Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

I think the best holiday gift is to make the most of ourselves, when it comes to personal development, whether that means sales and marketing training, whether it means personal training, whether it means meditation, whatever it is for you, prayer, whatever it is that allows you to get to a place where you can really focus, really be present, and be your best for yourself, and those around you, is really important. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host, Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the best holiday gift you can give yourself and your family. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David, for the opportunity to be here. And I love this question. It's a little off track from some of the things that we normally talk about. But I think as we talk about running your own business and the amount of time that it takes, taking a little bit of time out to think about your family and how you can make their holidays special, I think it's a critical topic. David: Yeah. And of course, because of the nature of the things that we talk about, what I'm really thinking about when it comes to the best holiday gift you can give yourself and your family, I tend to look at it as "a better you," right? If you can provide yourself and your family with a better you, a smarter you, a more motivated you, a more inspired you, that is going to really make a huge difference in your business life, in your personal life, and the life of the people that you care about. And of course, this time of year a lot of people are focused on actual gift giving, which of course is a traditional thing as well. But when we think about what really is going to help ourselves, our family, our loved ones most, it's going to be, you know, a healthier, happier, safer, more productive you, generally. Jay: Yeah. I love this line of thinking because you could give them all the presents in the world, but if you're stressed out all the time, if you're angry, because of what's going on at work and those types of things, you can't buy their love or their gratitude with gifts. Maybe they're a little bit happy in the morning, but by the end of the day they still remember what kind of circumstances you've left them in. David: Yeah, I remember when the kids were really young and we'd have gifts in the morning and by afternoon , it was like everybody was kind of cranky because you kind of get what you wanted out of the day and have too many sweets and all that sort of thing. But again, I think if we think really more in terms of what we're going to be doing and how we're going to be living and interacting with each other. A great example of this about a week or so ago on social media, Charity Gibson, who is involved in the promotional products industry in a lot of ways, and is just really inspiring for a lot of people. She posted something on Facebook about what happens when, at some point, you're doing everything for everyone else and you're not doing anything for yourself. You're not taking care of yourself. And I think it's such a great point, because a lot of times people can fall into this trap of thinking, well, I don't want to be selfish. But there is a big difference between selfishness and what I refer to as rational self-interest. In other words, rational self-interest is what keeps us from stepping off the curb and into traffic, right? The desire to look both ways before we cross the street. That's rational self-interest. Nobody would really look at that and say, oh, you're being selfish. But I think a lot of times people tend to, for themselves mostly, think, well, I should be doing more. I could be doing more. They want to help everybody else.

When you think about the idea of quiet quitting, and sticking with it, that just seems to me to be a soul-sucking activity. If you keep going back to the same job that you can't stand and you're producing at low levels because you don't like the way you're compensated, do something better for yourself! David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing Quiet Quitting. (Whispers) Hi Jay. Welcome. Jay: Yeah. Hey, David. It's great to talk to you. We live in a world where these new terms pop up and keeping up with the terms is so difficult. So I think, first of all, we should probably define it for people. If they haven't heard the term quiet quitting, what is it referring to? David: Okay. Well, I looked this up before we got on here because I wanted to have a definition that isn't just me talking off the top of my head. Basically what they said online, when you Google it, the first one that came up said, quiet quitting refers to a rising trend where employees are doing the bare minimum at work, a reversal of the tendency to go above and beyond in the workplace. So that's kind of a long-winded definition. Another one that I saw said employees who put no more effort into their jobs than absolutely necessary. And I thought that existed for a long time, right? That's not a new concept. I think the term is new and I hate the term. I really do. When I hear quiet quitting, it just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I'm very. uncomfortable with the term. I don't know how you feel about it. Jay: Well, you know, it's interesting. I put together a management course 20 years ago, and I had my own name for it. I called it minimum expectations mode. So not as fancy as quiet quitting. But I believe that as a result of poor management, poor training, those types of things, employees would slip into this minimum expectations mode where they're going to show up to work, they're going to do as little as possible, stay under the radar as much as they can, collect a paycheck and then go home. And do that as long as they, can until eventually, you know they're going to get fired if the company is tracking any of that. David: Yeah. And I think that whole idea of people just sort of doing the minimum, that's existed forever. I think it's the title of this term that sort of bothers me. Because it implies that you've actually quit quietly and you're really not doing what it is that you're paid to do. And the thing that I find most frustrating about this, is not the impact that it's going to have on the employer. It's the impact that it's going to have on the person who is engaging in this sort of behavior. Because if you think about it, if I go to work every day with the idea of doing the very bare minimum to do as little as possible, collect my check and go home. What does that do for me as a person? What does that do to my ability to grow and potentially thrive or whatever? Some people don't care about that. Some people don't want to grow or thrive. And if that's the situation, and if they're doing the bare minimum and if that's acceptable to their employer, then they can probably keep doing that for a really long time. But I think for people who actually want to excel, want to be really good at what they do, then this should make them a little uncomfortable as well. Jay: Yeah, it's such a good point. You're maintaining self-esteem while working at a job where you know you could be doing more and you should be doing more. Because they're paying you to do more and you are not. I think that wreaks havoc on the soul of most people. I think it's important though to talk about how you end up in this place. When I was much younger,

