin: Yeah.

David: Because the time that we waste is something that we can never get back.

I think I heard Brian Tracy say this years ago. If you lose money, you can always make more, but if you run out of time, that's it. All the money in the world won't help you. That's pretty much how it went.

Kevin: Yeah. I mean, there's no going back. So far they haven't figured out a way.

David: No. We have not figured out a way to do that.

So when we look at our days, weeks or even hours, we look at things like meetings. Are our meetings productive?

Are our processes organized or disorganized? What are the distractions like during the course of a day? Because when we're focusing on one thing and then we're distracted and we have to switch back and forth, it requires flipping the switches in our brains and getting ourselves adjusted to the new thing that we're thinking about.

All of those things consume time, which is, in many cases, even worse than money when we start wasting it.

Kevin: You brought up a good one, meetings. And I think that's something, especially in this day and age of Zoom calls and all that stuff. I have a lot of friends who are in the corporate world or in the business world, and they talk about the needless meetings, the constant need for them, for people to feel like you got to get the crew together.

Why are small businesses and medium sized businesses so focused on that and how can they like pull back?

David: Yeah, it's a great question. I think there are some people who just feel like it's necessary. I think there are some business owners, some managers who feel like their presence in everyone's day-to-day life is critical

Kevin: Right.

David: And that's true more of some people than others. Some employees are happy to be able to just do their own thing and get everything done. Others do need more interaction.

So it is an individual kind of thing. I think most business owners have to take a look at that and say, how much of me do they need? How much of their sales managers do they need?

But being aware of the fact that each time we force everyone to get together, the clock is running. The clock's running on everyone. And when you have a bunch of people on one meeting, that means that all those people are tied up for that period of time.

And if it's not productive for everyone on that meeting or in that meeting, then it may make sense to do things a little differently.

Kevin: Yeah, we've all been in that situation where someone calls a meeting and you're just like, "oh, come on. I have so much to do, I don't wanna do this!"

David: Right. Yeah.

Kevin: Yeah.

David: It's funny because I think in a lot of cases, employers are thinking that way and employees are thinking that way, but the one is not thinking that the other is thinking that way necessarily. Right?

Kevin: Of course.

David: So there's that disconnect sometimes. But I do believe that time is probably one of the biggest things that we need to look at, particularly in small to medium sized businesses.

Beyond the time then, you mentioned the idea of money, obviously that's the first thing that most people think of when it comes to not wanting to waste things inside your business.

When I think of wasting money in a business, some of the things that leap to mind first are things like marketing that doesn't work, marketing that doesn't convert.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: And things like that. That can be a time waster as well as a money waster depending on what you're doing.

Kevin: Yeah, well, a lot of marketing, you know, we're both marketing people like the, a lot of marketing efforts are very time consuming. They're very all consuming, you know, as far as if that's your job. It's like that kind of becomes your focus for whatever period of time to get that rolling.

And if it's not successful, there's waste right there.

David: Yeah, exactly. And when we think what we're doing is supposed to produce a result and it doesn't, then we really have to start reevaluating what's going on.

I think a lot of that boils down to the tracking that we're either doing or not doing to see how well our activities are actually paying for themselves in that regard.

Kevin: What about data? Like I feel like we're so obsessed with data right now, and for good reason. I mean, like it's so available to us now. Do you feel like people might spend too much time worrying about the customer data or how to use it effectively? Trying to collect every piece of data they can?

David: Yeah, it's a great question, and I think in some cases people do. I think the opposite is also true, maybe in more cases than not. Where sales representatives are maybe not capturing the data they need to be able to advance the process. I think a lot of times in a sales situation, the focus is on closing in a lot of cases, which is important.

I'm not taking anything away from that, but when you're having a conversation with someone and you say, "alright, what do I need to advance the sales process in the next conversation," right?

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: Is it a piece of information that I need? Is it something specific that I'm waiting for to be able to sort of seed the ground and say, okay, so when we get together on Thursday, let's make sure we have this, this, and this.

We can make sure those things are lined up so we have access to the things that we need to move forward. In fact, that's probably a good topic for a future podcast. We should look at that.

Kevin: Yeah, I would say so.

David: All right. but those types of things are really critical in terms of what are we going to capture?

In a lot of cases, one of the biggest things we want to capture is what is the next step for the next meeting?

When is it going to happen, and what needs to happen in that meeting? So that each contact that we have with a prospect or a client has purpose and we know what that purpose is and we know what to look for in those conversations.

Kevin: Another example of waste, of wasted conversation, wasted time with clients, wasted meetings. Those meetings don't just have to be internal, they can be external as well.

David: Right.

Kevin: Where you're not getting to the point where you need to get to.

David: Yeah. And that tends to happen a lot. When we look at these different things, you look at time waste, you look at money waste, there's another one that I think is big, which people may not consider, and that is energy.

I mean, we each have a limited supply of energy in the day, right?

Kevin: Yeah.

David: Some people are morning people, some people are nighttime people.

So our natural energy peaks at different times a day. And just looking at that sometimes and saying, okay, well, how can I make sure that when I've got the most energy, I'm being the most productive?

Because if I'm wasting my sort of personal prime time, then the likelihood of success goes down quite a bit.

Kevin: And speaking of energy mine's at a dipping David, so don't expect much from me for the rest of this episode. Okay?

David: Okay.

Kevin: You kind of led the talk about what's going on in the news and stuff like that. And of course, that comes down to talent, to people. Like that's what is happening. A lot of people are getting let go of their positions, whether it's the government or the tech sector. You're seeing it a lot.

Obviously there can definitely be waste with people. How can business owners and companies identify where that waste is in their talent without resorting to mass layoffs or without putting too many people out.

David: Yeah, in the kinds of business that we interact with, with small and medium sized businesses, it's a different thing. I mean, 'cause obviously you're not going to have mass layoffs in a small company.

Kevin: True.

David: But most people, particularly, you know, when the economy's a little uncertain, people aren't really sure, do I need to start cutting costs from a personnel standpoint?

It's a big decision, and in those circumstances it usually makes the most sense to say, okay, where are the holes in the bucket, essentially?

In most small to medium sized businesses, it's very likely that there are people who are probably the go-to's when it comes to not pulling their weight.

...

If we look at the idea of reactivating your client base in as many ways as possible, it means interacting with the people who have spent the money with us and doing that at a personal level, building the relationship, that’s about the best thing we can do.

David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing reactivating your client base. Welcome Jay.

Jay: It’s good to be here. You know, it’s funny. I hear this everywhere I go now. If I watch Shark Tank or anything else, I hear this term CAC. You know, what is your CAC? And it’s your customer acquisition cost.

And I have to believe that your CAC, for a customer you’ve already worked with, has got to be lower than trying to bring in a brand new customer. Am I right?

David: Oh, absolutely. And I think instinctively as business people, we probably already know this. We’ve probably heard it a hundred times, but the purpose of this discussion is not to have you hear it again. The purpose of this discussion is to ask, “are you doing this?” And if so, how well are you doing this? How much better could you be doing this?

