Wes Schaeffer — The 5-Step Process To Make Every Sale

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast with your boys Mount Wolf and Joe Fear. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast.

We're back.

We're back. Were you gonna start singing?

I don't know. It sounded like you are actually more. More good at singing than I get some melody.

And on this podcast we have Wes Schaefer with us. He's another SoCal boy actually up from Mariett. We used to live. It's pretty cool. Okay. No, that's actually a true story. He lived down the street from where we were, so that was cool. All right, so that was actually a nice little jingle. I think that'll come out good.

Yeah, we should just start making all of our intros like lounge style.

Do we have to pay royalties to that song that you just sang?

I don't know. Do elevators pay royalties?

Do elevators play this music anymore? All right, so Wes is the man. If you're thinking sales and really just an all around amazing experience that you want to give your prospects and customers listen to this podcast. Everybody needs it. I don't actually want to just say sales. It's legitimately like everything. It's the experience that a customer will have with you.

The stuff that he talks about around sales and how to build like a sales system is also applicable to any sort of online sales automation as well. So anything he talks about in regards to phone sales, just know that it's also applicable to like selling through email, selling through messenger bots, selling through, you know, you name it, vsl, sales, videos, any of it. It all applies. And he's gonna walk us through his five step process to make every sale. And he'll explain, you know, what it means to make a sale, and he'll explain that five step process. And then we also talked about hiring salespeople. Cause that's something that Joe and I are sort of exploring in our own business. So we decided to kind of take it down that rabbit hole of if we were gonna hire a salesperson, what and what sort of traits should we look for and where do we go to find them and all of this interesting stuff. And he shares some pretty interesting resources for finding salespeople. So five step sales process, how to find salespeople. Maybe a little bit of chat about podcasting. Cause he's got a podcast as well.

It might just happen. Yeah.

But this is Wes Schaefer from the Sales Whisperer.

He demand and definitely start take Some notes about this ABCE method. That's his five step, because that's definitely abcde. You skip the D. Oh, yeah, yeah. You definitely need some of that.

You need some of the D, Joe. Is that what you're about to say?

No. You do, obviously.

All right, now, on that note, let's.

Go talk to Wes.

Let's go over there now. Hey, Wes. How you doing today, man?

I'm good. How are you?

Pretty good. We're also COW guys. We're just talking about how you're still up in Murietta, where we lived for what, few years or so, Matt and I. Yeah, that was kind of a happy circumstances. I think we got hooked up with our. From Henry Evans up there.

Oh, yeah, yeah. He's down in San Diego.

He is, yeah. So he's been on the show a long time ago now.

Yeah, it was one of our first episodes.

Yes. So. But yeah, man. So we. We kind of go way back, and I know back then, I think you're still doing. I mean, you're. You're an OG podcaster. I know you've been at that for a long time. 2013, I think it was.

Right?

That's it.

Dang.

Yeah. I only wish we stuck with it. We've had a few popping on and off.

Well, actually, I started in 2009 and didn't stick with it, and then I've stuck with it since 2013.

Got it.

Yeah. That's kind of like our story. We started in 2010. I think we made it like 10 episodes with our first show, maybe 15 episodes with our second show. And then we finally got serious about it in 2015.

Oh, gotcha.

It's a good media, man. So let's give a. I know we have some history here, and there's a lot of stuff that I know Matt and I don't really know about you and what you've been doing. I know you're always sales oriented. Everything you do is sales whisperer. But get into your story a bit. I know you've. You've done a lot over your years here and just kind of curious about what you got. What kind of led you to this point where you're at now?

Yeah, I, you know, spent nine years in the Air Force, and I wanted to be paid according to my production, you know, not my. Not my time in grade. So anybody that thinks, oh, you know, I had it easy, it's like, no, I'm training the guy right now. He. He says he wanted to sell. He's. He's doing cold Calls and trying to invite people to an event we want to put on. He called for one day and he texted me, he said, man, cold calling is hard. And he, he's single, lives with his family, you know, no mortgage. Things are easy. I'm like, hey dude, try putting food on the table for a family of seven purely based on cold calling.

Right.

On your own business. No, no residual income, no nothing. Right. It's like go start from scratch. Start flat footed. Go, go sell. And so, you know, 97, I was married. We had 1.6 kids at the time.

Interested to hear this? Fractioned out. I'm just kidding.

