Sales Weapons (1 of 2)

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. In today's episode, we get to listen to Dan Kennedy himself. Now, this is part 1 of a 2-part series, so you're going to hear part 2 in the next episode. But today we get to listen to Dan Kennedy himself. In part 2, we're going to be listening to Bill Glazer for most of the time, and Dan will give a quick summary. But today we get to listen full on to Dan. Now, Dan Kennedy is going to grace us with a couple of different facts about why often our sales don't make the revenue that we want. Often there are a couple of things that we simply don't dial in correctly in order to prepare to make the sale. And in this episode, Dan Kennedy is going to give you the weapons so you can prepare to make as many sales as possible. Let's jump in and hear exactly what those are.

I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy. The legend of Dan Kennedy should be Ignore it at your own peril. They're not really lessons, they're kind of laws that you live by.

Dan opened my eyes to what small business marketing looks like.

Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless. His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy. Let's talk about sales weapons, and I'm going to show you one big one and then spend a little time on three key component parts. And when Bill and I talk about sales weapons, we're talking about tools that at some place in the process make the job easier when it comes to actually making the sale. And so one of the things I talked to you about in one of the two previous presentations is, you know, one of the tipping points is how they're prepared for the sale, right? And salespeople tend to shortcut the preparation process, okay? And so if you— now if you don't have a sales mentality, and you're like forcing yourself to get into gear, then you don't have this problem. But if you do have a sales mentality or you came from a sales background, then you will be more like I am, which is your ingrained instinct is to leap on a prospect at first sight and go into their wallet and extract their money while holding them on the ground with your knee before they get away, right? So that's like how salespeople respond to something with a pulse that expresses pretty much any interest in what they're doing. The problem is, is that moves you into the first category of ways of selling that I showed you this morning instead of the second category. And so if you're really, really good, you can get it done, but you can never systemize it. It requires extraordinary skill. It sometimes leaves a bad taste in people's mouth. It doesn't lead to long-term— See, a lot of times people wonder why they don't get referrals. Well, the last call in the program that Sidney and I are doing has everything to do with now how you multiply the customer, the client, or the patient once you get them, right? And there's as many barriers to that as there is to the initial sale. But I'll give you one right now. One of the ways people screw it up, they wonder why they don't get more referrals, is their sales process got— was good enough to make the sale, but the way it made the sale, even though the person is perfectly happy with what they bought, they are unwilling to plug people they know into that process. So they're perfectly happy with what they bought, but they are unwilling. So somebody asked me, my friends at the Sleep Number bed company, hey, I'm not above doing this. I used to years ago, I don't know if there's anybody goes back far enough with me, I had an audio cassette program. I don't know if even Bill saw this. I had a continuity program called America's Worst Run Companies, and it was a monthly audio cassette in which I talked about The worst-run companies in America. And I created it because I was pissed off at America West Airlines. And I couldn't get anybody to pay attention to me being irritated. So I created the whole product just so I could do— now it turned out to make money, but I created it just so I could get one done and deliver it to the CEO and one to every member of the board of America West Airlines. And I mean, and literally my argument, my debate with them, my fight with them had to do with them ruining a piece of my luggage. And I've been trying for 4 months to get somebody to pay attention. 