The Roots of Information Marketing & Sales

A lot of the times that we talk about in the Magnetic Marketing Podcast have to deal with direct marketing strategies with the goal of information marketing and sales. Today we want to get to the root of all that and talk about sales with the Sales Whisperer. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. Today we get to listen as Robert Scrobb interviews Wes Schaefer. Wes Schaefer is known as the Sales Whisperer. He's a sales trainer, marketing consultant, keynote speaker, and copywriter. And Wes is going to get us back to the roots of why sales are so important and so critical. Specifically, nothing happens until the sale is made. So why do sales get such a bad rap? How do you measure it? And what's the best way to equip anybody who may be wary of making sales or new? This is an excellent podcast as a reminder of everything that we do all comes down to the sales that we make. Let's listen in and see what we can do to upgrade our game in our marketing, in our information, and in our sales.

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 ignored at your own peril. They're not really lessons, they're kind of laws that you live by. Dan opened my eyes to what 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.

When you see the full-scale $2 million or $6 million or even $15 million information marketing businesses today, it's easy to lose sight of this industry's roots with all the Facebook strategies, landing pages, email follow-up sequences, coaching levels, and all the rest. In the beginning, information marketing was about generating leads for salespeople, eliminating cold prospecting, and creating a system for your salespeople to have leads without them having to— your best salespeople having to spend time of trying to figure out and find somebody to talk to. I'm Robert Scrogg, President of the Information Marketing Association and author of the official Get Rich Guide to Information Marketing. Today's program focuses on the roots of the information marketing business, creating conversations with prospects to create a sale. My guest today is Wes Schaefer, ruthlessly pragmatic sales trainer, marketing consultant, keynote speaker, speaker, copywriter, Infusionsoft expert, and above all, doer. And as Wes says, nothing happens until a sale is made. And Wes goes on to say, a sale cannot be made until a prospect has been identified. A prospect cannot be identified until a business owner informs the marketplace that they are in a business with a valuable offering. Each step must be carefully crafted, integrated, and then automated in order to create a business sustains you versus a service that drains you. Wes is an expert in helping companies build all of that. And Wes, now I appreciate you joining me. Thank you for participating in this month's Best Practices call.

Hey, thanks for having me. We've, uh, we've known each other, what, 7 or 8 years, and I finally made it to the level to be on your show.

It's a great day. You know, we have this very ruthless and thorough vetting process.

I'm just grateful those 37 other people all called in sick today and I was available.

That sounds wonderful. Well, thank you so much. It's an honor having you. Now, when you say that nothing happens until a sale is made, I can tell you, especially with my background as a CPA and business systems, that A lot of people reject that notion. You can't make a sale before you have something to offer a client, and plus there needs to be somebody to accept that sale, deposit the money, and pay the vendors. There's got to be accountants after all. There's a lot more that goes into a sale than just getting someone to say yes. Why is that sale so important in your eyes?

Well, it's, you know, I love the story of Apple. You know, and I read the Steve Jobs biography not long after he died, and Steve Wozniak was a smart dude, developed a great program, and he wanted to give it away, okay, the early Apple stuff. And if he had given it away, now it's true, he did create something fantastic, but if he had given it away, where would we be today? You know, would the most valuable company in the world ever have gone anywhere? And so one of the very early things, the pivotal things that I learned in the info marketing space and from Dan Kennedy really, is that you can indeed sell something prior to it being made. And you see that a lot with like Kickstarter programs. I was just, I was just watching Shark Tank last night actually. My family loves the show, and this guy was on, this guy was on that does craft brews, real craft beers, and people vote on their flavors that they want them to make each month. But in order for you to vote, in order for you to vote, you have to put up $25 and say, I, if this flavor is accepted, you may charge my credit card $25 for 4 beers. Okay. Now, if it doesn't get enough votes, the card is not charged., but those guys are literally selling something before it's even made, okay? And they have the benefit of knowing once it gets to enough votes, orders, okay, they can go make that flavor profitably. So there's always gonna be the pros and the cons, you know, two sides of the same coin. You know, this next hour I will contradict myself probably 18 times. Because that's the way the world works. The opposite of a profound truth is usually another profound truth. And so yes, you've got to have something good to actually sell, but there are plenty of PhDs and super smart entrepreneurs that are poor. There are people with patents and designs that never sold it. There are people that went and designed a better mousetrap, and because they got a good deal, they ordered a truckload from China, and it's now, they're now sitting in their garage, you know, while their car sits on the street, because they've never been able to sell that better mousetrap. But they got a good deal on 10,000 of them, sitting in their garage, okay. So, you know, and I would posit that, Having the best product is not the best guarantee for success or predictor of success, but being the best in sales and marketing is, okay? I can take a second place product, okay, insofar as its design and feature set and functionality, and make it number one over a better product, and you see it all the time. Going back to VHS, cassette, and Betamax, right? Betamax was a better technology, but VHS was better marketed. So Betamax went away. Okay, that's an old school example, but you see that all the time. So being the absolute best product, the best deliverer of your services, the best chiropractor, the best computer programmer, doesn't mean you'll have the best business until you market it and make the best sales.