Because as you pointed out, once you’ve invested that money to acquire a customer, now you want to be able to leverage that relationship as much as possible to provide them with additional help, additional solutions so that you can generate the revenue. They can get the results they’re looking for, and you’re not spending more money to attract people. You’re able to just expand the relationships that you have with the people who you’ve already acquired that first time.

Jay: Yeah. And I think it’s disappointing if you spent that money for customer acquisition and then you don’t have a system to retain them or keep them online. And so now it’s almost like you’re spending the same money twice. If you’re trying to get them back again.

David: Right. Yes. And so when we think about reactivation, there are a couple of aspects to it. One is just people who haven’t bought from you in a little while, to touch base with them again, to reengage those people and to see what they want, what they need. Essentially, requalifying them to find out where they are in that process.

Are they ready to buy more things? Do they have a date in mind when they want to buy? Are they ready to go now? Or are they just not ready to do anything? Are they sort of disqualified for the moment? Are they unresponsive to you?

Because they’ll generally fall into one of those five categories. They’re either ready to buy. They have dates in mind when they want to buy. They’re open to the idea, but not sure when. Or they’re disqualified, or they’re not responsive.

When you are able to go back and sort of requalify your existing clients, you can reactivate the ones who are ready to go now. You can schedule the ones who know when they want to go next. And the ones who are generally receptive, you can just stay in touch.

Jay: Yeah. Or what about the ones who were disappointed, but they didn’t take the time. Right? So many customers will never tell you that they had a bad experience. They just move on and…

David: Yeah.

Jay: you had no idea. So you’re not improving your customer service and your chance of reviving that customer is very low.

David: Yeah. And that’s an excellent point, too. Because as you indicated, if you don’t know that, but you’re reaching out to them to see how you can help next, and you find out about that problem, then at least you have the possibility of restoring the relationship, if not doing anything about the previous order.

Jay: Yeah. So what are we talking about here? Like good drip campaigns? Is that kind of where you would start? So you’re in constant contact? What do you think is the best way to go about this?

David: Well, I do think it starts with engaging your people. You can engage your people in a lot of different ways. It can be done via email with a drip campaign. You can also do it on the phone. Or it can be done in person.

There are lots of different ways that we can engage with people. But recognizing that there is a tendency, sometimes, after we’ve sold something, to immediately move on to the next thing. “Okay. That’s taken care of. That’s done. Now I’m onto the next thing.”

And then we sort of forget about that person until we either hear back from them. Or until and unless we’ve got some sort of procedure in place, in our own businesses, to remind us to go back to those people and see where they are in the process. And see how we can help them again.

So I would say it starts with engagement. Just recognize that we need to constantly engage with the people who have provided us with a hundred percent of the revenue we’ve generated to date, right? That’s what they’ve done.

Before you look for three more people to add to the list, make sure that the ones you have don’t need anything. Because you’ll be saving yourself a lot of money and you’ll be better satisfying the people that you’ve already paid to acquire.

Second thing I would look to do is to ask questions. Find out what’s going on in their heads — what they’re thinking, what they need, what they’re open to, and their timelines, that type of thing.

So it’s relatively easy to do. And because you already have a relationship with them, they’re going to be a lot more likely to answer those questions than if you were talking to somebody who you’ve never engaged with before. So I think engaging, asking questions and really trying to connect with the important people in your business, your existing clients, wherever you can.

Jay: I do see this a lot more now. The minute that I finish placing an order online or in an app, I suddenly, instantly get the “how did we do?” Then the stars come up. And they’re instantly asking, “how did we do?” Sometimes it’s frustrating for me because if it’s something that they’re shipping to me, I’m like, “well, I don’t know how you did yet, because I don’t know what your product is.”

Others are designed to where that question happens after it’s been shipped. So they have a system that’s set up. They know it just arrived at my house and then boom, I get the email. And it says, “how did we do?” And I think it’s very, very smart to be asking that question right away. My background’s the restaurant business. So I always go back to restaurants. It’s you’ve delivered the food. Now you wait a few minutes and you come back, they’ve had a chance to taste the food. Now I’m going to say, “how is everything?” And make sure that everybody’s happy.

David: Yeah, that’s true. And in a lot of other types of businesses that is not done. Obviously, as you indicated in a restaurant, people are going to ask, how is everything? What else can I get you? That type of thing.

But in a lot of other businesses that doesn’t happen. Or doesn’t happen consistently. One of the things that we encourage our clients to do is to have a procedure in place for after an order is delivered. So that they’re getting the product and then you know, within a certain period of time when that should have arrived and you’re touching base with them to find out.

A lot of my clients in the print and promotions industry, particularly if it’s a promotional product that was shipped from a supplier, the distributor who sold it might not know exactly when that arrived. And so that person might assume that yes, it arrived exactly as it was supposed to. I didn’t hear anything. That’s all good. And that’s not a good assumption to make.

Particularly now with supply chain issues and with delivery issues on a lot of things. You don’t want to make those types of assumptions.

And so if you schedule out the idea of contacting somebody within a day or two, after that should have arrived, to find out, did you get it? Was everything good? Are there any concerns that you have? You’re far better off doing that than waiting until there’s a problem and having them call you. Because at that point you’re going to have to be a lot more reactive. You’re not being proactive and clients don’t like that at all.

Jay: Yeah. Yeah, you can still salvage the situation, but it’s much harder.

The other thing that I’ve noticed about the follow-up, the follow-up survey, is it’s actually a great opportunity for the upsell. Right?

David: Right.

Jay: You know, if they’re like, you know, you’ve got five stars, Hey, how did we do? They’re like, Five stars. And then you’re like, Hey, just wanted to let you know, we’ve got this special on this and it’s similar to what you just bought. To me, it’s a great way to keep that sales process going, if they were happy.

David: It is, and it’s just good relationship building. It’s the type of thing, once again, we should be doing this anyway. We should be interacting with the people who spend money with us. Finding out what they need and how we can help them.

And the one other thing that I would say, particularly now, with the ability to have various groups. You can have Facebook groups and things like that. The idea of creating a community is, I think, very overlooked by a lot of business people.

And if you’re interested in keeping your clients engaged and interacting, then by creating a community where you can interact with them on an ongoing basis, and they can, in some cases, interact with each other, it creates more of a bond than they would likely have with somebody if they’re just doing more of a transactional type of thing.

Jay: Yeah, I love that you brought this up because you know, there was a time when you’d be the mom and pop store and they’d have to come in the front door and you knew everybody by name. You probably knew about their kids. You’re always asking ’em questions.

All of that aspect of relationship building in business is really gone with online sales. So the question is how do you revive it?...

There are reasons people buy from you, and reasons they don't buy from you. Today I'd share a presentation I put together for my clients in the print and promotional products industry that reveals many reasons why clients don't buy from you, and the one solution that addresses them all.

Hi and welcome to today's presentation Why Promo Clients Don't Buy from You and the One Solution that Addresses Them All.

I am so happy to have you with me today. This is a topic I find extremely interesting and extremely powerful. It's information that I've shared with my Inner Circle clients and our Total Market Domination clients. But I wanted to give you just sort of an overview of some of the things that you might be addressing. And when you address them correctly, you can actually create amazing solutions inside your business.