We have seven now. But when I started my business 2006, we had five. You know, and my wife has been stay at home mom for 23 years. So there was no, no safety net, no, no spouse income and, and benefits and you know, I'll just kind of dabble in this and you know, looking back, it's a blessing, I think. I think people try to play it too safe, you know. And you know the old saying, you.

Can'T get to second base with your foot on first.

I was gonna say it sounds like this guy didn't have his back against the wall too much.

Yeah. So I mean, you gotta jump in and you gotta commit and quit. Quit dabbling, you know, like, what's a fan, right? A fan is, comes from the word fanatic. You got to be fanatical about something, otherwise you're just lukewarm. And you know what Jesus does with lukewarm people?

You know, get, get fanatical about something and that's about it.

What got you from. So you were fanatical about that? It was pay, it sounds like from the Air Force days.

Yeah.

Yeah. So what was that turning point like for you? Because I know that's a totally different culture there, going into the real world. Real world with quotes, obviously. Different world.

Yeah, yeah. I mean it was eye opening. You know, I, I was a stock broker. I had a very small base that, that dwindled every month and it was, it was cold calling.

So is that all the cold calling was in that, that kind of arena? Stocks?

Well, that. Well then, but yeah, but even when I started the Sales whisper in 2006, I didn't have a website, I didn't have a merchant account. I mean, I just cold call people and I'd invite them to a workshop that I put on every three weeks. They'd bring their money, you know, I charged a small amount just so they'd show up and did a Two hour workshop and the close was to meet one on one to see if there was a fit to work together.

What were you selling? I guess I'm kind of curious. Was it all sales training oriented stuff?

Yes. Okay, that's it got.

Was either group.

Sales training or sales management, like private one on one sales manager training.

Gotcha. Okay, so you did workshops and that kind of got the ball moving. It sounds like just what, free workshop and then some offer there in person.

Yeah, well, and I would charge a little bit like 17 bucks.

Because it would pay for the room, it would pay for refreshments, it would pay for printouts, you know, and I'd, I get 15 to 20 people and you know, my wife would make a little bundt cake and pick up some coffee and a, and a fruit tray from Sam's Club.

There you go.

You know, and, and I just gave that presentation and, and just did it over and over and over again.

So. Yeah, I mean it sounds like my, the essence I'm hearing is just that you kept it simple. You, you stayed within these lanes.

That I didn't have a choice.

Exactly. You just had to hit the road running day one. Go.

Yep.

So, so what, what's, what, what is your business now? What, what has sort of been the evolution from those days to what you're doing today?

Well, so I, as I grew, I, you know, I'm an entrepreneur, right. I, I can chase shiny objects with the best of them and but you know, I was looking to improve. It's like, okay, I can't keep doing this forever. How do I grow? Right? So the first thing was a website and had some friends kind of helped me and kind of had this little simple Adobe Dreamweaver hard coded HTML website that I couldn't edit. And then, then people came to me, some, some companies to, they wanted me to sell their CRM slash marketing automation platform and they were local and so that was pretty cool. But then I started to see the power and I had come from corporate America and I was, I was comfortable with CRMs and technology and so I started using Zoom. It was free or not Zoom Zoho, because it was free. And this local company asked me to start repping them, so I started doing that. And then as I built my website and I was always a decent writer so you know, slowly building a list and I'd stay in touch with my list and.

I found Dan Kennedy.

And it actually the guy that taught me the sales training.

Led me to Dan Kennedy. And Dan Kennedy was doing a four city tour with Infusionsoft in the summer of 2008 and out of the Anaheim Convention center, which is about an hour away.

Yeah.

So I drove out there really to see Dan Kennedy. And then I was motivated by what infusionsoft did. And I knew it could help me.

As an entrepreneur, grow your sales without growing your staff. And so I got started with them, you know, back when it was $5,000 down and $300 a month. Right. You gotta, you got a five seat license. I'm like, well, I only need one. They're like, tough luck, you get five. And I learned about their partner program and they would pay you, you know, this residual income I got in the financial services business because I wanted that residual income. So seeing the opportunity to sell something and make a residual, back then it was 20% for life. And you know, doesn't sound like much. You sell a $300 piece of software, but it's $60 a month for life, you know. And then I became one of their top partners in the world. They created a 30% level for us. So, you know, you sell $300 software, it's 90 bucks a month. Well, if you can sell 10 of those a month, you know, don't even, don't even count the setup and the Extra Consulting. But 10 of you sell 10amonth, you know, do the math.