Well, and you certainly dated yourself with your VHS, Betamax example.

I'm actually 17, but I read a lot.

You read a lot of history of media, certainly. But I think I agree, you know, certainly with your— like with the Apple example, you know, it had to be sold and people had to pay money for it. Otherwise, there was really no way to propagate it. And you have Linux, which is a free operating system, and it's out there, and there are folks that use it, but nowhere near as many as use either PC or Apple operating systems, because there is an infrastructure, a sales process behind that, there's no sense of anybody— there's a few folks that have their own little custom versions or will do Linux implementations, but there's no big sales process to sell the benefits of Linux, and thus there are very few adopters of it. And so it doesn't really matter if you're the best or the second best. You've got to have a sales system or there's nothing— nothing's going to happen in your business. You can have the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, it's not going to sell, and you won't have the opportunity to get the word out. I guess since sales is so important, Wes, what is sales? What is it all about? What is it to you as you're known as the Sales Whisperer?

I'll give you a couple of examples or baselines. One is from the great Zig Ziglar. Transference of a feeling, and that feeling is confidence. Okay, at the end of the day, is the person at the other end of the phone, the other end of the computer screen, sitting across the table from you, are they confident that they will get a return on their investment? If you have a $100 offering, will they get at least $100 worth of value, and preferably $200 or $1,000 worth of value? Okay, so are you conveying that confidence? And the other part is, I learned from Steve Clark, he was a former IBA, Dan Kennedy out of Florida, and you know, he had it in 4 parts. Selling is a calling, serving is its purpose, questioning is the process, and a sale may be the solution. Okay, so I truly believe that, I mean, I was called to be in sales, okay? Just like somebody has a calling to become a doctor or an engineer or a teacher or an astronaut, right? I was meant to be in sales. And so serving is its purpose. And again, going back to Zig Ziglar, you know, he says, "You can get whatever you want if you help enough other people get what they want." So sure, you can be the wham, bam, thank you ma'am. You can, you know, pressure hard, the third coffee's yours. Throw out the old school alternative choice closes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and make some money. Okay, and I've worked with plenty of guys that have outsold me for a time, maybe for a short sprint, but not over the duration, okay? The guys that acted and sold like that, because high pressure can work in the short time. But like anything, I mean, look at your engine. If you have too much high pressure, if you redline that engine, for too long, it will break. Okay, so, so selling is a calling, serving is purpose. Are you there truly to help that person across from you, uh, do better, you know, perform better, improve their life by giving you money? Okay, now you get to that point by questioning. Questioning is a process. Like, my wife right now just left her doctor's appointment. Okay, that doctor is going to give them, as soon as she checks in, they're gonna give her a chart, she's gonna fill out all the information, you know, allergies, history, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then they're gonna put her on a scale and she will not tell me what that scale says. They'll take her height, they'll take her blood pressure, they'll take her temperature, okay? Then the doctor will come in and perform the diagnosis, right? Check her out and then come up, bring and perform the examination, then come up with a diagnosis and a prescription. If that doctor, that doctor could walk right in, look at her and say, I know exactly what's wrong, you know, here, take, you know, 5-day amoxicillin and you'll be better. Even if that doctor was right, she wouldn't trust the diagnosis and the prescription because he didn't take the time to go through and thoroughly hear her out. Okay, so questioning is the process. We have to sit down with that customer, that prospect, and ask them what's wrong, okay? Ask them how long has this been an issue? Who besides you is concerned about this issue? You know, and if you had to put a dollar amount, an impact on this, how would you quantify this? And that's the key part, is getting that prospect to say, This is a $5,000 issue. This is a $10,000 issue. You know, this is a $500 pain, right? So, and it could be anything, you know, it could be something small at the house. You gotta, I got a toilet that's running. All right, well, how much is this impacting? Well, we didn't know it was running. It's, you know, it's in the guest bedroom. I would never really go in there. You know, we noticed our water bill was, you know, an extra $150 last month. Like, oh my gosh, $150. So what happens if you don't fix it? Well, the bill will be another $150 unless it gets worse. Then maybe it could spring a leak, it could rupture, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so if I were to charge you $200 to come out and fix that toilet, would that be an investment you'd be willing to make to make a $150 a month issue that could explode? Would that be a wise investment? You know, and somebody will go, well, of course. So come out and fix it. So you've got to get through the questioning process. You'll understand the pain, you'll understand then the value you offer can be put in perspective. Now if I say it'll cost $1,000 for me to come out and fix that toilet, you'd be like, well, let me call around, let me ask my neighbor. He's kind of handy, maybe I can cook him dinner, he'll come fix it for the cost of a steak. Or maybe I'll just hop on YouTube and I'll spend an hour myself learning. I'll run down to Home Depot and, you know, 2 hours into this and $20 in parts, I'll fix it. But my time is worth something. So through that questioning process, then I can offer a prescription. I can then put it in dollar value that makes sense. Okay, now my price can at least be justified. Because you need to price your services based on the value that you provide. Just because you can do something quickly and easily doesn't mean you should charge very little for it.