So with that said, let's take a look at why promo clients don't buy from you, and then what we can do about it.

Well, first of all, why don't they buy from you? One of the first, primary reasons that people don't buy from you is that they have no idea that you're alive. If they don't know you're alive, they can't buy from you.

Next is that they don't know what you do.

Obviously, if people have no idea of what you do, they're not going to come to you for solutions. This also ties into the next one, which is that they don't know how you can help them. If they have absolutely no idea how you can help them, no one is going to seek you out.

Sometimes they may know you're alive, they may know what you do, they may know how you can help them, but they don't yet trust you.

Another reason is that they don't know if they should trust you. Even if they can, they might not know if they should.

Many of your prospects aren't going to know why you're different, and if they don't know why you're different from what they already have, or what they've already tried, then they have no incentive to try you.

Next, they don't know if they can afford you. Obviously, they're not going to know what you charge or any of the above until you first overcome the problems that we addressed earlier.

They won't take your calls. Obviously, if people aren't going to take your calls, then you're not going to be able to sell to them.

Same thing if they won't return your calls. If you're calling people again and again and again, and they don't return your calls, they're not going to be able to buy from you.

Next we have, "they already have someone." Have you ever heard that one?

The answer, of course, is yes, you've probably heard that quite a lot, unless you have not been in business very long.

They view you as a commodity. In the promotional products industry, this is relatively easy to do, because they look at it and they say, "Okay, if everybody has access to the same products and services, then why should I choose you?" Right?

And one of the problems is that many distributors don't have a good answer to this either. If you don't know why they shouldn't view you as a commodity, you can't convey it to them, and so they're never going to know either.

They're on social media and you're not. I've heard distributors tell me this. The reason they won't buy from me is that they're on social media and I'm not. I can't reach them. Okay, we'll talk about that, but the reverse is also true.

They're not on social media and you are. "Oh yeah, they're not on social media. I'm trying to reach them and I can't." This is true. It's objectively true. If either of those scenarios are the case, if you're on social media and they're not, or they're on social media and you're not, then yes, you're not going to be able to reach them there and get those customers to buy from you.

They don't know if your recommendations are any good. How can they possibly know that until you have an opportunity to really communicate with them?

They don't know if your recommendations are going to work for them. Even if your recommendations are good, "will it work for me?" How many clients have you heard say something like that? In other words, "yeah, that sounds good, but I'm not sure it's going to work for me." It's another reason some promo clients will not buy.

They don't know why they should choose you over every other option available to them. Wow, that's a big one. Now, if you think about it, how could you possibly address that one?

I'm going to explain it in a moment, but I'd like you to just take a moment and think about it.

Really, think about it related to all of these. How would you possibly address any of these things? If they don't know you're alive, if they don't know they can trust you, if they don't know they should trust you, if they already have someone?

What is likely to be the solution to this?

You may already know, you may already have an idea. But I want to get to what I believe is the actual correct complete solution in just a moment.

What if they're unclear on the kind of results you can get for them? If they don't know... if they think you might be able to help with this, or think you might be able to help with that, but they're not crystal clear on it. are they going to choose to buy from you?

Once again, the answer is very probably not.

You name it. Okay, why promo clients won't buy from you. You name it. There are a lot of different reasons. I named a bunch of them here. But of course there are likely to be more.

So what is the one solution you can use to address them all?

That's what we're going to talk about now: Bottom line, it's a communication thing.

If you're not communicating with your prospects and clients clearly and directly and with purpose, you're not going to be able to solve any of these problems. If you think about it, when you have the ability to communicate correctly and directly and reach the people you need to reach, all of these problems, all of a sudden become solvable.

You'll be able to let them know you're alive, know what you do, know how you can help them know that they can trust you, and how and why they should trust you.

You'll be able to explain how and why you're different, what your prices are, so they know whether or not they can afford you. They'll be more likely to take and return your calls when you know the right things to say to them as you're communicating with them or leaving them voicemail.

If they already have someone, you'll have a response for that. If they view you as a commodity, you'll have a response for that. If they're on social media and you're not, you can decide, do I need to target the people on social media, or should I go after the people who are not? Same if you flip it around.

If they're not on social media and you are, then should I just target the people who are on social media for now and target the others separately? There are solutions to each of these specific issues, and every single one of those solutions is a communication issue.

If they don't know your recommendations will be any good. If they don't know your recommendations will work. All of these are things that can be solved through your communication.

So how do we do that? And what is the one solution that addresses them all?

Well, the one solution that addresses them all is not just communication. It's a specific type of communication that I refer to as the MVPs of Marketing and Sales.

Now, you've probably heard me mention the MVPs of Marketing and Sales in the past, and if you have, that's great. I'll be revealing a lot of things that you have probably not heard before in previous communications about it, and you should still get a lot out of this presentation.

If you have not heard about the MVPs of Marketing and Sales before, I'll give you a good grounding in terms of what they are, and provide you with access to additional resources where you can go to learn more.

So let's talk about the MVPs.

In sports, MVP stands for what? Most valuable player, right? Well, the MVPs of Marketing and Sales are effectively the most valuable players of sales and marketing. But MVP here doesn't stand for most valuable player. Instead, it stands for Message, Vehicles, and People.

Let me explain.

Let's start with the messaging. What is the marketing message I need to communicate to my ideal target client? We need to get that right first.

Second, what is the combination of marketing Vehicles I'm going to use to communicate that message?

And then third, who are the People or prospects I need to reach with my marketing message?

When you get all three of these things right, you have a successful promotion, a successful connection with a prospect, and very likely a successful sales transaction.

However, if you get just one of these things wrong, It doesn't work. And here's why...

The MVPs of Marketing and Sales are like the three legs on a stool. You get all three of them in place, and it's nice and solid. But if just one of them is missing, the entire promotion is a bust.

This goes for any type of promotion that you're doing to reach out to a prospect or client and get them to become a customer. It also applies to them. It applies to every effort they engage in to be able to get customers for themselves.

So as you're selling your products, you're also going to be able to help them better sell their own.

Let's take a look at what happens when you've got the right marketing Message and the right marketing Vehicles in place. When that happens, you're able to create a connection, right? You've got a good connection between the Message and the marketing Vehicles you're using.

That connection is going to be important when you're reaching the right People. However, if you're reaching the wrong people, then what happens? You're going to create confusion.

For example, if you've got a great message that's about plumbers, and you've got a right combination of marketing Vehicles to reach peopl

Disrupting sales relationships is tricky. When you go into a sales presentation, if you recognize that it's likely they're going to have someone, and if you've got an arsenal of responses that you can come back with to demonstrate to them why you are obviously the better choice, then they're going to be a lot more likely to at least give you a shot at that business, than if you don't have those things in place.

David: Hi, and welcome back in today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of disrupting sales relationships. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, David. It's a pleasure as always. I don't want to do it.  Don't want to disrupt sales processes. I refuse. Don't want to do it.

David: Okay. I refuse to participate. Yeah, it's a tough one. The word disrupt is a tough word. But the reality of the situation is that when we're approaching a new prospect, a new client, and that person already has a business relationship, perhaps with a competitor of ours -- the only way that we're even going to get a shot at that business is if we can, in some way, disrupt the existing sales relationship.