2 days after those tapes were delivered, honest to God, the CEO calls the office and says, "Could you have Mr. Kennedy bring that ruined piece of luggage to the office tomorrow because somebody is going to come and pick it up and they are going to replace it." And the guy who showed up to pick it up was the Vice President. So I am missing no opportunity now. To nail these people who have aggravated me. So, but now here's the point. Somebody asked me the other day, how do you like the product? Right, because we're thinking about getting one of the beds. We have back problems and so forth. I said, to tell you the truth, how I like the product is really quite irrelevant. The product's okay, but I wouldn't want to expose anybody I liked to the process of getting it. And so a lot of times your sales process is okay to make a sale, It's not okay to build a business. It's not okay to create customers for life. So preparation, salespeople tend not to want to have the time. Oh, let's throw the telemarketer on them right away. Oh, let's chase them down and drag them back to the cave and beat their money out of them. You know, my favorite scene in Deadwood. Anybody watch Deadwood, the TV show? My absolute— no, hardly anybody? Oh, buy the DVDs. It's a great entrepreneur show. It's not on anymore. So the two casino owners are standing on a balcony in the old west town looking out on the old— and they're sort of complaining about the quality of their customers, you know, because they— the guy— one guy brought in craps and put a craps table in and he says the miners are so dumb we can't teach them how to play craps. So they're like complaining about the customer, right? And the one says to the other, you know, it would be a lot easier if we just hit them over the head, drug them out in the desert, took their money and left them there, right? And I thought, yeah, it would, you know, that's sort of appealing. And that's really how a lot of salespeople think. So when you start to put preparation in, it does often slow down the sale, but it makes a better sale and a better customer after the sale. So I'm going to show you weapons that have to do with preparation. Okay, and the main one, and then I'll show you 3 pieces out of it. The main one is a thing I call a shock and awe box. And the main purpose of a shock and awe package is that it arrives in a prospect's hands and it is so much more than they would have expected receiving when they requested information. So much more than anybody else is sending them. That it immediately begins to create authority and credibility purely because of what it is without even getting into what it says. Okay? So, years ago, early when I started in the speaking business, everybody did trifold brochures. Now they do what's called one-sheets. But when I started in speaking, everybody had a trifold brochure. And we used to joke about them a lot. And so everybody, so meeting planners are getting like 500 of them, you know, at a time. And they all look alike and they all have the person's picture on the front getting onto a plane they don't own or with a big microphone like Wayne Newton or, you know. And they were all alike. And this speaker I knew, Larry Dolan, he said, I don't have any of that stuff. He says, somebody calls my office and inquires about me, here's what we send them. And he drags out, you know the boxes like you buy reams of paper in at Staples or Office Depot, you know what I'm talking about? I don't know how many reams it's got in it, but it's a pretty hefty, good-sized box, right? He drags one of those out, and inside it are testimonial letters that have been photocopied, just piled up in the box, right? And then he says, I take this duct tape, and I tape up the box, and I write the guy's name on it, and I ship it to him. That's my process. And I said, "Brilliant." Because everybody else is sending a trifold brochure. So simply, not, maybe it should be prettier, you know, what I'm gonna show you is prettier, but who else is sending 2,000 testimonial letters? Does anybody go read 2,000 testimonials? No. And so if you didn't have 2,000, you could make like the bottom 1,000 just Xeroxes of newspaper articles, or yeah, I mean it's sort of like, you know, paying off the kidnapper, right? But I mean, but I mean, this thing arrives, the weight of it. And so this idea, for me, it came from what Larry showed me, and I've used it again and again and again for client after client after client to change the dynamics of their sales process and deliver a better qualified prospect to the actual sales event. Somebody who's already, you know, like on a 0 to 10, like the 0 to 10 we just did, like on a 0 to 10 of readiness to buy, they're like a 7, an 8, or a 9. Trust is there, authority's there, credibility's there before they ever get to the sales event. And over the years I've done it again and again and again and again. Some of you, maybe, I think it's in the No BS Direct Marketing book, I talk about the shed shop guy. And, you know, this is a mundane company that builds and installs backyard sheds, and if you call any other shed company and ask for information, they send you a price list. And a little trifold brochure with diagrams of sheds on it, you know. And so he sends an infomercial DVD with testimonials. We went out and filmed people in their backyards with their sheds who love their sheds and who showed us how they use their shed for pottery, or they use their shed for an exercise room, or they use their shed for a dollhouse or whatever. And so we got like, I don't know how many people in the show, but we got this DVD of happy shed owners telling their shed stories and