Yeah, you're looking good after a year.

Just the residual alone is huge and, but very few people were selling 10amonth. You know, people had 8 and 10 and 15 person companies and they weren't selling that much. I was doing it alone with, with a small team that would fulfill on the training and a part time assistant. But I knew how to sell, you know, and I taught myself copywriting and I taught myself SEO and I just embraced technology. I embraced social media, I embraced video marketing, I embrace podcasting. So the things that made sense, you know, I did it and, and like I said, after, after a few years I'd become the number one partner in the world. Wrote a book on Infusionsoft. Then I branched into Ontraport HubSpot, built up a small team, still have a lean team, but built up a team to fulfill these other platforms. And then I do, I do more private consulting for bigger businesses. So I still do a lot of the same things, but I do a little more around systems and processes, around inbound marketing and, and inbound selling. Yeah, you know, but I mean, I've got clients every Friday I do a group call for a small company and they, they literally sell a commodity in the seafood industry. And it's, they make outbound calls. You know, I think we get, we get a little too much.

Inbreeding in this.

Marketing world, certainly digital marketing. But, you know, there's, there's millions of people out there, millions of businesses that have to make outbound calls. Oh, yeah, there's a lot of people that don't have Facebook accounts. There's a lot of people don't have smartphones, actually have a flip phone and you know, they wear blue jeans and they drive a forklift and you're not going to reach them with a cute Instagram post.

That's true.

You gotta call these people. And so every week we're hammering out new scripts, new scenarios. Things are getting stuck on, on how to move the sale forward. So it's, it's still very much needed. You know, I always say great marketing makes selling easy, but great selling makes great marketing possible.

You know, I like that, to be a great marketer. Somewhere, some, somehow you made a sale. Yeah, I funded that marketing. And hey, let's admit it, right? That the marketing that you do is a sale.

Mm.

You know, you're selling people on, looking at your, you know, looking at your tweet, looking at your, your Instagram post, opening your email, reading the email, responding to the email, taking the, watching the video on the landing page, reading the entire landing page, opting in. I mean, those are all little bitty sales. And that's why I say, you know, create the make every sale program. And the concept isn't necessarily to close everybody because that's unrealistic.

Right.

But the concept is, you know, to make any sale, you have to make every sale. Right? You got to make every single sale. And what is it for your prospect? You know, it's its price, its timing, its compatibility, it's, you know, getting buy in at the, at the company and on and on and on. So you gotta, you gotta make every single sale to make any sale. So looking at it systematically, looking at it processes, you know, selling is very scientific.

Right.

It's very predictable how people are going to respond. So if, if you take the time to learn that sales can get quite easy.

Yeah.

So with the infusionsoft and ontraport and all of that stuff, when you were, when you were doing that as a referral. Well, I think you're still doing that on a referral basis. Are you closing most of the people on infusionsoft over, over phone sales? Are you, are you cold calling and finding people to, who might need infusionsoft.

No, I don't cold call anymore. It's. My whole business is inbound now and has been for many years.

So what this one guy is, is cold calling for is a new company that wants us to represent them. And I told him straight up, I just don't have time, but I found somebody locally that says they're hungry, so we'll see. And I told him if I gave him the script, told him everything to do. So here's the deal. We'll get a conference room, you know, you give me 10 to 20 people and I'll give the presentation and we'll sell this stuff, you know, but I'm like, you got it, you got to fill the room, you know, so like it. So we shall see.

So with, Yeah, I like what you're saying here. With, with essentially you're, you're basically selling engagement through marketing. No matter where your marketing lives. Instagram, it could just be a personal, could be a letter in the mail, whatever, but it's like selling that micro. Yes, it sounds like. And then up until the point. Yeah. Where it's ready to present the actual close.

Is what it sounds like here. And I know what you really hone in on or what we were chatting about is this five step process you have for that. And it sounds like now is like a good time to kind of lead into that conversation and figure out, like.

I was saying, everything's a system, everything's a process. And funnels, a big word nowadays, funnel hacking.

You know, like go read Ecclesiastes. There's nothing new under the sun. So, you know, since people have been in sales, they've had funnels or they've had pipelines. Right. Throw enough stuff against the wall, something's bound to stick. You know, patch the leaks in your pipeline and, and you know, you'll, you'll make more money. So they're very much one directional, right? Pack a bunch of stuff in, hope something comes out from the top to the bottom, shove stuff in the left, hope it comes out the right. So the reality is, great salespeople know that the sale is only the, it's the beginning of the formal relationship. It's like getting married. It's. It's the wedding ceremony. Right. But is the relationship over? Is it done? Because you said I do.