Now, I'm not talking about trying to drive a wedge between people. I'm not talking about anything nefarious. I'm just talking about the idea that to disrupt an established sales relationship, particularly one that is going reasonably well, requires you to be significantly better and different than the option that they're already looking at.

Jay: Yeah, I agree. and I think that this starts way ahead of trying to disrupt any particular process that's going on right now. We've talked about, in the past, do you know your competitors at all? Do you know their sales process? I mean, how would you disrupt anything if you didn't know the process of what was going on?

David: Yeah, exactly. And if you think in terms of business relationships versus personal relationships, when you're in high school and you first start dating, and the person that you like is already attracted to somebody else, like, oh, okay, well, how am I going to position myself as a better alternative, a better option, right?

So it requires strategy. It requires persistence. It requires some sort of advantage, right? Some sort of, what we would call in business, a competitive advantage.

And we need to think through those things, because it's the same in a business relationship. If they've got a great business relationship, it's going to be a lot harder.

In those situations, we have to determine whether or not it even makes sense for us to try to provide a better solution.

But here's the thing, if we truly believe that our solution is better than whatever they're currently receiving Then we kind of owe it to them to let them know that, don't we?

Jay: Oh, yeah, I absolutely agree with that and we talked I think in the last podcast that we're a company that loves it when you talk to our competitors. We love it when you're in a sales process with somebody else, cause we know how unique we are in our presentation, in our initial consultations. We know.

And so the key for us to disrupting an existing sales process with somebody else is just, how do we get them to call us?

How do we introduce ourselves to them mid process? Because we know if they can find us or we can find them, our chances are pretty good.

David: Exactly. And so in your situation where you're using online resources like pay per click and things like that, it's a matter of getting some sort of messaging in front of them that has them questioning at that point, whether or not there is a better alternative out there for them.

And so the only people who are going to schedule a call with you are the ones who have determined that they are at least open to exploring that sort of relationship.

I think it's interesting that a lot of times in business loyalty is often based on inertia, right? It's just easier to stick with what I have rather than to try to find an alternative.

And in those situations, when you are able to get in front of someone who's just doing business with a competitor of yours out of habit, it does become a lot easier to be able to create messaging that will intrigue them to the point where they're willing to have a conversation.

Jay: Yeah, I love that line. Loyalty a lot of times is about inertia. I think about, in my own case, maybe a company that I'm using wasn't perfect last time, and I probably would like to see if somebody else is out there.

But I know them. I know their number. I have a relationship with them. So suddenly I'm going to be a little bit less demanding, I guess.

And that means I'm compromising on what I want. And that's not something that I should be doing.

David: Yeah, I completely relate to that. We've had situations with some of the CRMs that we've used over the years where they're doing things that are just so incredibly frustrating. And the support is so terribly bad.

But the pain of having to move everything and switch everything over and all those dead links and all the things that go with it's like, okay, well, I guess I'll stick where I am.

So in this situation where you're trying to attract a new prospect or client to you, you have to make sure that the rewards outweigh all the downside that comes with having to switch a relationship from the current one to the new one.

Jay: Yeah, exactly. And so, once again, you've got to identify what are the differences, then you have to identify how are you going to get in front of them to even talk about your differences? And then there's the approach.

Because if your approach is to just bash the other guy. I'm sure you remember the Burger King and McDonald's wars and Burger King, all their spots were just bashing McDonald's.

And I'm like, I'm not going to stop going to McDonald's cause you think that they're bad. Of course you think they're bad. You're their competitor.

It always blows my mind in politics or anything like this. Why would I trust your competitor to give me a valid review about you? That the worst possible person to get a review from.

David: Exactly. And I think in some of those situations, what they did, rather than saying "we good, they bad," was that they would look at a specific difference.

Like in the example you mentioned with McDonald's and Burger King back in the day when the burger wars were going on. I believe Burger King's positioning was all about flame broiling or was it flame broiling vs. frying?

Jay: Flame broiling. Yep. Mm hmm.

David: And so that's the message that people can actually evaluate objectively.

Do I want it flame broiled or do I want it fried? Okay. Yeah. Flame broiled. That may sound better, right? So that was an approach that appealed to logic and fact, and it gave people an opportunity to make that decision.

So in that regard, it wasn't just like, "Oh, our competitor is terrible. It's really bad." Although there were some commercials that came close to that. But I think. That's a reasonable example of where they were able to define a clear difference that perhaps could change some minds.

Jay: Yeah, I remember Burger King was "have it your way." And that was a whole spin on the fact that McDonald's, you could not, custom order anything, right?

And so they were literally saying, we can treat you better, right? Identifying differences.

David: Yeah, that was a good one, too. Really back in the day when McDonald's wouldn't customize anything. I don't know if they will today. I'm assuming they probably would.

Jay: They do. Yes,

David: But at that particular point in time, you couldn't say, "Hey, can I get it without ketchup or whatever?" No, you just couldn't.

And so when they came out with that campaign, it's like, okay, that has definite appeal to people. Because again, it just makes sense. It resonates with them. "Have it your way" is just a great statement when you're talking to a prospect.

"Hey, listen, have it your way. Let's do it the way you want to do it, not the way that we've prepackaged it."

It's a great example. And so all of this really goes back to messaging, right? What is it that we're saying about what we do, which is the subject of a previous podcast.

And when it comes to trying to disrupt or displace a current vendor or a current supplier, what is it that we're going to have to say to make that happen?

Now, in a lot of cases, when you're approaching someone new and they've already got somebody, they're going to tell you, yeah, we already have someone we're dealing with. Or we're already happy with the person we're dealing with.

And sometimes that's true, and sometimes it's not. But if you don't have sort of a series of go-to responses about what to say to overcome that, you're pretty much dead in the water.

Jay: Yeah, and it's really difficult cards to play because if your whole thing is I'm just gonna bash the person that you're working with? I've always felt like you're bashing me, right?

It's like in politics. If I question somebody on your side of the aisle, it's like, I'm personally questioning you. And so I'm never going to change your mind by attacking you.

There has to be a different play there. That play could be talking about your services. So you're strategically bashing the other person, but not by saying a name, you're identifying a need that you can fulfill that is not being fulfilled right now.

But if you think you're just going to attack the person they're working with, I've always felt like that was an attack of the person who you're trying to get their business from.

David: Yeah, I think that's a really bad strategy. I think bashing your competition is just a really bad strategy. It works much better if you can think in terms of how can you outshine your competition?

How can you outperform your competition? And how can you convey that in a way that doesn't bash them?...

Getting to your ideal prospects involves identifying what our ideal prospect looks like in terms of the type of customer we’re looking for, the type of industry they’re in, the number of people in their organization if we're selling B2B. All these considerations that are going to add up to the ideal prospect, because until we know who it is we're going to go after, we have absolutely no idea where to go to find them.

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of getting to your ideal prospects. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey, thank you so much. Another great topic. We could call this one the Holy Grail of Sales.

How much time does everybody spend talking to people who would never be their client in the first place? What would you do with all that extra time?