showing their sheds. We have a big book of testimonials people tell telling their emotional stories about their sheds. And I jokingly call it chicken soup for the shed shop shed lover's soul, because that's really what we built. And we send them all this stuff in a package. And it's so much more than they thought they would conceive they would get, and it's more than anybody else sends them. And so it has impact purely because of what it is, not only what it says. So I'm going to show you a couple things. So this is— some of you will have seen this, but it doesn't matter. So this is a shock and awe BACs for the real estate business. And so this is built for Craig Proctor, who's a RE/MAX agent, and other RE/MAX agents use it. And so somebody calls and says, you know, maybe I want you to list my house. So the way that works, generally speaking, is they used to be gimmies. So a guy like Craig who's very well known in his market and one of the top guys in the markets, he would get what he calls a lot of gimme calls. Somebody calls up and says, I want you to list my house because of who you are. You're Craig Proctor, you're the credible guy, I want you to list my house. That's pretty much gone away now. So everybody calls up now and says, I might want you to list my house. So I'd like you to come out on Tuesday night and tell me what you'll do if you list my house, what they call a listing presentation. But I'm also gonna have somebody come out Monday night, somebody come out Wednesday night, and somebody come out on Thursday night, and then when it's all over with, I'm gonna pick somebody. So, you know, this is like a bad singles dance, and it's a process nobody likes, right? So he said, we gotta, we gotta get more gimmies, we got to get back to gimmies. I said, shock and awe box. So, you know, now when they call them, they say that, the answer is we don't like do that, we don't participate in a bad singles dance, but what we will do is we'll send you a really useful information kit that will help you pick the the best Realtor possible. And after you've reviewed the kit, and if you must, after you've had everybody else out there, then you can call us up and we might list your house. And then, so out goes the same day they call, out goes the big, you know, red, white, and blue thing that says, "Here's your free Home Seller's Kit." And in there is the box. And the box has in it on its left side It has an audio CD that is a radio show that doesn't exist, so it's a faux radio show, but it sounds like a real radio show on which Craig is interviewed. And then it has an audio CD full of testimonials talking about their experience with Craig. And then it has the 178 Reasons Your Home Will Sell for Top Dollar, which is really a storybook of people's stories of how they couldn't sell their house and we had our home listed with two different companies. Nobody could sell the house. Craig sold it in 12 minutes. And then on the other side of the box is a big folder, and in the big folder is a whole pile of stuff. And think of this as about a 64-page sales letter busted up into parts, because that's really what it is. And so I'm gonna show you a couple of parts of this in a second, but in depth, but there's a, there's a whole piece here, who will write the ad that sells your home, and why it makes a difference who writes the ad who sells your home. Okay, then there's a piece, how likely is it that your home will actually get sold by the agent you choose to sell it, and it has a lottery ticket attached to it. And so it's got statistics. So if the chance your home will sell with an average agent is, according to the real estate thing, is 58.6%. It's only 58.6% of the houses that get listed by a real estate agent in Toronto get sold by that agent. 86.7% of all the ones listed by Craig Proctor in Toronto get sold by Craig Proctor. So you can play the lottery or you can call prey. I'll skip that. There's 6 satisfaction guarantees. So there's a whole piece of satisfaction guarantees. There's a who hires the Craig Proctor Team, which I'm going to come back to in a second. There's the— this one I really like, so it wasn't one I was going to spend some time on. This is the 6 reasons you might choose a less experienced or less successful agent. Okay. And it tells you the 6 reasons why you might do that. 