#051: How to Get the Attention of Crazy-Busy Prospects with Agile Selling

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Well, hello everyone and thank you for joining me for episode 51 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who, who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. You can find detailed show notes for this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 51 so, you know, when it comes to prospecting and selling, I think that most of us ultimately want the easy way out. You know, we want that gimmick, that trick that will put our prospecting kind of an autopilot, would just make it a lot easier and just bring people to us, right? Or, you know, if it's outbound prospecting, we want that trick that's just that silver bullet that's just gonna get all or as many prospects as possible to, to just respond and just be in awe of our message and what we have to offer. But you know, I think we ultimately know that at the end of the day, if the trick, the gimmick or the technique is not based on strong fundamentals, it's going to have a very, very short life. And by strong fundamentals, I'm talking about if it's, it has to be based on something timeless. It has to be based on something that ultimately matters to the prospect, not on some shiny object, not on some gimmick or trick that, you know it's working because it's new or because it's different and so forth. And one of the many things that I love about my colleague Jill Conrath is that all her advice is based on strong fundamentals. She really understands human nature. She understands what decision makers want, what keeps them up at night, and how to continue the conversation that's already going on in their heads. Which ultimately, at the end of the day, that's what great copywriting, that's what great prospecting is all about. It's continuing that conversation already going on in your prospect's mind, in their head. So in this episode, Jill's coming back onto the show. It's been a long time since we've had her on and she's going to explain a few key items that are very, very relevant for us today. Number one, she's going to be talking about why selling has changed so drastically over the past 10 years. She's also gonna talk about why you need to adopt A different approach to your own marketing and selling efforts, and then how simple shifts in the way you approach your prospecting can have a dramatic impact on your income. Simple shifts in the way you talk to prospects and what you say, what you approach them about and so forth. So I think you're really gonna enjoy. Jill is a fantastic guest. She's so fun just to talk with. She's a very smart lady, and she really understands her world because she really is an independent professional. She is a solo professional, and she's built an entire business for herself using the same strategy. She really eats her own medicine. So, anyway, let's get right to it. Hey, Jill, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you here again.

I'm glad to be here again, Ed.

Well, let's. You know, you got a lot going on here, and we've had you on the show before, but I know many listeners might not be familiar with you. So why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and, you know, especially if you can start with maybe kind of the world you came in from, because I know that you. You have a really interesting background as someone who went from kind of a traditional career to becoming a consultant, solo professional. So tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, I started actually as a high school teacher. Not a lot of people know that. And was a very miserable high school teacher. It wasn't the right job for me. And I came up with an idea to start a company and put together a business plan and went to the service corps of retired execs, and they said, this is really good plan. And then they looked at me and the two other people I had engaged with my idea, and they said, now, which one of you is going to sell? And I looked at them absolutely horrified because I thought I had a good business idea. And they said, well, you know, I did say. I thought you said this was a good idea. And the guy said, well, it is, Jill, but somebody has to sell it. And so my two friends looked at me and they weren't looking at each other. And I finally looked at the guy who was from the government agency, and I said, we're going to have to talk about this because it was not something I wanted to do. I mean, I wanted to do the work, but I didn't want to have to sell because that was disgusting and degrading and manipulative and sleazy and all those other fine words that people use to describe it. So ultimately, I was the one who was chosen to go into sales for this company to learn how to sell before we would start it. And I said to my colleagues, I said, I will do this for one year, one year alone, and then I am done with it and we'll start the company. But I got hired by Xerox, and I discovered it was very different from what I thought and actually became enamored with the sales process itself because it was. It was so fascinating how it wasn't at all what I thought it was. It was interesting. It was challenging. I was out there meeting a lot of people. So anyway, I worked for Xerox for five years, Moved from small accounts to bigger accounts and sales management. And then I wanted to sell technology. So I jumped over and sold technology for a while. And then I quit and became a mother for about nine months. And that was as long as I could handle just being a mother. And I started my own business at that point. And it was. And I was like, everybody who's listening. And I was a freelancer who was trying to get work to support my passion of working in certain areas. And so I had to build my own business. And I've had some up and down over the course of the years, and I've worked with a number of different clients, but most time it's been good. There's been some times when it's been horrid, you know, when I had to relearn a whole bunch of things because the world was not the way I thought it was. And I had to retool my own self to be productive today.

So what do you. What's your focus today?

Well, my focus today, I have been working for the last couple years on helping people work with today's crazy busy decision makers. So, you know, a lot of times I've been working with people to help them set up meetings because, you know, if you're a small company trying to get into a bigger company that has deeper pockets and can pay you some money, everybody knows they don't answer the phone and they don't return your calls and they don't return your email messages. So for many years, I've been working in that arena, helping people capture and keep the attention of decision makers. But I'm moving more right now into a slightly different area, which is how do you get up to speed fast in what you're doing? So there are so many changes going on in the marketplace right now, or with our buyers or with the products and services that we're selling. There's so many things that are happening that we really have to be quick to learn today. We have to be able to note what we have to learn, and then we have to really throw ourselves in in a whole new way than we've ever done before in order to not be walking through the valley of death, but actually to be doing the work we love to do.

So let's talk a little bit more about that. So looking at the past 10 years or so, how has selling professional services, and of course, really selling anything but professional services, how has that changed over the past 10 years?

It's changed in so many ways. I mean, the reality is people are outsourcing a lot more of this work, so there is more opportunity. And, you know, certainly a lot of people are freelancers that are listening with the movement towards content marketing as a way to generate interest, et cetera. I mean, for many people listening there, it's just been expanding. The market has been expanding, but so has the difficulty in reaching and connecting with the decision maker that also has been expanding in difficulty. And so it's a time of great opportunity for somebody who will choose to learn what it takes to be successful. And I say that very deliberately because everybody that I know, not everybody, but 99% of the people that I know who are in small business sort of have this feeling that you either have it and say sales or you don't. And the reality of it is, is that sales is a skill, just like writing is a skill or drawing is a skill. I mean, sales is a skill that can be learned. But most people don't have a clue where to start. And so they just kind of do what they think they're supposed to do, which really sucks for the most part. It's grossly ineffective. And then they get bad responses, and then they throw up their arms and they go, well, see, I can't sell. I can't sell. But it's not true. They can't sell when they're selling. But if they would focus on what it took to be good at sales, they would feel clean doing it. And I mean clean, because most people feel dirty when they're having to sell, quote, end quote. So they'd feel clean. They'd feel like they were valuable assets to people if they would be doing it the right way. But when they're doing it the wrong way, they just feel lousy and miserable at the same time.

Well, and I know we could talk about this for days, but if you could summarize, maybe just a few key points that freelancers should focus on in terms of, you know, if they're trying to learn how to sell better. Okay, what would be the key areas or the key concepts they should really have down?

Well, let me just say that there's some mindsets that they have to assume before we get going on anything, okay?