David: It is an amazing amount of time. When we work with clients, that is one of the biggest ways that they get back time that is otherwise spent. Very often, when people are considering the idea of working with us to help them grow their sales and profits, it's like, “well, am I going to have time to do this?”

And nine times out of 10, they don't have time not to do it. Because they're wasting, in many cases, so much time with poor, unqualified prospects. And simply by taking a few specific actions, you can pretty much eliminate a lot of that right up front, save yourself enormous amounts of time, and better still, being able to then interact with the types of clients you actually want to do business with

Jay: But I'm a new company.

I need money to pay my bills. I need to try and close everybody. Isn't that what you would hear?

David: In the early stages, everybody says that, and after they've been in business for a while, they try to figure out, now how do I undo what I've done? How do I untie this knot that I've tied for myself over the past however, many months or years?

But yeah, in the early stages, we just want to take anyone who's willing to do business with us. But eventually, when our true selves kick in -- when we find ourselves in a conversation with the wrong client, somebody that we took on a while before, and we recognize, wow, this was a mistake -- that's when you start thinking, Okay, well, maybe what I need to do going forward is to not just take anyone.

I need to identify who are these ideal prospects. How can I identify and initiate contact with the right people up front so that I'm not wasting a lot of time with the wrong people down the line.

Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I have a business partner and he's this sage old business partner. He's built several businesses on his own over the years and I didn't know he was even doing it, but he has this list of people who he doesn't want to do business with anymore. He calls it the naughty list.

And, somebody came around and they were repurchasing our services. He just, with no emotion said, “nah, I don't want to do that.”

And I'm like, what are you talking…? I didn't even remember the customer. And he's like, “no, they're on the naughty list. They were a pain. They didn't provide what we needed soon enough and they harassed us on our pricing. The answer is no.”

And so he's got this Santa Claus naughty list, and I was like, “but they want to give us money.” And I've just come around to his way of thinking. I am not emotional about it anymore. They're on the list. Forget it.

David: It's a lump of coal for you, baby. That's how it works. Yeah. I mean, it is a strong argument for the fact that you don't need more prospects, you need the right prospects.

You don't need more customers necessarily, you need more of the right customers. Because life is too short to do anything else in my view.

Jay: Yeah. Let's say that you spend 10 hours a day working with customers are doing sales for potential customers, and five of those hours are spent on people who are not the right fit.

What if you could take those five hours and apply it to finding customers who are a good fit. Or even just providing a better product to the other five customers. Both of those are a win. The first option is, is a complete loss.

David: Yeah, and when you do that, when you actually save those five hours and channel that time toward better, higher quality prospects and clients, not only does it improve your bottom line, it also improves your quality of life, right?

I mean, in this podcast, we talk a lot about marketing and sales, but all of this also pertains directly to your quality of life. Your quality of life gets better when you're interacting with ideal clients versus just any client.

Jay: Oh, such a great point. There are few things worse than running around like a chicken with your head cut off for customers that you don't like to work with.

That is a nightmare. And when you think about why you wanted to get involved, why did you become an entrepreneur?

Why did you get involved in this process? Did you envision yourself being worked every day by people that you didn't want to work with.

I don't think that's what you envisioned. So how do you get back to that ideal?

David: Yeah, because a lot of the words that I hear from entrepreneurs in the way they want to build their business involves the word freedom, right? It's about the freedom to be able to do what you want to do in your business, to be able to make your own rules, set your own pricing, decide what types of clients you want to interact with.

And many entrepreneurs end up harming their own freedom by accepting people that they shouldn't accept. So, to answer your question, you know, how do you get around that? I think it starts with identifying what truly defines a high quality prospect for you? What defines an ideal client for you?

Because until you make the call about the type of business that you want to interact with, the type of people that you want to sell to, in terms of their ability and willingness to communicate. I mean, that's a big one. Prospects who ghost you? Do you really want to deal with people like that?

Particularly when it comes time to getting paid, right? So we have to make these calls. At least in my view, we're better off making these calls up front. Setting the criteria of what's acceptable for us and what's ideal for us and trying to stick to that as much as possible.

Now are we going to get it right 100 percent of the time?

No, we're not. But if we at least go into the sales experience, the prospecting experience with the idea of attracting and converting ideal clients, we're going to be a lot more likely to be able to pull it off.

Jay: Yeah, it's so important and you also kind of alluded to something there and that is training the customer.

Before they even sign up, letting them know what the expectations are. We do a lot of this now. We're like, okay, here's what will happen. And in order to make this work, here's what our expectation is going to be.

Then once they sign up, we do it again. We say, okay, here are the next three steps. After three weeks, we do it again.

And this protects us, right? But it's also a constant reminder to them that we have expectations. And this just comes to my mind talking about my seasoned partner. Let's, let's call him that way.

He fired off an email to somebody who we were so upset at. This person was unbelievable. And my partner fired off an email and he said, look, I don't want to do business with you anymore unless you agree to these five conditions.

You will not do this, you will do this. You won't do this. And I'm like, I've never seen anything like that before. The customer apologized, and they've been an ideal customer ever since.

And I'm like, there were one of two choices. We kiss them goodbye, or we give them the opportunity to play on our terms.

That's just genius. Just genius. I just loved it.

David: It is. It's amazing. And fortunately, that particular client had it within them to be able to adapt, to recognize, oh okay, I probably shouldn't have done that.

And to be able to admit it and to be able to change the behavior. Not everyone's going to be like that.

So we have to be open enough with our clients in our communication to be able to find out where they fall along that continuum between being totally obnoxious or being educable.

You know, you talked about training them, being able to be trained. And if they are able to be trained to be able to interact with you in a way that works for you and your coworkers…

One of the things that I had in our business was when we had people who were inappropriate or unprofessional with my coworkers. That was basically the kiss of death, because we're not going to put up with that.

The people in our organization have been with us for a really long time. We know how they are. We know how they act.

Now, if you've got a brand new person talking to them and they're a wild card, you can't be as sure. But when you're very confident about the people that you work with and there's an issue, you can generally take the side of the person you work with over the side of the prospect in most cases, if you know the person you're working with better.

Jay: Yeah, exactly. We had exactly the same thing. Somebody made one of our cherished employees cry, and I was about to climb through the phone. That's a deal breaker. I don't care how much money you pay us. I don't care. Your staff has to believe that you have their back and that there is some loyalty there.

And so, I don't think you ever want to choose good money over an employee, right? But I just really encourage people to think about why you got involved in the first place. And what type of customer and experience is going to give you that?

Is it quality of life that you wanted? Is it money? I'm sure financial freedom was part of that. But so often what we talk about, and I know that you do,...

In order to turn the tables on rejection in sales, there are very specific steps you can take, and we work with our clients to help them do that every day of the week.

David: Hi and welcome back in today's episode co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of turning the tables on rejection in sales. Welcome back, Jay.

Jay: Hey Dave, it's always good to talk with you and I love these topics. They're so important I think more than anything, at least for me, rejection, fear of rejection stops me from doing a lot of things that I know I should be doing.