'Cause they do. So, you know, you might have— we've got a friend or relative in the business and he'll do it for less. And then we tell them the cautions you should consider about this are many. Beginning with how ugly will Thanksgiving dinner be when you have to fire your friend or relative after he hasn't sold your house in like 4 years. So we deal with the 6 reasons why they— then there's— I'm going to show you this too. Then there's a diagram of your process. Then there's some proof pieces. So like this is a map that shows all the places that all the houses have been sold by the Craig Proctor team. So there's all these pieces in this box. And after the box arrives, now there's a bunch of follow-up steps. But so first of all, think what the other— what else is happening from their competitors, because in this case we're selling in a competitive environment. Nobody else is sending a box. Nobody else is sending all this stuff. Nobody else is deliberately attacking the objections, the problems, the reasons why people don't choose somebody. Did I just hear a cell phone? I just heard a cell phone. Oh, I just heard a cell phone. Does this person deserve a dispensation? Do we allow one mistake as an object lesson to the rest of the universe? Do we, do we, do we? Well, you didn't make any friends on the break, did you? They're throwing you right under the bus, man. Okay, one pass. Next guy gets it. Okay, next guy gets it. Okay, so here's a shock and awe package. Here's a shock and awe. Boy, you really— what did you do to this crowd? Man, oh man, oh man. Oh, man. They're like ugly to you. So here's the same premise. Here's shock and awe package from Miracle-Ear, the hearing aid folks. So somebody now, here's what they get when they ask for information. They get the consumer's guide to carefully choosing hearing aids. But really it's a whole pile of stuff. Now there's 2 things, there's 3 things I want to show you out of it. Who relies on? Okay, I want to take this quiz. Okay, so the overriding thing I wanted to talk to you about is the idea of this shock and awe box that precedes you to the prospect and prepares them in every way that you can think of so that they grant you authority, credibility, and celebrity before the sales event occurs. Okay, so you want to, now you want to think about that. Not only is it building the package, but does the package get me authority, credibility, celebrity before they get to the sales event? Now let me show you a couple of component parts that are my favorites, that are really cool. So here's a, here's the Proctor version. This is Who hires the Craig Proctor Team? And now we're gonna tell them what type of people choose him to list and sell their houses. The reason we're gonna do that is so you can find yourself in here. I call it match myself up. Now this is reverse engineered. So this is looking at who are his best clients. Okay? Now we're gonna describe the best client so we can get more of them when they match themselves up. Okay? What do people really want to know about anything? They want to know, is this for me? Do I belong here? Have I found the right place? Right? And so like if this is your first event, Right? So many of you raised your hands. This is your first event. So you've been getting the newsletter, you've been reading the book, but this is the first time you've come into a room. And really what you're trying to decide is, am I in the right place? Are these the kind of people I want to hang around with? Are these people who have good ideas for me? Is this a bunch of bullshit? You know, this is, right? That's what it's about, okay? And so the most convincing thing Far more convincing than anything that will happen up here that will determine whether you decide you're in the right place or not when you leave and go home is what happened out there, is who you met, okay? And if you matched yourself up— so the guy that owns the photography studio who was up here talking to me on the break— see, we can talk about this until Bill and I are blue in the face. But if he happens to meet another photography studio owner who's been to 8 events and has doubled his business and has turned on— he decides he's in the right. Wow, this is for me. There's another one of me here. And if there was 4 of them, we're golden. Because everybody's trying to match themselves up. That's what they're trying to do. So this piece is about that. So this piece has In general, here are the people who most frequently hire the Craig Proctor Team and why. So number 1, CEOs, executives, business owners. Now understand, I've reverse engineered out of who is his best clients and who does he want as a client. Now I'm describing them so the new one can match himself up and say, "Oh well, if those guys hire him, that's me, that's who I should hire him too." And then there's a reason. Okay, and sales professionals and marketing-oriented entrepreneurs, doctors, hospital administrators, and nurses. Exceptionally busy couples. People who are not real estate investors or experts. And people who do not have time for do-overs. Now, I got the same piece here. This same platform I use over and over and over again. So here's who relies on Miracle Air. Active seniors. Why? Because men, women, and couples on the go have lots of good reasons to hear. And then we tell them so. Oh, I'm an active senior. That's me. I go to a lot of functions. I do a lot of crap. That's still me. I'm one of them people. People still working. That's me. 72 years old, I'm still out there selling. They're right. I need to hear pretty good. Matches up with me. Seniors determined to remain independent. Okay? Yeah, well, that's a