Okay, I mean— Oh, go ahead. And I think that's important, and a lot of folks really devalue what they deliver. But I think I really wanna back up for a second because Yeah, as I'm thinking, you know, within the information marketing world, you know, we're all about sales letters, sales pages, sales videos, webinars that sell, you know, generating leads through, you know, all kinds of media, put them through this process, maybe have a follow-up sequence and generate sales that way. How is this actual one-on-one conversation exploratory discussion fit in with that? Is it really necessary in today's information marketing world to have this sales function?

Oh yeah, I mean, why are you putting out information in the first place, right? I mean, it's to make a sale. And the best writers, musicians, you know, novelists, etc., Always pick one person that they're writing to. Carly Simon, you know, "You're so vain, you probably think the song is about you." You know, she wrote that song. I think she just recently admitted it was about Warren Beatty, right? But one dude jilted her and she wrote to that one person, and then that resonated with millions of people over the last 40 years, okay? And So in information marketing and in any marketing, you still have your buying persona. You have the Warren Beatty out there in the world somewhere and you're writing to that one person. And so you're building trust, credibility, you're asking questions, you're diagnosing remotely, "Hey, has this ever happened to you?" "Do you have problems falling asleep?" "Do you toss and turn at night?" "Do you wake up multiple times throughout the night to use the restroom?" "Do you wake up tired?" "Do you find yourself lacking in attention?" "Are you fatigued?" "Do you crash after lunch?" "Yes, yes, yes." "Then you need this pill." So you're diagnosing remotely, but it's the same thing. Selling is a calling, right? Do you have something that fills a need that'll make the world a better place? Are you seeking to serve? Are you putting something out there that will indeed help them? Or are you just there to make a buck? And then questioning is a process. You see this a lot in the Dan Kennedy world especially, but asking a lot of questions. But then they have to turn around and answer the questions as well, but they always leave a little bit. That curiosity may have killed the cat, but it also made the sale.

Okay?