Are you invisible to your target market? Do they even know you're alive? This goes back to the idea of money versus time. Because one of the advantages of social media is that if you have more time than you have money, you can spend more time posting and contacting people directly on social media. If you have more money than you have time, then you can run ads and you can get your ads in front of people without having to sit in front of the computer all day. So there are definitely different ways to accomplish this. If you want to become visible though, you have to have one or the other. You have to have time or money. You can't be out of both. Well, I have no money and I have no time to do this. Well, at that point, you're out of business. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of, Are You Invisible to Your Target Market? Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. This one is tough for me because when you know you have a product that people want, you just know it. And you know if they could just learn about you, that you would be able to sell this product and you just know they don't see you. It's a frustration. It really is. David: Yeah, we've talked about this topic before. I've talked about this topic in live presentations and probably in previous podcasts, and one of the reasons that I keep coming back to it is that it really resonates with a lot of people in business, a lot of sales people, a lot of business owners, because it is so important. The idea of being visible or invisible to your target market is going to directly impact your ability to make things happen. And what I find kind of fun about this topic, to the extent that it can be fun, is that a lot of times in the movies or in television, invisibility is generally viewed as a big advantage. It's an asset, you know, Ooh, wouldn't it be cool if I'm Harry Potter and I've got my invisibility cloak, and I can do all sorts of things that are cool and fun. But in business invisibility is just deadly. Because, as you indicated, if the people who could benefit from what you're offering don't see you, don't hear you, don't know you're there, don't know you are alive, then you have absolutely zero possibility of selling to them. So in evaluating that question for yourself, are you invisible to your target market? It's probably a good idea to really think it through, and don't assume that you are more visible than you might actually be. Jay: Yeah, we know about assumptions, right? But I think this is also important because a lot of people will only focus on advertising that gets them leads or some type of returns. There's a whole nother level of advertising where it's just brand awareness. You're probably not going to generate clicks, but if you can be one of the options in their mind, you know, if you're a plumber and you're not necessarily getting a lead every time you send out a postcard or something, but when that toilet finally goes down, if you're one of the three that they think about, then you're so much closer. And so that's a part of advertising that I think a lot of people miss. David: Yeah, I completely agree. I think another problem that people run into sometimes with this is that they're trying to be everywhere at all times with everyone. And unless you have an unlimited budget, that just doesn't work. So you can get in front of a whole lot of people who have absolutely no capacity to buy from you. I've worked with businesses in the past that were running radio ads and they were business to business businesses. And they're running on music stations, and I'm like, okay, well, it's possible that there are some business owners or some people who could bu...

To become a 100K a month producer without losing your marbles means building your business properly. The issue that I've seen with a you-centric business is it's almost like you're building a cocoon around yourself. You're starting out with this business and you're doing things, and the more things you do, the more you're weaving this cocoon around yourself, and you sort of isolate yourself in the middle of everything. And then when it comes time to grow, you don't really know how to do it because you're stuck in the middle of this whole thing. And so for most people who want to grow beyond what they're just capable of doing themselves or who want to create a business that could exist separately from them, where they could say, "I own that business, but I'm not operating in it every single day of the week." That requires an entirely different mindset and entirely different approach. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how to become a 100K a month producer without losing your marbles. Hi Jay. Jay: Hey, David. It's great to talk about this issue because I think, you know, people imagine I'm going to be an entrepreneur and they think about the money and the lifestyle and what they did is they actually created a job that they're working, you know, 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week. They're not making progress. And so they've created a job and they were actually trying to create a lifestyle. And so that can be very difficult. David: Yeah, it definitely can. And I think the whole idea of trying to do it all for many people is difficult. And different people have different tolerances for pain. So some people need to hire earlier. Some people can afford to wait. They have the bandwidth to be able to do that. I know personally for myself, I had to hire early because there were specific skills that I just wasn't good at. And there are certain skills that you have to have in business, and if you're not good at them, you're going to have to hire for them. So for me, I ended up doing it sooner rather than later, and I did it wrong. In the early stages, I ended up hiring another salesperson just like me. So we had two people who were good at sales and nobody who was good at doing the numbers and things like that. So you learn from those mistakes. But, if you want to become a 100K a month producer without losing your marbles, you need to focus on what are the things that actually need to happen in this business, well and consistently, and then do what it takes to get all that in place. Jay: Do you think it's possible for somebody to be a 100K producer on their own? I know you said it was difficult or you had to move sooner. I'm just curious. Do you think that somebody could say, no, I'm going to do it on my own? David: I know it's possible because I have clients who have done it. And I marvel with them. When they tell me what they're doing and they tell me how they're doing it, I'm like, "I don't know how you do that." I mean, a longtime client of ours, I love her so much, her name was Barb Burcham. She passed away a few years ago. But Barb was great. She did over a million dollars a year in promotional product sales, essentially by herself. I think she might have had an assistant at one point. And she did it on small orders. She participated in one of our mastermind discussions and she was talking about how she just has all these clients and she's taking a lot of small orders, but she was able to do it. And I asked her, well, what sort of CRM are you using? She was doing it in Outlook and I was like, "I don't know how you do that. I have no idea how you do that." There's another great client of ours, a guy named John, who does over a million dollars a year, primarily by himself.