fear cell. Good for you for recognizing it. Okay? One of the things you always got to remember is hardly anybody buys a core product for the core product. Hardly anybody buys a core service for the core service. Okay? And so one of the reasons people buy hearing aids is they don't want their adult children to stick them in a nursing home. Okay? Because if they look addled, If they behave like they're not with it, they're headed to the home. If you can't hear well, you behave like you're not with it. So, "That's me. I want to remain independent." That's code. That's language for, "I don't want them sticking me in the home." That's me. That's me. Oh, that's why they— okay. I got especially active and involved grandparents. Because if you seem addled and you can't hear well, They'll be less likely to want to leave you alone with the kids. I got people who take their health seriously and take responsibility for it. Now that's a pre-programming category. If a person matches themselves up with that and says, "Oh yeah, that's me. I do a lot of smart things. I try and take good care of myself." Now, well, this is the place for me. This is the place I should come. Okay? So it's the same device used again and again and again and again. You create an environment, you create a device that people can, the people you want can find themselves and match themselves up with. Let me show you another one of two more pieces. Here's a very cool one. This is called diagramming your process. And it's based on a very simple premise. The minute you illustrate what it is that you do, It has more credibility, you have more authority, it appears to have more value than if you just say what you do. Now if you show what you do, that's even better. So way back, you can go back to sales choreography. Well, if people come to your place of business, whatever that place of business is, there should be a tour. Because that's a way of doing what I'm about to do on paper, for you physically. There should be a tour. If I had a car dealership, I wouldn't take them to cars right away. I'd take them to the service department. That's where I'd start. I'd take them on a tour of the whole place. Here's our service department. Meet our service manager. See our computers. See our diagnostic stuff. See our plasma TVs and our latte machines. Here's our customer service department. Meet Bertha, the head of our customer service department. And Bertha's been with us for 412 years. And here's this, and here's this, and here's this. Finally getting back to the cars. When I took over this really bad failing manufacturing company, the first thing we did was create a tour. We hung signs over everything that illustrated our process, even equipment that wasn't running and we hadn't used it, hadn't been used in a decade. Put a sign over it, put a fancy name on it, put it on the tour. Put everybody in uniforms. They instantly look better in uniforms. Even our grimy, ugly manufacturing people look better if they're all in a uniform with a logo on it. And prospect comes, we take them on a choreographed tour to illustrate our manufacturing process. So here's the quality control station, which at the time you had to work to maintain a straight face when you showed it to them. But here's our quality control station, and here's the 5 things that happen here to your product. And here's packaging, and here's where the tape is loaded into the cassette. Okay, now choreographed physically, nothing beats it. Okay, but if you can't do that, then you do it on paper. So as soon as you diagram your process, so here's the Proctor team, what happens from listing to a sale. So okay, if you do list your house with us, what happens? Well, I can tell you what happens, but it's even better if I tell you and show you. So I got a little chart. Okay, so here's what happens in what order. We sign the listing agreement, this happens, this happens, this happens, this happens, this happens, this happens, this happens. Okay, now one cool thing about this is the other guy who comes out to do a listing presentation, he don't have one of these. All right, so we got a chart, he don't have a chart. We're better. "Where's your chart?" "I ain't got a chart." "This other guy's got a chart. Since he's got a chart, he must know better." See, Sydney gets to some of what she does experientially and some of it intuitively, but the intuitive is just as valuable. So like one of the things she said that was very, very important, if you're based on what they're saying and what they're showing you, if you're not confident, If it doesn't build your confidence, you're not going to be confident in having them do it. Well, this is a confidence builder. Oh, they really got a process here. They got a system. They got a chart. That builds my confidence in them. And so I don't care if you fix something. Say if I take my car in to find the thing, you know, the noise that it never makes except when you take it to the garage, but it makes it the other time. You know? I mean, what would— or like my computer. See, it does stuff that when the computer tech is there, it never does. So the only answer to that is it's in your imagination. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Say, I photographed it doing it yesterday. I got a picture. See, now if that guy walked in with a diagnostic chart, here's the 412 diagnostic steps that we're going to take to find that thing that only happens when we're not around. See, that builds my confidence. Than these guys because they got a chart. They may not be doing anything different than anybody else, but chart, right? So if you will illustrate your process to your customer, okay, I have a Miracle-Ear version of it too, but I won't take time to show it to you. If you will illustrate your process to your customer in the preparing them for the sales event, okay, so you're going to go to a high-end shoe store and buy real expensive shoes. It's better if you know the process of how they fit that shoe. Oh, we have 12 diagnostic things and we met in this, that. So if you'll do that, you immediately increase your credibility, you increase your authority, and you better prepare them for the sale. Last thing I want to show you, and I mentioned this earlier. People want to know what's going to happen to them. They want to know what's going to happen. And what we think is perfectly normal and routine because it's our business, is scary and frightening and the unknown and the uncertain to everybody who we are asking to do it. And so if we just tell them what's going to happen to them, they are much happier. They— we remove the threshold resistance. So here's— so miracle air, here's what to expect at your first appointment. Now there's enormous threshold resistance in this business. Nobody wants to come. They don't want to come for a hearing test and find out they need hearing aids. They don't want that problem verified for them. They don't like going to the doctor. They don't know what machine is going to be stuck in their earlobe. They're concerned about all this. So this is threshold resistance stuff. So here's what happens. Number 1, when you arrive, and we tell them, you will be greeted warmly by a staff member and introduced to the Miracle-Ear specialist. Who will be conducting your test. Now, an aside to this, back to choreography and then implementation. If we tell them they're going to be greeted warmly and they show up and get the, "Ugh, here." It's over. Game over. Because I very deliberately put a movie in their head of what's going to happen here. Better be the movie. Number 2, your entire appointment will last 45 to 75 minutes. They want to know how long they're going to be there. We want you to bring your spouse or family member or friend. Here's what you're going to receive. Here's the tests that you're going to get. And here's why these tests are so cool and why they're non-invasive and why they're not going to hurt you. Okay? And then number 5, you're going to discover how much better you could hear. Well, that's kind of why they're coming, isn't it? All right, so at the end of all this testing, you're gonna know how much better you could hear. Then I've got— and this is a device everybody can copy and use. The number changes, but your blank basic questions will be answered during your blank. Okay, so whatever your sales process is— an initial phone consultation, a visit to your place of business, you going to them on an appointment, Everybody can use this weapon. This particular device everybody here can use, and everybody should. Your blank basic questions will be answered during your blank. And then, of course, list the questions. Chiropractors will recognize this. I built this for chiropractic back in the late '70s and early '80s, but I move it from business to business to business, from place to place to place. So that's a device Everybody can use. So all those weapons have to do with preparation. The preparation part of this process that makes the sales event easier. Bill, you have 3 more, correct? Sure do. You're up.

Thank you for listening to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with Dan Kennedy. If you love hearing in on these lost Dan Kennedy talks and speeches and calls, then please let someone else know about this podcast. That's how you can help it to grow. And the more it grows, the more free Dan Kennedy we can bring to you. Also, Dan would love to give you the most incredible free gift ever designed to help you make maximum money in minimum time. And this free gift comes with almost $20,000 in pure money-making information for free. Just for saying maybe. You can get this gift from Dan right now at noBSletter.com. Not only do you get the $20,000 gift, you also get a subscription to 2 marketing newsletters that will be hand-delivered by the mailman to your mailbox each and every month. One from Dan Kennedy and one from me, Russell Brunson. To get this gift and your subscription, go to NoBSLetter.com right now.