Oh, no.

Or is that, or is that when the real work begins? Right.

Yeah.

So I always tell people, you know, professionals know that it's, it's the relationship, it's the ongoing. So I came up with, you know, the five Steps. And it's just A, B, C, D, E. But instead of being a funnel top down or pipeline going left to right, you know, it's a cycle. Put it, put it in a circle like on a clock. A, B, C, D, E. Okay, so A, you're attracting, you're attracting people to your place of business. You're attracting them to your trade show booth, you're attracting them to your website. You know, you're at a, you're at a, at a trade show, you're at a chamber of commerce event. You're just attracting them to yourself. So what are you doing to stand out? 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, that's it. So what are you doing to make yourself known? So you attract yourself to them, but it's not enough for them just to walk up and look at your trade show booth and take one of your pins, right? What are you offering to attract them again? To opt in, to identify themselves, to give you a phone number, an email, an address, something. Okay, so you've got to bring them into the fold, then you can bond with them, right? A and B. And now this needs to be multimedia, multi step. You know, this company I'm talking to, I, I helped them come up with a series of voicemails and emails that support the voicemails because there's no magic, there's no one magic email or voicemail you can send. If I had a magic email or a magic voicemail that everybody responded to and bought, right, I could charge like $1 million and I would send you this, this two minute long script and I'd retire. But, but then if it worked that well and everybody started using it, it would stop working. So it just doesn't exist. So what we did was come up with a series and it's that consistency. I'm dealing with a guy right now. He hit me up on Facebook and we talked and his background, his profile looked interesting. But you know, he was late to our call. Like way late, like 35 minutes late. And you know, I just happened to answer. And so a couple things happened. We, the time was set for noon Pacific and I get a call. My wife was actually on my phone. She says, comfort end, comfort in. I'm like, I'm not expecting a call from the comfort end. Don't answer it. Right. So a little while later, you know, I'm like, I'm waiting for another call. And I mean, he was still late. Then 30 minutes later, comfort in calls again. I'm like, well, let me answer this and see what it is. What's this, dude? And I'm like, why get the comfort in. Oh, I'm 28 years old. I travel, I live wherever. Okay.

Oh, man.

But he was late. So my first impression is I'm not liking this guy. Okay. And so, like, they say how you do anything is how you do everything. So this bonding needs to be multimedia, multi step. So these guys, this company I'm working with, right, they're making multiple calls. They send an email that. That reinforces their voicemail message. And each one is different. It tells a little story. So on our call today, they were like, okay, this is starting to work. They're now picking up the phone on the third or fourth call. Now what do we do? Yeah, right. I was like, okay, well, let's go ahead and make that next one. All right, let's. Let's handle that scenario. And it's, you know, it's baby steps.

It's.

It's just like when you read a book or you watch a movie or whatever, you go, you know, you read it a second time.

I don't.

That wasn't in there. Or you watch a movie. That is this. It's just different. I don't remember that exactly, you know, or a lesson, right? Just like, you know, I just, I do jiu jitsu, I just got done. And you, you have to, like, when you start, everything you do is wrong. And so I can't teach you. I can't learn how to do everything right immediately. So. And you just jump right in. And that's how I do my sales training. You know, you jump in and people that are been around longer, they'll teach you. And as you've been around a little longer, you'll teach others and everybody. And in the teaching, you're reinforcing it for yourself. So everybody grows but you, you have to apply it and fail. And then, then the lesson will sink in. And it's like, oh, yeah, you want to learn how to do that move? Well, we covered this two months ago, but you weren't ready for it, obviously. Now you are, so, boom. I remember this one particular, you know, kind of an elbow shoulder lock. I got this guy, he was smaller than me, and I couldn't finish him. And I'm like, I got everything perfect. Then I showed somebody, I go, yeah, you got 99% of it perfect. But the one thing right where I put my elbow mattered. But I've remembered That now for literally for the last year, over a year. So that I have that move down pat. Right? So these. These folks doing these outbound calls, they had to get good at the outbound calls, then they had to. Now they realize that works. So now they're doing that with. With enthusiasm. Right? But now they're getting stumped on the next step. But now they're ready for that message.

Right?