When you think about what top performers do better and differently, consider this. It's almost impossible to overfill your sales pipeline. So if you focus on making sure that you've got more there than you actually need, you're going to be in much better shape. Just look at the numbers, if you've got a hundred people in your pipeline and 1% of them close today, you made a sale. If you've got ten people in your pipeline and 1% of them close today, you did not make a sale. So from that standpoint, just the basic numbers say you want to make sure that you've got enough qualified leads in your pipeline so that somebody can close today. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing what $100,000 per month producers do better and differently. Welcome, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I really can't wait to talk about this, because it will allow people to look at what they're doing and compare themselves. And sometimes when you don't have that, it's hard to know if you're doing things right. And you're kind of more shooting in the dark than actually being purposeful about your daily activities. David: Exactly. And I think a lot of people, if they just really enjoy what they do and they focus every day on meeting new people and interacting and trying to find solutions, that's all great. But if you want to be able to start achieving some of the financial goals that you have for yourself, then it really makes a lot of sense to say, okay, what are the people who are doing this extremely successfully from a financial standpoint, doing better and differently, or at least differently than what I'm doing now. Jay: Yeah. I saw in your ebook that time is significant. Top producers leverage their time better than others. How do you go about leveraging your time better? David: You know, it seems so difficult, and yet when you really boil it down, it's actually pretty simple. If you think about the idea of being in front of a prospect or a potential client, and if that person has the ability to spend a thousand dollars with you, that's different if that person has the ability to spend $10,000 with you, or $50,000 with you, or a hundred thousand dollars with you over the course of the next year or the next couple of years, or their entire working lifetime. And so leveraging your time can start with things as simple as deciding in advance what types of prospects you want to be in front of. And ideally, they're going to be the type of people who actually need what you have to offer, purchase it on a regular basis, have decent budgets, have the ability to spend, the willingness to spend and the money to pay the bills after they've ordered it. Jay: Yeah, so identifying that client, first of all. And then I think that there is a tendency, especially for the smaller business owner, to get caught up in things that they could be having other people do. And so figuring out where your time is best spent is going to be a key to being able to grow. David: Yeah, no question. And so if you think about leveraging your time, that does go directly to that point, which is to say, okay, which activities are not worth the amount of money that I'd like to be making on an hourly basis, daily basis, weekly basis. Because if you're engaged in those activities, they will just never pay more than they're worth. If you're doing administrative tasks, that could be done by somebody else for 10 or $15 an hour. Then those tasks are not going to produce a hundred dollars or 200 or $500 an hour for you. They're only ever going to be worth that amount of money. So by delegating those things to the extent that you can,

In a special Saturday edition of the Top Secrets podcast, David Blaise explains to co-host Jay McFarland why 100K per month in promo sales is not just doable, it's also a decent, worthy goal for promo distributors who aren't there yet. Comment below and let us know if you agree or disagree. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the significance of each $100,000 in promotional product sales. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, it's great to be back with you. David, and I really want to talk about this topic a little bit. I know you've put a lot of emphasis on that first hundred thousand dollars. What makes that so significant, so special? David: Well, that's a great question. I mean, it's the first hundred thousand dollars, it's every a hundred thousand dollars thereafter. And there's no real magic significance, I don't think. But if you bring in a thousand dollars sale or a $2,000 sale or a $5,000 sale -- and I'm talking in the promotional products industry primarily, because that's who this material was put together for -- it's helpful. It's good. It feels good to bring those sales in. But, ultimately that can be done in a day or a couple of days or a week. And I think sometimes it's just good to have sort of benchmarks that are out there a little bit. So generating a hundred thousand dollars in sales of promotional products for most people is an accomplishment. Whether that happens in the course of six months, or three months, or a month, or a week, or a day. It doesn't usually happen for most people in a day. The industry at large generally does about a quarter of a million dollars in annual sales. Most salespeople do roughly that on average in the industry. So each hundred thousand dollars is actually pretty significant. And I think that when you look at trying to make an impact and trying to generate the revenue that you need to be able to support the lifestyle that you'd like to become accustomed to, it's good to sort of stretch yourself a bit and to ask yourself. Okay. What am I doing to get to my next Hundred K in revenue or my first, if you're just getting started. Hitting that first hundred thousand is usually pretty significant for people. Jay: Yeah. I'm guessing most people remember that first hundred thousand. But I think you're right. You know, were they looking at that moment as benchmark? Were they saying " this is going to be significant and this is our plan on how we're going to reach it." Or was it kind of haphazard and what a great milestone, but what did they do ahead of time to get to that point? David: Yeah, and that's the question that each person has to ask themselves. What did I do to get me to this point? How long did it take to get there as well? I mean, there are some people who spend, and whether they start out part-time or whatever it is they're doing, some people spend six months or a year or a couple of years even before they hit six figures in gross sales. When you're doing that, you're not earning a lot of money. Some people start out and they're doing it part-time. They're doing it on the side. So if they generate a hundred grand in gross sales, it seems like a really significant accomplishment for them. But if you look at the amount of time that it took to get there, sometimes you have to say, okay, well could I have done that faster? And for people who really want to make their mark and want to be able to generate significant sales, I think that it's just a decent sort of benchmark to look at, to say, "okay, how long is it going to take me to get to my next a hundred thousand in gross sales? Is it going to take me a year? Is it going to take me six months? It's going to take me a quarter.