And then at the end, Then the fourth part of this that Steve taught me is that a sale may be the solution. I'm not going to force this down your throat. Okay? That's why you see a lot of the risk reversal, the money-back guarantee. Use it for a year. If you don't get a 300% ROI, send it back or keep it and just— I'll send you back your money. So you want people to know that this will work. You know, trust me, apply it, take the pill, take the— enroll in the program, do what I teach you, okay? But if I'm sitting there talking with somebody, you know, since 2008 I've been a partner of Infusionsoft, but I have told more people not to buy Infusionsoft than I have told to buy Infusionsoft, okay? And I've been one of their top resellers in the world, so it's not like I don't sell very much. Because in my dialogue, in my diagnosis, I recognize that either somebody is not ready, maybe they need something smaller. Okay, maybe they just need to do an email newsletter. I'll set them up on Mailchimp for free. I'll get them AWeber for $20 a month, okay, so they can learn how to create a lead magnet, create a web form, create a follow-up sequence. Or maybe they're too big, right? I'll bring them into HubSpot. I'll set them up with Salesforce.com and ExactTarget. And people appreciate me steering them in the right direction. So they'll come to me for a truck, right? And I'm like, no, you need a minivan. And so that's why I say a sale may be the solution, even if I don't sell minivans, right? If they come to me and I'm like, I'd love to sell you a truck, you need a minivan, call my buddy, he works next door at the Honda place, and he'll set you up on a good deal on any man, you know.

Well, Wes, um, I think also, I think one of the key points is, as, as good as all the automated sales tools are, as good as all the websites and videos and webinars and one-to-many opportunities and JV things and everything that you may do Oh, when the info marketers I have seen that have embraced also having a telephone sales or some sort of in-person sales component have all grown drastically as a result of incorporating that into their business, that, that, that sales function more than paid for more than made up for the additional expense, aggravation, frustration of having a sales team, and will often within a sales organization, within very short order, become the primary source of new customers and members. And with the individuals that I've seen, that once they— for the folks that would send out sales letters and wait for people to come on their order forms and buy, if they will open themselves up to a diagnostic sales call with their prospects, they will really see conversions go up. So even if you're not ready to have a full sales force, even just opening yourself up a little bit to having some of these sales conversations, you know, a lot of times folks are already presold, they just feel like they need somebody to talk to in order to buy. And then other times you have an opportunity that, like you were saying before, to help them understand the real value that this has and that how this is going to, you know, how this, you know, $500 or $1,000 or $12,000 or $100,000 investment is going to solve a problem that's much larger than the investment. And, you know, kind of one of my thoughts though, Wes, is with all of this, you were talking about Zig Ziglar and the transference of emotion and how to help folks. And, you know, with all of that, all this feel-good stuff around sales, why does this sales function have such a bad rap?

Because, like anything, Marketers ruin everything. Okay, so case in point, right? So look at Facebook. Facebook was some kids hanging out in college and they could share pictures and probably get dates. Okay, and then businesses figured out they could have a fan page and now they're running ads. And now, so then, you know, then it happened with Twitter and now it's going to happen with Snapchat. Gary Vee's all about Snapchat, so Our kids will probably soon be off of Snapchat because all the parents are hopping on Snapchat. And so what happens is literally a few bad apples ruin the bunch. And so selling is actually, it comes from a Norwegian word that means to serve. Okay, and, but people, one or two bad apples, high-pressure cheesy people Go out there, they knock on your door, they sell you some cleaning solvent that will get grease out of your concrete driveway, it'll remove bloodstains, and they sell it to you for $100, and then you realize a little home mixture of whatever, baking soda and vinegar for 18 cents will do the same thing. Then you feel like you got suckered. Then you don't trust anybody. And now our defenses are up because we've been lied to. And now even the honest, good salespeople out there are starting off in the hole. But so you need to recognize that, you know, the biggest secret weapon of the best salespeople out there is that they have empathy. Okay, and empathy means they can put themselves in the shoes of the prospect. They can see things from their perspective. Because one of my biggest little secrets, if you will, is that I hate selling. I hate the old school traditional concept of selling, which is you gotta go for no. You can't ask any opening questions or any closing questions they can answer with a yes or no. Keep it open. If you get no, you gotta go get no. 5 times before you get to yes. Spend 80% of your time on the close. That's where the money is made. And it's like, I don't believe that. I would much rather, through my marketing and my content, my videos, my free reports, educate the prospect. And that's what I've done. I'm going on my 10th year now with The Sales Whisperer, and I create free reports. I create a ton of blog posts. I create hundreds of videos you can watch for free on YouTube. Educating the people. So like, taking FusionSoft for example, that's— people would consider that a complex sale. You know, you're going to spend $1,000 to $3,000 up front, you're going to spend $200 to $500 a month, it takes a lot of work to get set up. And yet I have had people click the Buy Now link on my website and pay for the setup without ever speaking to me. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I have had literally hundreds of one-call closes. People call me up, or they click on my link, they set a time to talk, we get on the phone, and a 30-minute dialogue, they hand over their money. And it's not because I pressured them, but they'll call me and say, hey, I feel like I know you, I've been researching this, I really like your video. I've had people buy my $50 Infusionsoft book before they own the software.