Okay. I can teach a two day workshop, 12 hours a day on sales training, you know, and you'll be tired and pretty motivated and kind of confused at the end, you know, so you got to be ready, right? So that's the bonding. So you attract and you bond, then you convert or close. Turn them into a customer or a client. Right? Get the cash. So that's c. And you know, make it easy for people to pay. You know what? I don't really like PayPal. It's a pain in the butt for taxes. My wife does our books, and, you know, we meet with an accountant, but she does the books. And it's a pain the way that they do things, but it's like, if somebody wants to pay me through PayPal, I'm gonna make it easy for them to do it.

That's right.

That's resistance, you know, I will make it easy for you to give me your money. So make sure that you make it easy for people to give you money. Right? But. So here we are, abc. There's two more. There's five steps, but the cash, the customer, the conversion is only the halfway point. Now you have to delight, right? You have to deliver a wow experience. So what are you doing to make that happen? What do you. What does it feel like, you know, when you. You look at Apple and, you know, the whole unboxing experience is just. It's pleasant. Yep. You know what I got, My wife got these. These kind of adjustable wrenches, and I think we got some on like an infomercial or something years ago. These robo grips.

It works on you too, huh? Sales messages.

Oh, dude, salespeople are the easiest ones to sell.

That's true. That's true.

And so. But we've had a big one and a little one forever. And, you know, it's always just, go get the robo grips. And somehow we lost one of them. I don't know. I don't know how that happened. I got a pegboard. I'm like, put the tools back. But with seven kids.

Coming over, everything's getting misplaced. So my wife got a couple more. So that was my Anniversary present on Sunday. 23 years. I get flyers.

So that's love, man. Come on.

Yeah, man. I went and looked it up. It's like, yeah, diamonds, wood, paper, up, no tools, 29 pliers, tools.

But man, this thing, we have another tool to cut open the bulletproof plastic of all the junk that we bring home, right? So I, I'm cutting this stuff, man, just to get these two pliers out. I mean, it's like, what a pain, you know? So again, look at Apple though. It's just, you know, a little, a little knife, just a little cut and the plastic comes off and the box is like almost vacuum seal, but just, you know, pop it open, you know, then you, you got whatever thing, thingamaboppy you bought, right? I got them all, man. I've opened iPads, I've opened MacBook Pros, I've opened imacs, I've opened Apple pencils, Apple watches, ipod, you name it.

And then you don't want to throw away that delightful packaging either.

You don't. You keep that box forever.

That's the weirdest thing about Apple products. I have like all, all of my boxes for all of my computers. I don't even have the computers anymore, but I still have the damn boxes.

They deliver a wow experience. They delight.

Right?

Okay, so are you that methodical? Right. Are you that conscientious in delivering this wow experience? And most people aren't, they're just like, well, you paid $100 for our widget, we gave you $100 widget. What the hell else you want?

Yeah. What do you expect from us? Yeah.

So you better over deliver, right?

Yep.

So then when you do that, you begin to endear yourself to them. All right? That's when people start taking pictures of your stuff and sharing it on Instagram and doing these, these opening things. Like there's this whole like, genre on YouTube, right, where people buy stuff and just open it. It's unbelievable. It is. But they're endearing themselves, right? And, and now that's why I say it's a cycle. Because if you endear yourself and your customers are singing your praises and giving you five star reviews, like, attracts like.

Those same people come back. Like, I just, I just bought a gizmo on, on Amazon yesterday and I'm, I'm clicking through all the competitors and, and I'm reading the reviews, okay? I'm like, okay, this is the one I want because it has the best reviews. So those companies are endearing themselves now. They're attracting. And look how simple it was.

Yeah.

This the thing that I bought. It's one of these little standing things, like a little. For your standing desk. Right. And it's one of those little wobble thingamabopi. So work on your stability. And. And I've never heard of this company. I've never seen an ad from this company. They didn't have to do any direct mail to me. Nothing. I searched because they endeared themselves and others left free, honest reviews. And I made a sale.

All right, this is. I know you're not seeing over here, but Matt and I are like, literally shaking our heads a little bit, being like, we legitimately just had this conversation at lunch right before talking to you about like after that conversion or, you know, that close portion, the third step. That's like where most people just. Businesses flop. Yeah.

The relationship ends after the convert step in like 90% of businesses we deal with.

Right.