Hi, I'm David Blaise and over the past few days, I've been sharing some resources designed to help professionals in the promotional products industry to achieve some of the financial goals that are important to them, including your next 100K in promo sales. Last week, I released a free ebook entitled How to Make $100,000 Every Month in Promotional Product Sales. To some people, that sounds like a lot of money. To others, particularly those who've already achieved it, it might sound just like another day at the office. So on Monday of this week, I released a video entitled "Your Next $100,000 in Promotional Product Sales." If you're brand new to the industry, your next hundred thousand in promotional product sales might be your first hundred thousand. If that's the case, then hopefully that topic might seem pretty exciting to you. If you've already done a hundred thousand dollars in promotional product sales, then your next 100K will get you to $200,000. That would be double. So hopefully the idea of doubling would be pretty exciting to you as well. Of course, If you've already done $200,000 in sales, an extra hundred thousand will get you to 300. That's a 50% increase over where you were at 200. Hopefully, that's still exciting. But even as you continue to grow, each additional hundred thousand dollars in sales -- every Next 100K -- will get you closer to your desired sales, profitability, and income goals. One of the first things I addressed in the $100K ebook is the huge difference between gross sales, gross profit, and personal income. When we talk about Your Next $100,000, we can refer to any or all of the above. If your goal is to grow your personal income an extra hundred thousand dollars, that's quite a bit different than if you just want to grow your gross sales by that much. However, many of the things you have to do in order to make that happen, are the same. It will often start with top-line growth -- bringing in the additional sales necessary to generate the profits you need to increase your personal income. That's why in video 1, when we talked about Your Next $100K, we discussed the fact that every sale you make is going to come from one of two primary groups of people. If you're just starting out, those sales will actually come from just one primary group of people. But as you take action, and bring new clients through the door, you will create another source of clients -- another source of future business -- that will often be worth far more to you than the new customers you're creating when you're just starting out. Also, today I'm releasing video 2 in this series along with a free copy of my $100K Cheat Sheet. The $100K Cheat Sheet is a single-page document, but it really could (and should) be worth an additional hundred thousand dollars to you in your business over the course of the next year, IF you download it, print it out, think through the answers and take action on the recommendations made in that one-page document. In order to make it even easier for you to accomplish this, in today's video, I'll walk you through exactly how to complete the cheat sheet in a way that doesn't require a lot of time, doesn't require a lot of thought, and will help you to generate a level of focus that you may not have had in your business for a very long time. One of the big advantages to the concept of Your Next $100K is that it will keep you FOCUSED instead of just thinking,

I think for people who are looking to compete with internet sellers, one of the things they can do is say, "Yeah, you know, now anybody can set up a website. Anybody can say anything they want. But what if something goes wrong? Who are you going to talk to? You know, if you and I are working together, if there's a problem, I'm going to be the one to handle it. Do you know who'd be handling it on the other end?" David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how to compete with internet sellers. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you, David. So glad to be here, and this is a big deal. I've found sometimes I don't even know that there's an internet seller that I'm competing with. In fact, the other day I was trying to send somebody to our website and we found out somebody had grabbed a domain very close to ours. They're offering a close product of ours. And now, every time somebody mistypes in our domain, they're going to go to one of our competitors. And I'm incredibly frustrated by it and dealing with that very situation right now. David: Yeah. Squatters, they call them. Domain squatters. Very frustrating. Jay: Yeah. David: Yeah. Well, I know a lot of people, particularly people who have brick-and-mortar businesses, for the most part -- but they may have an online presence -- often struggle with the fact that internet sellers can sometimes seem to create better deals. Because they have lower overhead or they have more connections, or they have different connections. Or because of the fact that the client themselves are doing more of the work. Because if somebody can go to a website, pick something out, order it and not involve a human being, they can certainly save money if they've got that technology set up. But there are limits, and depending on the industry you're in, depending on what you're selling, very often human beings can have a bigger advantage, and human beings can also justify higher prices because of the level of service they provide. And I think that's something that people tend to forget about. They tend to think in terms of, "okay, I can't compete with this. These online sellers are able to provide stuff faster and cheaper." But faster and cheaper is not always everything that people are looking for. Jay: I would say most times faster and cheaper... David: yeah. Jay: is not. But I also think that we've kind of accepted faster and cheaper in a lot of ways. You know, it's another one of those things that's changed with the pandemic. I think one of the other problems is that you can put anything on a website. You can say anything. It's not like when you walk in a store and you can see how clean the store is. You can see. You can feel the quality of the product. You have all of this tangible nature to it. That's all gone and we're ordering stuff that we just see pretty pictures of. That makes it very hard to compete on the internet. David: It can, but actually that knowledge and the ability to communicate that can also do something that's very important for terrestrial sellers, shall we say. People who operate in non-internet businesses. And that's that they can. Or so the seeds of doubt, they can basically say pretty much exactly what you said. Yeah. You know, there's a big difference between seeing an image on your screen and then getting it, and having it arrive, and having it be different or look different, you just don't know that. And that even goes back to printed catalogs. There are a lot of times you get a mail-order catalog, you look at something and go, Wow, that looks great. And then you order it and arrives and it seems nothing like what it is that you thought you ordered.