You know, this guy said, well, hey, I figured it was a good investment.

You know, if I figured it wasn't right, then okay, I'm out $50, but at least I didn't make a multi-thousand dollar incorrect decision. So by putting all these assets out there, it does warm people up, okay? And so now when I'm speaking to prospects, they're 50 to 80% sold. But it's going back to that confidence and going back to what you talked about. You know, only like 6% of the world's commerce ecommerce. So a lot of entrepreneurs fall into the trap of, oh, I must be doing something wrong because I'm not making money in my sleep like such and such. But you know, either A, they're lying, or B, they've done some things maybe they shouldn't have, or maybe they've got a big network of JV partners and they're paying out a ton of profits to make that happen. So you can't really compare yourself to others. Most businesses can and will benefit and need to have some type of human interaction process in place, especially if it's, if it's a sale of any significance. Okay, put that, figure that into your process to where people can at least email with you live. I have live chat on my website. I just had a chat with a prospect As we were starting this call, phone calls of course, live demos, and even if it has to be a face-to-face, that's fine. You know, figure it out, make it happen. That's part of the deal.

With your, so you're having all this stuff to have automated sales, and I think that your point about having, you know, you can't compare yourself to others, and you certainly cannot compare yourself to others' stories. And what have, have been said, because you don't know at all the facts and the circumstances are often very different. And it's also important whenever you see that to ask, okay, what did— you know, if I get vastly different results from somebody else, you know, what was the difference? You know, what did he have in place that I did not? And you can see about, right, uh, you know, getting those things implemented.

But the—

I think the key— a lot of folks ask me is, okay, within the information marketing world, they're taught this website structure to have a landing page, and then the opt-in goes to a sales page, and it dispenses a lead magnet via email, and then there's usually some sort of offer on that thank you page, and then there's a shopping cart page where they buy, and then If they don't buy, there's a follow-up sequence. How do you enter— when you're looking to make a sale, how do you introduce this concept of, why don't we talk on the phone?

Oh man, I think having— putting your phone number out there makes you more believable. More credible. Okay? Having your contact information, about us, makes you real.

Okay?

Because people, again, they've been burned, so their defenses are up. So they're tiptoeing into your waters. Okay? So you need to figure out where you think it is appropriate. The nice thing with digital marketing, the tools that we have at our disposal today, is that we can track what pages people visit, how long they're on those pages, what report did they opt in for. You can set it up to where, and I do this with most of my reports, is that instead of just sending them the report, I send them an email with a link that says, hey, it's a big report, I didn't want it to get clogged up in your email, so click here to download it. Because my software can track if they click it.? Because a lot of people will request something and never get it, okay, or never open it and read it. So I want to see, okay, they requested it, did they open their email, did they click the download? Because if they didn't, I'm going to keep pinging them to get them to consume the data. So you need to figure out, maybe if in that point, after you send 2 reminders and they don't actually click the link, Maybe you offer a phone call. Okay? You just, you need to enter the conversation going on in the mind of the prospect. You need to be empathetic. You need to understand their fears, their concerns, their worries, their doubts. And determine, it's a cost-benefit kind of relationship you need to juggle. You can't talk to everybody.

Okay?

You can't give every single prospect an hour of your time. To get this warm and fuzzy. So you've got to figure out, and I think because everything's digital, if you measure it, you can see at what point should you interject. At what point should you say, "Hey, give me a call. Hey, here's my cell phone number. Text me if you've got a question. I'll respond immediately." So if you can measure it, it can be improved. Most entrepreneurs though, they're not measuring anything, they're just kind of going with the wind. And so you gotta balance that, right? And measure when should you offer that. Now if you're selling a high-ticket item, and you have very few prospects, okay, but it's a big, big sale, then maybe you offer your phone number right away. Okay, if you're selling a lower-ticket item, you know, I have a $15 book on sales and marketing. I'm not gonna speak to every single person to sell a $15 book., but I'll speak to every single person that has gone to my website, downloaded my 40 Ways to Profit from Your Email Marketing System, then came back and downloaded my Infusionsoft cheat sheet, and then I see them bouncing around on my site and they're looking at HubSpot versus Infusionsoft, Ontraport versus Infusionsoft, Zoho versus Infusionsoft. I'm like, okay, this person is serious. I'm gonna be proactive and say, hey, you wanna talk? What questions do you have? Blah, blah, blah, and I'm gonna accelerate that cycle with him, you know, or her, and versus somebody just got one report and went away.