And we are guilty for not. I wouldn't say 90% of our fun, but definitely that is like. And this is what we were talking about our own business for. Like, that is the portion, the delight and deer portions that we intentionally. We want to do more of. But then inherently, you know, our mindset or something pushes us back to, oh, let's do the marketing, let's do the bonding, the follow up and the conversion. We're really freaking solid at that.

Well, it's so easy to get stuck into this cycle of sell more, sell more, sell more, sell more. And then.

After the convert step, let that stuff take the back seat because we need to keep our focus on keeping sales high.

Right. And what you need to do is keep churn low, keep referrals high, keep testimonials high. You know, I mean, for years and years and years, I learned this from Dan Kennedy. You know, he has that. The shock and all box.

Yep.

And, you know, thank God I've got a wife. It's very creative, you know, because I would just. I mean, I did write a couple books and I do have CDs and I've got sales training flashcards, you know, all these little gizmos. But, you know, I would just throw it in a FedEx box and mail it. You know, my wife's like, oh, no. You know, we got these special sized boxes in this frilly cut up paper and she ties a ribbon around it. And I mean, it's like really nice.

Right.

But I'm not gonna do that.

Like, I wrote a couple damn books and some CDs. That's just pretty damn good right there.

People can appreciate that. Yeah, no, you're right.

But they do, right? And they get it. But even if you did, just mail them a simple book, because sometimes, like, for a prospect, I'm working on a. On a big deal with a consulting client or something, I'll mail them my book and I'll just. I include a handwritten card, I'll sign the book, and we'll put that in a FedEx thing. So just the mere fact they get physical mail, they're impressed. Okay. But for those that buy, we send a nice package, and I have people take pictures, they share it online. They're like, look what I just got from West Shaffer.

Yeah.

Getting free press. And these people feel good, right? I feel good. You know, I'm like, I'm happy. I made their day. They paid me a lot of money. I can mail them a nice package.

Mm. And that's the thing, is it doesn't take a lot of time doing this to get those people to start posting pictures, to start. Start spreading the word. I mean, he says, even if you.

Haven'T written a book or whatever, go, go buy, you know, 10 or 20 copies of your favorite book and just sign a card and say, hey, thanks for being a customer. This is one of my favorite books. I hope you enjoy it as well.

Exactly.

I mean, it's the thought that counts. I mean, send them chocolate, whatever. Send them. You know, people forget. I was. Had dinner with a friend of mine last night out in la. Very good SEO guy and Internet marketing guy. And he's. I mean, guy carries two phones, right? That's how techy he is. This guy has more tech in his pinky than I have in my body. But as we're talking, you know, I'm like, so I feel like we're on this. This never ending, constantly accelerating life. And I think people are frazzled and worn out. And, you know, I'm not a dumb guy and I can't keep up with this stuff, but at the end of the day, it's like we forget there's a human being in the other end of the. Of the screen.

Right.

The other end of the podcast. Right. So why don't we just get back to being humans? And. And he agreed. Right. And so if this. This super techie guy agrees, then I think I might be onto something.

So I'm curious, do you know why he had two phones? Like, was it just business?

Change the sub. Will you focus, please?

I'm just curious. My curious mind.

Well, yeah, he's funny. He's like, Well, I might want to look something up on the other phone while I'm talking together. I'm like, that's why you have a headset. You put a headset in, you can look at your phone. I don't know. He's a tech guy.

That's funny. Yeah. No, it's funny that you say, like, hey, just be human. I mean, I don't know how many times Matt and I say that just to ourselves or when we're talking about the way that we sell, because we do a lot of affiliate promotions, but we do a lot of personalized communications or even loom videos to show the exact thing that they're asking a question about. And 98% of the time, every single one of those people are like, holy crap, I did not expect a personal video from you or even communicating. And more often than not, they purchase, or if they don't, they're going to refer. And it's exactly what you're saying right here. We just happen to do it more digital.

Look back. Everybody loves to look at Gary Vaynerchuk right now, you know, on top of the world, blah, blah. Like they forget, you know, for whatever 8, 10, 12 years, he just sold. He walked the shop floor speaking to people, learning his product, becoming a fanatic about wine. Right Then he did his made it his wine library tv. But then he would personally reply to reviews. He would personally call people, you know. Yeah, we see is the glorious stuff now, right? All we see is LeBron James, you know, soaring over everybody's head. Slam Duncan and, you know, even though he's got a lot of physical gifts, he works hard. Michael Jackson or Michael Jordan worked hard. Right. Larry Bird worked hard. Tiger woods works hard behind the scenes, you know, and that's what nobody sees. That's what nobody wants to do.