If you recognize that more is never the solution to too much, then you can really start to think about what actually has to be done? What could potentially be eliminated so that I can focus my time and attention on the most important things that are actually going to move the needle for myself and my business? David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic more is never the solution to too much. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much. I love the title of this podcast and I think it embodies something that we all do. Sometimes we think that because something's not working, it means we're not throwing enough at it. So let's just throw more and throw more and throw more, and that will solve the problem. And perhaps we're making it worse. Or at the very least, we're wasting a lot of time and money that could be used more effectively in other places. David: Yeah, so often people talk about, and we've talked about in the past, time management. And time management is maybe not the best term to always think of. Because what it implies is that you have to do all these things and you have to manage it better, that maybe you're messing things up there. But if you recognize that more is never the solution to too much, then you can really start to think about what actually has to be done? What could potentially be eliminated so that I can focus my time and attention on the most important things that are actually going to move the needle for myself and my business? And I think for a lot of us, with COVID and people working from home, it probably caused a lot of people to start thinking about what is the most important aspect of what I do? And how many things that I used to do before, really don't have to be done anymore? And for anybody who's watching this, if you haven't gone through this exercise, I would really encourage you to consider this. Because it's very likely there are things you're doing that you've been doing for a long time, and it's always the way we've done it. We think we have to keep doing it. But sometimes, that's not the case. So if you find yourself trying to figure out how you're going to get it all done, maybe it's time to start thinking in terms of "what could I potentially eliminate or what could I delegate so that I could really focus on the things that are going to generate the best results for myself?" Jay: Yeah. You mentioned the pandemic and I know personally, it has changed my work style and time management so dramatically on both sides. On the one side, I don't have the guy coming up to my cubicle every 10 minutes telling me the story about the movie he just watched, right? So I don't have those interruptions anymore. But on the other side, I have to now be self-efficient, self-productive. Nobody's looking over my shoulder. Sometimes I don't speak to other employees for days or weeks, and so... David: mm-hmm. Jay: I have to totally manage that time. So, I think the pandemic has changed work forever. And we're all having to learn how to, manage that. David: Yeah, it definitely changed things and that's why I think this idea, this topic. Is so important. Because what I've found is that people are overwhelmed. A lot of people are overwhelmed. People are constantly busy, busy, busy. They're doing different things all the time. Some people wear "busy" as a badge of honor. I don't really see it that way anymore. And there was a long period of time where I did. It's like, "Oh yeah, I'm really busy. I'm really busy." And then I realized, wait a second, what does that mean anyway? Does busy mean productive? Because if busy means productive, then okay, it's good to be busy. But if you're busy just for the sake of busy, it's not.