Now, I'm gonna let my automation drip on them. Is it necessary to have any fancy language around that where, you know, that, 'cause a lot of folks, they wanna feel, you know, the prospects only wanna talk to the guru that's at the top of the mountain, not the guru that's at the bottom of the mountain. And so there's this sense that if you are, if you make yourself or you make conversation too available, that they won't respect it or appreciate it as much. Is there a way to invite them to a diagnostic call or a, something where it sounds like there's a little, like maybe they're getting something in return, and that there's an incentive to be there, and also that it has a kind of a set value, even if you're giving it away as a sales call, at least there is kind of a name, and is there any, have you found that that is valuable in some cases?

Yes and no. I mean, here's another, I'll contradict myself. And I love Dan Kennedy's advice, like ruthless management, right? Make yourself invisible. And there's a lot to be said to be that guru on the Hill, and that's hard to reach. And I create that to a degree, but then I also make myself accessible. I mean, it's rare that I answer my own phone, but if I find myself, you know, got a little spare time, I mean, maybe I'm doing some kind of menial task, I gotta update some stuff, I'm just sitting at my desk, I'll answer my phone. And 9 times out of 10, people go, "Oh my gosh, is this really Wes, the Sales Whisperer? I didn't know you'd answer your own phone." Okay, and making myself accessible has endeared me to many, many people. And I'm very accessible online, right? If you ask me a question on Twitter, 'cause I'll have people, email me all the time or private message me some very detailed question. And I'm like, look, I cannot answer this for free, okay? And it's not a quick answer. I said, but if you'll ask me this online, if you'll go to my website, I think any blog, and go to the comments and ask the question publicly, I'll either respond there or I'll make a whole— I'll make a blog about it. I'll make a video to answer the question because if one person has that question, than many do, but none of us can just give away infinite free time, right? We'll go out of business. But if one person has that question, great. Others do as well, I'll make a blog post about it and use that forever, okay, to build rapport and trust. So, but yeah, there can be, sometimes people are like, oh, I only want to talk to the guru. And if you find that happening, I think you're going to be in a little bit of trouble Because how can you ever sell that business if it's just you? If you're the only one that can close any deals, it's not a scalable business. It's not something, you're not really building an asset, because as soon as you stop talking to people, the business goes away. So you need to figure out how to diversify, how to replicate. I mean, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, they couldn't build multi-billion dollar businesses if they fixed every computer. Okay, so you are replaceable, believe it or not. Yes, it may be tough. Yes, you may need to hire 3 salespeople to equal you, okay, but hey, getting 3 people at 80% of you is better than you doing every single thing on your own.

You do have to work that out. And I'd love to talk with you about how to bring on salespeople, how to find them, train them, motivate them. And all that, I'd like to first, you know, a lot of folks, I almost kind of, you can always think of this as passive-aggressive sales where I don't have to talk with anybody on, you know, a lot of people are attracted to the world of information marketing because they don't have to talk to anybody. At least that's the, you know, one of the premises is that, you know, you are separated from your customer and they just come to your website and buy., and you don't have to talk or interact with customers. And so that, you know, this information marketing world kind of attracts a lot of people who aren't, you know, are kind of predisposed not to like this whole sales process. But, you know, what if, you know, if they, after listening to this, they reluctantly agree, okay, you know, I've got a program and it's, you know, it's worth me getting on the phone or having, you know, Joe, who's good, get on the phone. You know, what are, you know, kind of what are the new ABCs, you know, what are of sales? What, what would you, how would you start someone out, uh, that has been reluctant and, and gun-shy about getting on the phone and make a sale? To, uh, what can you equip them with to make that as easy as possible to to get success?