David: Yeah. And you are really not alone. I think we've all felt that way at one point or other. I know there was a period of time, a lot of years ago, where I was so frustrated by this that I'm like, okay, what can we do? To not just try to overcome it, not just try to overcome the fear, but to actually turn the tables on rejection in sales.

And essentially what I came up with is that in order to make that happen, we have to take the initiative in terms of identifying the types of clients that we want, the types of clients that we will accept. And by leading with that strength, going into each prospecting opportunity with the idea that I may accept this client, I may not.

They may accept me, they may not. If the two of us agree that we want to work together, we will. And if one of us doesn't want to work together, we won't. And being okay with that, Once I embraced that idea and that concept, everything became a lot easier.

Jay: Yeah. So just a paradigm shift. I will tell you, and this is no joke, before we dive into your concept a little bit more, I went to a doctor and I said, just give me a drug that makes me not fear rejection. He didn't have it, but hey, I was willing to try anything.

David: Yeah, it's funny because you would think there'd be something for that. I guess maybe something that might relax you or make you not care as much about the rejection, but, short of medication, I think the idea of sort of reframing it in some ways and saying, all right, I'm going to do what I can on my end in terms of identifying the clients that I want to work with.

And just by doing that, you can actually eliminate a lot of rejection when you decide in advance that there are some people you're going to talk to that are probably just not a good fit for you.

Jay: Yeah, I love this and I feel like I've been doing this, but not purposefully like you're talking about. I get to the point now where when I talk to somebody and they're not interested, I almost feel glad.

Because through the conversation, I learn they're not really a good fit for me. So we both kind of decide that on our own. We wish each other well. I add them to our drip campaign and it's done. I can hang up the phone call and do other work or move on to the next call.

David: Yeah. It's so much better when you're able to take an approach like that and feel good about the fact that we really weren't born to do business with anyone who can fog a mirror, right?

It's not an ideal scenario for either of us. I also realized at some point or other that rejection in some ways can actually be a tool to help you find better clients, whether you're the one who's rejecting them, basically saying, okay, this isn't a good fit.

Or even in a situation where if you decide you would potentially like to work with them, if they decide they don't want to work with you, if you view it as essentially a way for you to be able to find better clients, that also makes it quite a bit easier to take.

Jay: Yeah, I think I told you in the past, my dad was a salesman his whole life and I asked him how did you deal with rejection and he said I look at no's as a positive.

I know what my close rate is. I know how many cold calls I have to make. And so every time I got a no, that means I was one step closer to the yes. So, changing your outlook, your mindset, it actually made him feel good.

Okay, one more closer. I got that no. And so I'm on my way.

David: Yeah. And going along with that exact mindset, when you recognize that every wrong client that you take on is going to cost you time, money and energy that could be spent with better quality clients, that also makes it a lot easier to deal with.

Jay: Yeah. And I, when somebody says they don't want to work with me, I'm like, whoo. You know, it's like,

David: Slipped the noose!

Jay: That's right. Because they've listened to my services. They've listened to my spiel. They know what I'm going to cost. And if after that, they're like, you know, or even when they start asking for discounts and things like that, we've just learned.

No, we're proud of our product. We know what it's worth. We know what it costs. And if you're not in that strike zone, then whew, I'm glad that we decided before we went any further.

David: Yeah, the idea of just clients in general, particularly when you're starting out in business, it's like, okay, I need clients.

I want to bring a new client through the door. It's all about client, client, client, or customer, customer, customer, whatever you refer to the people as. But one of the terms that I tend to use a lot in my material and just what I'm talking to prospects and clients in general is the idea of the ideal client.

What is the ideal client? Who exactly are the types of customers and clients that you want to work with? And when you come up with your own sort of filter of the types of prospects and clients you want, it really allows you to be far more selective in terms of who you bring through the door, but it also allows you to feel a lot less concerned when you talk to somebody who's not a good fit. Because you don't feel like, Oh, I have to sell this person anyway.

Jay: Yeah. And , you had mentioned something to me in a previous podcast that really hit home. And it kind of changed the way that I look at things.

You talked about the salesperson interviewing the potential client to see if they're a good fit as much as the other way around. And I find myself now saying, is this somebody that I even want to close or do I want to start getting out of this conversation early.

Sometimes now in the first 2 or 3 minutes, I can say, this one's not going to work out. It's not going to go the way that I want it to And so let's get it over with.

So I love that idea that i'm interviewing them As much as they're interviewing me.

David: Exactly. Because you can't decide for them whether or not they want to work with you. And they can't decide whether you want to work with them, right? We can only make those decisions for ourselves. When we realize that, I think everything gets a whole lot easier.

Jay: Oh, I agree with you and I love easy when you do sales. Right? And then the other thing that I know we've talked about a little bit is if you can change your sales pitch into more of a feeling like you're not pushing your services on them, but they really need your services.

I mean, I'll give you an example. I never have to tell somebody, Okay, let me show you what our costs are. Never have to do that. They always ask me, What are your fees?

And to me, that's such a great place to be. I'm not a salesperson. I'm just somebody showing them what our expenses are. And then when we get to the screen that has our expenses, I say.

Would you like me to walk you through each of these? Right? I'm never, "okay, let me show you each of these and this is the most important for you" and, and whatever. And then they'll say things like, " well, I really think maybe the third package is something that would work for us." And I'd say, "you know what, based on our conversation, that's probably right. And let me tell you some of the other benefits."

So there's no real sales going on at all. I'm just answering questions. To me, that is the most beautiful way to be doing sales. And there's really no chance of feeling like I got rejected. Because they're the ones asking the questions, right?

David: Exactly. And there's also a layer of exclusivity that comes with that. When you are in a position where you can say to somebody, "Hey, I don't think this is a good fit," where you can make that determination as you're having the conversation.

"Listen, based on what you told me, from my side, it sounds to me like you're a perfect fit for this. It seems to me like this is something worth pursuing. What's your take?"

And then they'll say either. Yeah, I agree. It sounds like this is something that's good. Because then at that point, it's okay to have conversations about, what's it going to cost and how does it all work and everything like that?

Because until you can get to the point where you're in basic agreement about whether you even want to work together at all, the price doesn't even matter at that point.

In some sense, the deliverables don't even matter at that point. You want to get a good feel up front for whether or not this is the type of person you can interact with.

And if it is. Then you go forward with it. And if it's not, there's not a lot of point wasting a lot of time, as you just indicated.

Jay: Yeah. And, it depends on the type of business, but in my case, I'm looking for partners. I'm looking for a long term relationships, year after year after year. I'm not looking for the turn them and burn them, one time hit.

It really surprises me though, how often now I say. You know what? I really don't think that we're right for you, for whatever reason. And early on, I would have been clawing and scratching to get their money And it would turn into heartaches for both sides.

And I just say it comfortably. I'm like sometimes i'll say I know I shouldn't be talking you out of our services, but I really think that because of abc and d This is not going to be a match and they really appreciate that. And if anything does change down the line,...

"You have to create value in the sales process, create value in all the communication that you're putting out there. When you do that, you're already positioned better and differently. So when you think about the idea of what you say about what you do, you're doing it in a way that is actually appealing to people rather than repellent."