I think just the idea of initiating first contact versus cold call is a lot more exciting. It's a lot less intimidating in most cases. I started using that phrase after I saw an old Star Trek movie where they referred to first contact as being your first contact with an alien species. And I just thought, wow, that has a lot of correlations with sales. Where you're approaching somebody and you really don't know what you're getting into. Strange new worlds and all that sort of thing.... David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of initiating first contact with a new prospect. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: I'm so glad to be here, David, and I'm excited to talk about this issue because to me, personally, this is one of the hardest things to do. I'm fine once that first contact has been made. I feel like I'm really good at building relationships and closing. David: Mm-hmm. Jay: But I'm terrified about making that first contact and I'm not really sure how to do it. So I find myself shooting in the dark all the time trying to figure it out. David: Yeah, well, you're certainly not alone. I've certainly felt that way myself, and nearly everybody I've ever met in sales has had issues with it. And we talked about this in a previous podcast. We were talking about cold calling and the idea that cold calling is really just one form of first contact. And so the reason I thought it would be good to have a discussion on the topic of First Contact itself is to first of all, recognize that, yeah, it's more than just cold calling. There are lots of different aspects to it. And if you realize that, then you also realize that you can get comfortable with first contact, generally by engaging in a first contact method that is more comfortable for you. So if cold calling is not your primary thing, you have other alternatives and that should maybe give you a little bit of hope. Jay: Yeah, that does give me hope and I think the key is to know what the possibilities are. Because like I said, sometimes I'm like, okay, my only option is to cold call, and that's not working. So really understanding what are the other options available. And the other thing I found is, lately I'm better at cold calling because you force yourself to do it enough and you can build a skill and you can get over the hump at least I'm finding that. David: Yeah, absolutely. And when you are good at cold calling, and there are a lot of people who are very good at it, there are a lot of people who actually really like it. They don't even struggle with the call reluctance and that sort of thing, but for those who do struggle with it, I think just discussing this idea of first contact is going to be helpful. And if we think about why first contact is really so important, in my mind at least, it's because it really helps to set the stage for the entire relationship. Whatever it is that they're going to learn about us or think about us down the road, it's all going to come from what that first contact is. If it's a great experience, they're going to have good feelings about us. If it's less than a great experience, then they're not going to feel as great about it. Since it sets the tone, it's really important that people become comfortable with it, or at least come up with a form of first contact that they can be reasonably comfortable with. Jay: Yeah. It's such a great line of thinking. I hadn't really thought about it that, that first moment, maybe the first five minutes, David: Right. Jay: That could determine the whole lifespan of the relationship. How they view you. How they respond to your sales pitch. Everything.

I would say the number one thing that helped me the most with overcoming call reluctance is when I realized the people who are likely to yell or scream or be angry or be obnoxious or belligerent, they're not the people we're doing it for. We are doing it for the needles in the haystack. We're doing it to find that perfect-fit customer that needs what we have to offer, and who was waiting for someone like us to come along. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of overcoming call reluctance. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: So glad to be here, David. And I really want to hear your feedback on this topic, because this is something that I struggle with. I've been put in sales positions in the past. I have a list of leads. All I have to do is pick up the phone and dial those numbers, and I can't bring myself to do it. Which is funny. I can do it, if it's a qualified lead and they're expecting my call, or if they've set an online appointment with me, all of that fear goes away. But if it's a cold call, forget it. I can't do it. I just can't. David: Yeah, well call reluctance is a big topic for people who have to make cold calls, and that is one aspect of it. But you hit on a couple of other aspects of it. There are some people who still struggle with the idea of picking up the phone, even when somebody is looking to hear from you. So, we'll touch on a little of all of that, but you went to the big thing first, which is the idea that there are a lot of people who struggle with call reluctance. They don't want to pick up the phone, they don't want to do it. And if we think about the reasons for that, a lot of it becomes kind of obvious. What would you say is your number one reason? Jay: I guess fear of rejection. It's just hard for me to feel like I'm going to get them to want to hear me. David: Yeah, and one of the reasons that I struggle a bit with this topic is that I'm not a huge fan of cold calls. It's not that we don't do them , we do. It's not that I haven't done them, I have. But generally speaking, my approach is to try to lead with something of more value. So in those situations, if you follow up with a phone call, it's a lot more welcome than if they're not expecting your call. But yes, what I've found personally and also with a number of the people that I worked with is that a lot of people think, Well, it's fear of failure. It's fear of rejection. I'm afraid that this person is going to get mad or they're going to get angry or they're going to hang up on me, and all valid fears because those things happen when you're making cold calls. And so part of it for me, because those of us who have been in positions where you had to make the calls, regardless of whether or not you felt like it, you have to come up with a way to get over that. And the things that helped me the most, I would say the number one thing that helped me the most, was when I realized the people who are likely to yell or scream or be angry or be obnoxious or belligerent, they're not the people we're doing it for. We are doing it for the needles in the haystack. We're doing it to find that perfect fit customer that needs what we have to offer, that was waiting for someone like us to come along, you know, the knight in shining armor or whatever. Those are the people that we're doing it for, and you can't get to those people until, and unless you first get to the ones that might not be as receptive to your message, shall we say? Jay: Yeah, absolutely. My dad was a very successful salesman his whole life. And he always told me that every day he has a goal for how many no's he's going to get.