Well, the old adage is people buy from people they know, like, and trust. And I think the knowing and the liking are overplayed, certainly the liking. People, I always say, people don't do business with you for one of two reasons. Either they haven't heard of you or they have. Okay? And you need to figure out, what that is, and then take a step back. And, you know, even if you have, you know, the bedside manner of Attila the Hun, you know, when he's hungover, if you have differentiated yourself and if people trust you and if you have a solution that is truly unique and extremely beneficial and priced right, people will buy from you. Okay, and so now you have to look at what I call the ABCDEs of selling. I had to extend it from the ABCs. But it's truly a system. So I say that any sale, any business, this is what you're doing. You're attracting, then you're bonding, then you're converting, right, into a sale. And you're delivering, and preferably over-delivering., and then you're endearing yourself to them. And so when you look at that, A, B, and C, C is the money, and that's only the middle stage, okay? If you have a $100 solution and you charge $100, you know what, your customer is just satisfied. They're not ecstatic, they're not pissed off, they're just satisfied. So when they need another $100 solution, maybe they'll come to you. Maybe they won't. So what are you doing to overdeliver and to endear? Now if you are truly antisocial, okay, borderline psychopathic, truly have no business interacting with other human beings, but you're a great doer or inventor or developer, then stay in the back office. And hire somebody that can tolerate you. I think, going back to Steve Jobs, he was probably a little bit of that. We've all heard the stories. When he was happy, he was really happy and generous, and when he wasn't, which seemed to be most of the time, he was a jerk. So his idea of a sale was probably, you buy this or you're too stupid and I'll never talk to you again and I'll push you off a cliff because I can't stand to be around stupid people that won't buy my computer. It was probably his style. Okay, and so that doesn't scale. So he needed to hire salespeople that could convey the message. So, and you know what, you may need to even put a go-between, a liaison in between you and the salespeople that can translate and convey your message without all the madness., but there has to be that human touch in there for most businesses. Like I said, only 6% of the commerce is e-commerce, and I mean 94% of what's going on out there in the world requires some sort of human touch. So, you know, look at your system. I tell people, look at what you do 2 or 3 times a day or 4 or 5 times a week and figure out how to automate it. Now maybe that automation, maybe I should say develop a process. Now, I say automation because that's the world I've grown up in over the last 8 years, putting in systems like around Infusionsoft and HubSpot, but somewhere in there, there's a call for a human touch. A task is assigned to a salesperson to reach out, to interact. There's a link that gets sent, "Hey, it looks like you're pretty far along in the process. If you're ready to make a decision but still have some questions and want to make sure it's right for you, click here to pick a time." I have access to my calendar and let's go over it. Okay, so I'm putting that out there all the time. So you have to look at, you know, again, what are you doing repetitively and figure out how to put a process around that to streamline it, okay? Because time kills deals. The more time you're wasting doing tedious stuff is time you're not doing marketing yourself, researching the competition, creating a new marketing campaign, to get yourself out there in the world. So there's a lot that goes into it, right? But again, have a process. Henry Ford is a household name, not because he invented cars. He just invented a way, a process to make them faster, to make them more affordably, to make them more reliably, right?

Put standards in place.

And so you have to do that with your own business as well.

And so I'm sure there's a human touch in there. The— now with, you know, how do you— you're working with, you know, with the— with— how do you find— you're talking about get somebody who can stand you that would be good, you know, that could, could handle those calls. How do you find somebody who could be a good salesperson and maybe hold them accountable and get them to actually make some sales?

How does How does somebody, you know, do that? But in a nutshell, again, you have to have a process. If you've had high turnover, one of a couple reasons contribute to that. Either you're hiring the wrong people, or you're setting the wrong expectations, or you have a terrible offering, you know, that they can't be sold. But usually, business owners are selling the salespeople on why they should come work for them. Or they're letting that salesperson pull the wool over their eyes. Their last sale they ever make was to you to hire them. Then they start coasting. You need to have a process. You need to put your prospective salespeople through the wringer.

Okay? It needs to be— What do you mean by, like, what does that process look like? What are some of the steps?