David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic "what you say about what you do." What it is, Jay?

Jay: Hey, David, how's it going? Once again, it's a pleasure to be here. I think, how we view ourselves, how we talk to ourselves, what is that inner monologue?

Those types of things, they matter a lot, and they're probably things that we never think about.

David: Yeah. And it's interesting you should bring that up. Because when we talk about what we say about what we do, yeah, there's what you just mentioned, what we're telling ourselves in our own heads. And then there's also the idea of what we're saying to prospects and clients about what we will potentially do for them.

Essentially the communication, the messaging that we are putting out into the world, that will allow someone to decide whether or not they want to do business with us.

Jay: Yeah. And this is so important because if you over promise, you're setting up for failure from the beginning, right? If you under promise, then they may find a competitor who promises something faster or better. So there is a strike zone there somewhere that you have to find.

David: Exactly. And our messaging is very likely either going to attract the person we're talking to, or it's going to repel them. Probably the worst case scenario is if it does neither. It's just totally boring and they're not even paying attention to what you have to say.

But when we recognize that, particularly in the early stages, what we tell them about what we do or what we're planning to do for them is going to determine the nature of the relationship.

If we communicate something that sounds appealing to them, It's like they'll be interested. If we communicate something that does not sound appealing to them, then it's likely they are not going to be interested.

So we don't want to go into these situations and wing it, particularly when we're going from prospect to prospect.

We want to make sure that we're creating a consistent experience so that each person we talk to is getting the best of what we have to offer, up front, so they can make an intelligent decision.

Jay: Yeah, we've really started using, I learned it from being in the media, process language. Like, if you are out doing a news report somewhere, you didn't just say, well, I'm standing on the street corner and this is what I'm seeing. You instead say, "well, we got here about 20 minutes ago when we rolled up, this is what we saw. This is what we're seeing, right? You bring them with you to wherever you're at. And so we kind of do this process language, not just about how we got here.

And process questions. Like I want to know what drove you to call me. So that's the first thing I want to know, "what drove you to call me?" The second thing I want to know is, what is your expectation from this call? Like what are you hoping to gain from it? And then we can get to where we're at.

And then we'll start talking a little bit. If you use our services, this will be the process moving forward. By the time we've shaped this whole thing, it's like we've been friends for years, you know what I mean? So, it's something that I love doing and it makes the potential client very comfortable.

David: It makes a whole lot of sense and it's really about being present in that moment with the prospect or client, and having them be there with you at that point as well. Where one person is not talking, another person is totally tuned out.

It really is about creating that level of communication where you are interacting the way that you need to in any relationship.

And when you think about it, every sales relationship, just like any personal relationship, they involve, they require, that sort of level of communication. And I think they also require a great deal of clarity.

Jay: Yeah. And again, we have to be honest, my services that we offer, tax services for a very specific clientele, it's much easier for me to say, okay, why did you call and what has your experience been?

It's been easy to define that. I don't want to give people the impression that that's always simple. A lot of times you cold called them. And so you can't say, well, why did you call me? Do you know what I mean? You can't...

David: Right yeah.

Jay: You can't...

David: They can say that to you...

Jay: That's right. So it really does depend upon the type of business you have to create this story on your own.

But I think if you call it a story and you're making them, what the main character of the story? i've heard that before. And you're progressing them through that story, even on the first call, I think that's going to make a difference

David: Yeah, I completely agree. When you're in that situation where you're having these conversations, particularly if you're reaching out to them, if you're cold calling somebody you don't even want them to get to the point where they're asking you, why are you calling me, right?

That means the thing you say up front needs to be compelling enough to grab their attention and get them interested enough in the conversation that they don't even think to ask that.

Jay: Yeah, exactly. So, if I could get them asking questions or if I'm, you've heard this before, and I think it's become cliche. Get them talking, right?

But it's not just getting them talking. it's what are they talking about? If you can get them talking about the thing that you're offering. Or their negative experience with the thing that you're offering, or if it's promotional material, what is impeding their sales or things like that, then you're obviously way ahead of the game at that point.

David: Yeah. And it's the classic, you know, what's in it for them. If I'm talking about them, their needs, what they're looking to accomplish, they're going to be a lot more interested in that than if I'm talking about what I do and how I do it and why they should give me money. Right?

When you are taking one approach, you're talking about what you do. That's essentially more of a sales approach. When you take the other approach of how what you do solves their problem, then it's about them, and they're going to be a lot more receptive to it.

Jay: Yeah, and a lot of times, depending upon your industry, they may not know they have the problem, right?

That's something that we do a lot on our consultations, is help people understand they're setting themselves up for a world of hurt. Now, tax wise, you can really be in a world of hurt, right?

And so just helping them understand where they're at before we ever talk about being a salesperson or offering services. By the time they get to that point, they're saying, "okay, I understand now that I've I've got a potential problem, can you solve it for me? And how much would that cost?" Right?

So again, I'm not a salesperson at that time. I'm a savior at that point. So, you know, if you can lead people in that direction, you can win.

David: Yeah. It's such a great point, particularly when you think in terms of the whole idea of coming across as the authority, right?

You used the word savior, but even just an authority, if they recognize that you know what you're talking about in this particular realm, better than they do, more than they do, and you're able to help them, they're going to be a lot more responsive to that.

And one of the challenges for a lot of people is how do you sound like an authority, without coming across as arrogant or conceited or positioning yourself as if you're better than they are.

That's not what you're looking to do. You need to be able to convey the fact that you're the expert through your knowledge, through your expertise, through your language. But you have to do that in a way that still allows you to be accessible.

And so all of that, when we talk about the idea of what it is that we're saying to people about what we do, there's a lot of balance that has to come into play there.

Jay: Yeah, I love that you brought a couple of things up here because we have some experience with our competitors. We kind of track them. I'm sure they track us and we get a lot of calls from people who are doing their research. And they've called them and now they call us and I'm never afraid when they say, "well, I talked to some of your competitors."

I'm like, oh, this is going to be perfect. This is going to be great. Because I know how our competitors act. They do something completely different than us. Or they want the customer or the potential client to feel dumb. Maybe they want them to feel like there's no way they could understand any of this stuff.

And so you need an expert, and then they start scaring them. They are using scare tactics about how they might get in trouble. And people get off the phone and they're panicked, right? And that's their sales model. That's what they want. They want to scare you into believing that you're the only one.

And then they hit us. And by the time they're off the phone, they have a pretty good understanding of how things work. We don't tell them how to solve their problems, but we let them know what those problems are and what they could mean.

And oftentimes you can hear them exhale. You just hear it.

They go, oh. Thank you so much. I hear all the time. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to my situation. So I'm like thankful to our competitors. Bring it on. Call them. Because I know you'll call me back.

David: It's such a great example of what we were just talking about....

Reimagining the essentials is different for everyone. And I hear both sides of that from people. I hear people who are like, ” oh yeah, you know, I’ve been doing this forever. I know exactly what I’m doing and all that sort of thing.”

And then I have people on the other side who are like, “Hey, I’m doing all the things that I’ve done before. I’m doing it more aggressively. I’m doing much more of it. I’m doing it with more people and it’s not working.”