Uncovering customer needs is critical. Essentially, Maslow's hierarchy of needs implies that when one need is satisfied, another one is likely to pop up. Once I've got this satisfied, then I'm going to be working on this, and then I'm going to be working on this. It's human nature. So if you recognize the fact that the needs are constantly going to be changing and you adopt a policy of constant requalification with your people -- staying in touch, building that relationship, and finding out what they need next -- you're going to be in much better shape. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of uncovering customer needs. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. It's such a pleasure to be here. I think that this is another great topic because a lot of times we just decide on our own what we think the customer needs, right? So we formulate that in our mind and we try and force that square into a round hole. You're probably creating a lot more problems that you really don't need to have. Uncovering customer needs in sales David: Exactly. When salespeople go in with the idea of "what I want to sell this person," instead of "what does this person need," they're behind the eight ball right from the beginning. And I think there are some schools of thought in terms of sales, particularly if it's a company that has one primary product that they're looking to push, that, okay, you just have to go in and sell this. It reminds me of, you know, selling things door to door. If you're a Fuller brush salesman and you're looking to sell this one particular brush, well that's my thing. That's what I've got to sell. If you are sort of a one trick pony like that, if you've got one thing you want to sell, then this can still actually apply to you. Because when we think in terms of customer needs, I think a lot of people get stuck on the idea that uncovering customer needs means discovering which products they want to buy from us. And uncovering customer needs goes way beyond that. It's more about what do they really need? Where are they struggling? What do they need help with? What are they trying to accomplish? Because even if you're selling a Fuller brush, if you go in with the idea of "do you want to buy this brush," the answer is no. But if you find out that what they're struggling with is that they're very busy and they don't have enough time, and their life is chaotic. Then you may be able to let them know that this Fuller brush is going to allow them to clean things faster and be more economical in their time and accomplish some of the things that they're telling you are actually important to them. So while that's a rather extreme example, it really goes to the whole idea of what I believe uncovering customer needs is all about. Uncovering customer needs with questions Jay: Yeah. And I think there's only one way to get to customer needs and that's to ask questions, right? David: Right. Jay: If you start out with your sales pitch, you're not going to know what their needs are. And I also like the idea of letting them talk and that helps you build the relationship and discover their needs. Is there another way besides asking question? David: I don't think there really is. I mean, you've got to be able to get the answers from them. The only way that you can actually uncover a need is for them to vocalize it. I mean, unless it's something that you've observed, Hey, it looks like you could really use this. Right? Or if somebody refers you to that person and says my friend could really use what you're offering here. But even then, it's somebody else's opinion. So that's just the beginning of a point of conversa...

To monetize your sales pipeline, you need to fill it, prioritize it and tackle it. This whole idea of knowing what to do and not doing it, is rampant. It seems ridiculous. It's like, well, who would do that? And the answer is nearly everybody does it. And none of us do it on purpose, but we all, to some extent, end up doing it. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how to monetize your sales pipeline. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you, David. It's such a pleasure to be here, and I really can't wait to talk a little bit more about this process. I see people who kind of think they have a pipeline, but they're not sure exactly what to do with it. So a good, important topic today. David: Yeah. What to do with it or in a lot of cases, even what it is. I think even before we can talk about how to monetize it, you almost have to identify it. What is it? What is your sales pipeline? Who is it? Who are the people who are in it? Where is it located? Is it just inside your head? Because if it's just inside your head, leaving enormous amounts of money on the table. Jay: Yeah, and we've talked in the past about key performance indicators, KPIs, and so first you have to know what that pipeline is. Then you have to know how to track it and where people are at in each stage so that things ideally trigger automatically. I think that's the end goal, but getting there can be difficult. 3 Steps to Monetize Your Sales Pipeline David: Yeah, I mean I think of it in terms of filling it, prioritizing it and then tackling it. Because if you're not sort of doing it in that order, I think it's going to potentially be problematic for you. Jay: All right. Well then let's start with filling it. Let's get that going. David: Okay, Well, when we talk about filling our pipeline after we've identified , after we've identified what it is and where it is, filling it obviously is the biggest thing. And I think a lot of salespeople tend to think of this as being pretty important, getting new leads into their pipeline. And of course, it is very important. It's the number one step because until you know who's in there, you don't really have anything that you can do. You've got to have the prospect first. So filling it starts with asking yourself, who goes in here? And what types of clients am I looking for? Are they in particular types of industries? Are they located in a particular geographic area? What are the different things that I'm looking for in terms of a good, solid prospect for my pipeline? So who goes in is very important. But who stays out is also extremely important. And we don't think about this, but it is so critical. In my sales career over the years, particularly in the early stages, I just thought if someone was willing to talk to me then they were a good prospect. And I learned, not as quickly as I should have, that that's just not the case. There are people out there who will be happy to talk to you again and again and never actually buy anything from you. So when you're looking at who goes in and who stays out, you want to think in terms of exactly that. When you are talking to someone, if you're not able to get them qualified in as quickly as you'd like, to make sure that they have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend, then you don't want to keep going back to that well and expecting to get water out if there's no water to be found. Jay: You know, we had exactly this problem here recently with the company I've been doing consulting for. They wanted to start using Google ads and David: mm-hmm. Jay: So they just put out some general pay for click kind of stuff,