Or I guess, you know, how does that— Well, number one, okay, number one, you need to always be recruiting. That doesn't mean you're always hiring, but you should have a process. You should have a careers tab on your website where people can fill out their information, okay? So you're always building up bench strength, okay? Just like college teams, just like professional teams, okay? Those athletes are only going to be with them for a short time. So you better be recruiting all the time. Always be recruiting. Always be recruiting. But again, have a process. And what I do when people fill out an online form, I send them instructions. And the instructions say, "Mail me your resume. You can email your resume, but mail me a resume." That sorts out about 80% of people. Most people want to sit at home and just fill out forms and hope somebody hires them. Okay, if you're not willing to print out a piece of paper, okay, lick an envelope and put a stamp and mail it to me, then you're not serious about this job.

Okay?

So if you go through that step, then all right, then we look at it. You know, if you're an average kind of player, fine. We'll just save it. We'll call you if we need you. But hey, on the 1% chance you're a superstar, I'm going to make room for you. Okay? But I'm still not going to hire you right away.

You got to play hard to get.

Okay, you have to set the proper expectations up front. Just like you have a teacher in a classroom. Teacher can't walk in day one and say, "Hey everybody, I brought snacks. Here's some chips and Coke and bubble gum, and let's just learn some math this year." Okay, done. You're lost.

It's over.

Those kids won't learn anything. You know, you walk in and you crack the whip, right? Put your feet down, spit your gum out, turn your cell phones off, you know, open to page 3. We're going to get going. Then as they perform, on a Friday, maybe you bring in some snacks. Or after their testing, "Hey, y'all did a good job, you worked really hard, here's a little break." Okay, so you put them through the wringer on their interview process because your prospects are going to put them through the wringer to try to make the sale. So if they can't handle a little bit of pressure from you in the interview, then they can't handle it from a prospect. Awesome.

All right. And, and then, and now, now when you bring these folks on, I guess, how do you get them up to speed? You know, like, all right, here's the phone, start making some sales, champ. You know, how do we start getting them to actually perform and get them to the point where they can start making sales?

Well, so here's the other problem. Most companies, sales managers, business owners, whatever, they give them a quota and they say, go get them. Okay, and again, like Steve Clark had taught me, you manage activity and you pay on results. Okay, so you need to understand, if you want that salesperson to make $1 million worth of sales, over 12 months, let's say $1.2 million, all right, $100,000 a month, then you need to back that down. Say, okay, you're gonna make $100,000 a month, and we know that we have a 50% closing ratio, okay, you start backing that down. So you say, all right, the average sale is $10,000, okay, then you need to make 10 sales per month to hit $100,000 each month. And we know that out of every, for every 2 proposals that we give, 1 buys. So you have to give 2 proposals to get 1 sale, all right? And if you need 10 in a month, then that, you know, that's what, 2.5 deals per week. So you need to be making 5 proposals in a week. Well, let's say you have a 50% meeting to proposal ratio. That means you have to go on 10 appointments with a qualified prospect every week. And let's say out of— you have a 50% closing ratio there, meaning 50% of the qualified people you talk to agree to a meeting.. So you better have 20 qualified conversations. But only 50% of the people will pick up their phone. So that means you better be making 40 dials of the phone, right? So you can back it down to literally what should they be doing this hour to stay on track. And almost nobody has that type of detail. They just say, there's the phone, here's what we sell, go get 'em. No, you need to back it down. You need to be able to tell them, you need to make this many calls, send out this many emails, attend this many networking events, this many trade shows. You know, send out as many handwritten thank you cards every day, every week, and you will hit your number.

Very few people have that type of analytics.

Awesome.

So Wes, any final thoughts or anything for the good of the order today?

Hey man, thanks for having me. And you know, I always tell people on my own podcast, you know, take action. You know, the power of one, right? Pull out one nugget from this and implement it. So if you need help hiring, jump on that. If you need to know your own numbers, detach yourself from the process and look down and say, what is my ideal process? And start writing that out. You know, 'cause once you get a little clarity on that, things will start to fall into place. You know, I think we all get overwhelmed. We have so much to do. But eventually you gotta just, you gotta pick one thing to focus on and get that addressed., and then the next you'll know what to do.

So just pick one and implement. Wes, thank you so much for being my guest today. Very valuable information, something that could really help a lot of people.

So thank you very much for your time today. Hey, my pleasure. 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. Now 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 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.