And so for the people who are struggling with that… again, it’s not really a matter of saying, “well, now instead of prospecting, we need to do something different.”

No, you’re still going to need to do prospecting. The question is, “can we now do it in a way that is going to reach the people that you need to reach, communicate the things that we need to communicate and allow us to advance our communications and close the sales?”

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing reimagining the essentials. Welcome, Jay. Good to have you here.

Jay: It's so good to be here once again. I'm very excited about today's topic.

What's the Point of Reimagining the Essentials?

David: Yeah. I mean the whole idea of the essentials to some people it's like, "oh, essentials, that's boring."

Right? But it seems to me that in current times we really need to look at the essentials and say, "okay, how can we tweak them or fine tune them or change them around so that they're going to be more effective in a 21st century post-COVID economy?"

Jay: Yeah. When I think about essentials, I think about foundational type things. And once you take away the foundation, other things that you have in play don't work as well.

So what type of essentials specifically are we talking about that we want to, that we might look at in one when everybody looks at it that way, but we're going to reimagine or rethink about them in a different way?

David: Well, I guess when I think of the fundamentals or the essentials, I tend to think of the real basics, prospecting, presenting, following up when it comes to sales. And sometimes you start talking about those things and people's eyes glaze over like, "oh, I know all that stuff." And yeah, we all know we need to do it.

Knowing and Doing are Two Different Things

We all know we need to do prospecting. We need to make presentations. We need to follow up with prospects and clients. But knowing it, knowing what to do, is really not the issue at all. It's how are we doing it? How well are we doing it? How much better are we doing it than our competitors? How frequently are we doing it?

How consistently are we doing it? There are all these different nuanced aspects of it that completely change the results. And when we look at things like prospecting now versus five years ago, 10 years ago, it's completely different. Same thing with presenting, same thing with following up. In the past, it was basically phone and in person.

Well now phone and in person are a lot less popular than other methods of communication. So that's really what I'm talking about here.

Jay: Yeah, I think again, it's so important, you know, it's so easy to just fall into that trap of I've, you know, we've done it this way forever and it's always worked. I think it's hard for people to break free from those things, because it's hard to know what type of impact you really can have.

And I think part of that is even understanding what your baseline is before you can make changes to understand if you're making any progress, right?

What Happens When Everything Changes?

David: Yeah, absolutely. And I hear both sides of that from people. I hear people who are like, " oh yeah, you know, I've been doing this forever. I know exactly what I'm doing and all that sort of thing."

And then I have people on the other side who are like, "Hey, I'm doing all the things that I've done before. I'm doing it more aggressively. I'm doing much more of it. I'm doing it with more people and it's not working."

And so for the people who are struggling with that... again, it's not really a matter of saying, "well, now instead of prospecting, we need to do something different."

No, you're still going to need to do prospecting. The question is, "can we now do it in a way that is going to reach the people that you need to reach, communicate the things that we need to communicate and allow us to advance our communications and close the sales?"

Reimagining the Essentials Post-COVID

Jay: Yeah, I have to think that COVID has had a huge impact on reimagining the essentials. Before, in-person experiences were the norm. That was the expectation in so many ways. Now people are standoffish about that. We've become much more interested in doing something online or over the phone.

That's not nearly as personal. It's hard to connect and build those relationships.

David: Yeah, that's absolutely the case. And so I think for a lot of people, the idea of becoming comfortable with other methods of communication, just like what we're doing now... some people are like, "Hey, Zoom is great. I don't have to go anywhere. I don't have to get in my car and I can be face-to-face with someone. It's awesome."

Other people are like, "oh, I can't stand that. I don't like looking at myself on camera. I don't like hearing what my voice sounds like when I'm on a speaker." And you either need to get over some of that, or you need to figure out ways to engage only with prospects who are still willing to do business, just the way that you want to do it.

That really limits your audience.

Jay: I think that's interesting to sometimes say that there is a customer base out there that I could probably have access to, but it doesn't really match my skillset or my comfort level. My close rate is going to be lower with them. Do I even want to spend that time?

I think in my mind, I'm like, "I want to reach everybody. I want to talk to everybody I can because that's going to improve my odds." Maybe it's just the opposite.

You're Never Too Old for Reimagining the Essentials

David: It could be. And for some people it is. I think when I was much younger, and there are certainly younger salespeople and younger people in the business who are really good at doing a lot of this stuff online. It really is about the person.

Because there are people my age who are like, "yeah, let's do it." Like myself. I'm all in favor of new technology, trying to figure out how to use it to best advance results for our clients and for ourselves. But then there are people far younger than myself who are like, "oh, well I'm too old to learn that stuff."

It's like, "well, I don't know if that's such a great position to take."

Jay: Yeah, old dog new tricks. I think especially in the sales world, you know, is something that I see that is very common. What would you say to those people that are like, "I don't need to reimagine anything. I have a certain close rate. I know what I'm doing. I'm comfortable in this process."

What If You're "Comfortable?"

David: People who are comfortable. I have no recommendations other than "keep up the great work." If you're comfortable with what you're doing, if you're able to do it, that's awesome.

What I have seen, however, particularly over the last six to 12 months is I've seen a lot of people who have been established in sales for a long time, who have basically said, "okay, that's it. COVID came, everything's changing. All the rules are changing. The way that I have to interact with people is changing. I'm not comfortable with that anymore."

And as a result, they just basically said, "okay, I'm not doing it."

There are other people who are like, "okay, I have to continue to plow ahead." Maybe I can't afford to retire or whatever. In those situations, there are people who are trying to do it, but they're not comfortable with it. And that can cause a lot of problems.

Reimagining the Essentials of Communication

A lot of the people that I work with in our Total Market Domination course are pivoting in terms of the communication. In fact, when we originally came out with the course, it was pre COVID. Then as soon as COVID arrived, all of the questions inside the portal changed.

All of our approaches in terms of the prospecting, the presenting, the following up, those things all changed.

And, It was actually exciting for us, as participants in the program, and for me, leading the program, to be able to say, "okay, look, this isn't working for you anymore? What can we get to work?" And not just, "what can we get to work," but "what will you be comfortable with?"

So it's not just a matter of saying, "okay, well now, instead of seeing people in person, Zoom with them." Right? Because that is a lot easier said than done. But what else can we do to initiate first contact? In a future podcast, I know we're going to be talking about alternatives to cold calling and things like that.

The Essentials Haven't Changed. Just the Methods.

But for now, if we think in terms of what the essentials are, it still involves establishing relationships, introducing ourselves to people, creating an impression. All of those things haven't changed. It's now just the method that has really changed.

Jay: Yeah. I'm just curious. Do you think it's harder now, because of COVID and because of how things have changed? Or does that just depend upon the individual and their particular skillset?

David: I think it depends a lot on the individual and their skillset. Because there are some people who are happy not to have to jump in a car and drive places. They're able to see a lot more people, a lot more quickly. People who are comfortable with the technology can leverage themselves like you've never been able to leverage yourself in the past.

Creating Leverage

You can literally shoot a three-minute video and get it out to, you know,...