Money is always flowing in one direction or another. And in a business, it needs to flow in from the customers. It needs to flow through to the employees and to the suppliers and to everybody who is providing you with services. And there needs to be something left over at the end to take home. And when you're able to make those things happen consistently, everybody's just better off. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing sales, profit, and personal income. Welcome Jay. Jay: Yeah. Thank you, David. I'm so excited, as usual, to talk about these topics that we discuss every podcast. I think that people often get caught up, especially small business owners, in one of these aspects, instead of having balance between all of them. And I feel like the one that they think about the most is sales. We have to drive sales. And if you're not focusing on profitability in that regard, you could be generating all kinds of sales, but you're not controlling your costs. And so ultimately those sales aren't helping you. David: Yeah. Been there, done that. I think anybody, if you've started your own business, you've probably found yourself in this situation and gross sales is usually a good place for people to start. They're thinking in terms of top line. Okay. I need to bring in as much as possible, which is true. You got to be bringing it in. But if you're not paying attention to the rest of it, as you indicated, you could be selling a lot of stuff and losing money every day. And unless you're keeping track of that, you're not going to know it. I remember in the early days of my promotional products business, I would get together with my accountant once every 90 days. At the end of every quarter, actually the beginning of the following quarter, we would review the numbers for the previous quarter. And at that point, it's too late to do anything about it. You feel like things are going well because you know, you're selling stuff, but then you look at the expenses, the cost of goods, the cost of people, all your internal costs, your overhead costs. And you find out that you're not making money on it. And 90 days later is too late. So once we got that in focus and we started doing it every month, reviewing what happened last month, where are our expenses too high and where are our gross sales too low? And which customers take up too much time and don't generate enough revenue? Once we're able to focus on the things that actually allow you to operate a profitable business, things got a lot better, a lot more quickly. And when we think in terms of these three things, sales, profit, and personal income, it's almost like you're starting here with the sales and then that generates whatever profit you have. And then after you've spent money on overhead and things, then you have some money to pay yourself, get some personal income going. But different businesses operate different ways. There are some business owners who are so focused on what am I going to bring in for myself that they may cut costs. They may short change people in terms of what they're delivering in terms of product. They may choose less quality products. And so depending on where people's focus is, determines where they're going to be successful among those three things. Jay: Yeah. And I think you need balance. I mean, they're all important. And so as you talked about looking at things monthly, I think having systems to identify and track each of these areas and have proper goals and benchmarks and reporting systems so that you can catch issues quickly. And pivot quickly is the only way you're going to find balance in the force with these three things. David: Yeah, I agree.

Brute force selling usually comes about when someone feels like they have to sell their product or service, regardless of the needs, wants, or desires of their prospect. The antidote comes from better understanding, relationship building, and effective qualification. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of brute force selling. Welcome, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. I know we've talked about a lot of different issues, you know, generating leads and those types of things. I'm very anxious to talk about this brute force. When I hear it, as a customer, I'm like "brute for selling? What exactly do you mean here?" Because I might want to run away from it. The Case Against Brute Force Selling David: Yeah, well, I'm not really here today to advocate for brute force selling, okay? So, definitely not my first choice, but it seems to me like there are so many people, so many industries that tend to engage in it, that I thought we should probably have the discussion. Jay: Yeah. I mean, nothing could be worse than chasing potential clients away. I think there's a fine line between brute force and still trying to help customers understand the importance of your products and using good sales techniques. It's really a fine line. Isn't it? David: It is. There's definitely a balance. And I think there's a big difference between persistence and brute force selling. But to get to the core of it. I think one of the biggest problems that a lot of small business owners and salespeople have today is that they think in terms of selling. I have to sell this product, or I have to sell this idea. I have to sell this concept. I have to sell this customer. "I have to sell," being the main thing. When you're approaching someone for the first time with the idea of, "I have to sell," it's easy to slip into the wrong gear about trying to push what you have onto them before you've even identified, whether they have a need desire, money, budget, willingness to spend, any of those things. When I think in terms of brute force selling, to me, it's often about people who have gotten into sales. They've been given maybe a lead sheet or in the old days, it was a phone book by their manager who said, "Go make sales. Knock yourself out." And when you don't know how to do that well, then trying to sort of push or bully or cajole people into buying from you becomes the default. So when the focus is just on sales as the first, middle, and end of the process, it's kind of a lose/lose for both the salesperson and the prospect. Also for the company. So it's a lose all the way around. Effective Qualification is the Key If we can train salespeople on the idea of first determining need, identifying whether or not this person is a good candidate for what we're selling. I mean, we're really just talking about qualifying. And a lot of salespeople and even a lot of sales managers fail to make the distinction between qualification and selling. When we're qualifying somebody, we're not trying to convince or persuade them to buy our stuff. We're trying to find out if our stuff even makes sense for them. And what I've seen over the years is that there are a lot of salespeople who waste enormous amounts of time pushing and trying to sell to people who have absolutely no capability even to buy what it is that they're selling. Without taking that step back and saying, okay, let's do a little qualification first. Let's find out what this person is dealing with, and what sort of help they need. And if I can even help them, if you do that first, then you can find out pretty quickly if somebody is a good prospect for you or not. And if they're not,