Yeah, man. It's just. What was it? There's a concept of a thousand true fans. I forget who brought that up originally. Kevin Kelly. Is that it? Okay. Yeah. And if you just have that concept and it might not even take a thousand, it might take 100. You know, if you're selling something high enough, price or value, whatever it might be, but it doesn't take much. It seems like if you. If you nail down the attract bond and convert, you get some momentum going that way and then just slightly adjust your thinking to not let that stuff go. But now let's figure out how to delight and endear these people where they can't not refer us or refer all of their friends and trusted folks around them to Send them my way, then everything gets easier.

What I tell my clients is if you doubled your prices and lost half of your clients, you'd be making exactly the same amount of money as you're making with half the headaches.

Ain't that the truth, Right? It's true.

Speaking of that, I mean, I mean, I might as well have said equals MC squared, you know, like 50, 60 years ago. I mean, they were like, whoa, a hand in caveman fire.

You know, well, and then, well, I can't double my price. Whatever. I'm like, can't you think again? Yeah, I don't know. Can you raise them 20 right now and then have a plan to raise them 30 and 50? I mean, but just think about that, you know, and if it sinks in, it's a powerful lesson.

I like it. No, that definitely it works. And is there a price point you kind of train? I know for you personally, you probably have different metrics than other folks, but in this process, you know, when cold calling or attracting these folks, do you have certain metrics in mind? Maybe not a specific number, but a, like a KPI you're looking for on.

On the sales or I would say.

Well, I'm just thinking because, you know, there's. I guess the KPIs are different. So if you're attracting folks, you're bonding, converting, working down. You want to kind of conversion metrics, I'm sure along the whole way.

So here's a, Here's a different way I think of, of asking what Joe's asking. So you've got your. Attract bond, convert, delight in dear. You've got your, your five step circle at each point along the line. How do you know people are being effective at each thing?

Yes, well, it's, you know, W. Edward Demings, I think he was with Chrysler, they wouldn't listen to him. He went to Japan, helped them rebuild after World War II. Basically created the whole total quality management movement. And in a nutshell was basically if you can measure it, you can improve it.

Mm.

Okay. So I don't have any set numbers at each stage. A lot of companies, they, they're not measuring or they're over measuring.

So you do have to document what are your key metrics? So A, have key metrics, B, measure them, keep them updated, you know, C, keep them, keep it easy to update. You don't need a bazillion numbers to track. Okay. And so when you, when you break it down into these steps though, the main thing is to make sure that it's growing Right. That everything's up and to the right. But when you break it down, what happens is people have no processes. Sales managers, they, What I tell my, my sales managers is you, you.

You might, as you measure the, the activity and you pay on the results. Okay? You manage what they're doing and pay on the results. Most companies, they just say, well, hey fellas, good to see you. You've got a 1.2 million dollar quota. That's $100,000 a month. Go get them. Well, what do I do? Well, you pick up that phone and you get on the computer and you talk to people and you make sales. You're like, well, what does that mean? You know, what, what does success look like? And so this is another thing like handing them fire, right? I'm like, okay, you got a 1.2 million dollar quota. Well, that's, that's $100,000 a month. That's $25,000 a week, that's $5,000 a day. If your average sale is $2,500, then you got to make two sales.

Per day to be on track. Well, what does it take to get two sales? Well, I'm pretty good at proposals. So if I give out three proposals, you know, if I give out four proposals, I, I close two, you know, or if I give out three, I close two. Okay, so, so you got to get three proposals. All right, well, if, if, you know, 80% of the people that I meet and do a demo for ask for a proposal. Okay, so, you know, so you start working the numbers back.

Yeah, yeah, you kind of reverse engineer the, the end goal outcome.

You reverse it, right? So you, so you measure. So it literally brings you down to how many calls should you be making, how many outbound emails, how many touches of the client are needed to get to that number? So you have your metrics. So, and for lack of a better term, I just, I'll say phone calls, but it's whatever touches. So how many dials to have a conversation? How many conversations to have an appointment, how many appointments to get to a proposal? How many proposals to get to a sale?

Got it.

Okay, from, from that next phase on, this is what I'm really curious about. From that next phase, after you make the conversion, you know, from the delight and dear standpoint, how, how are you measuring how effective you are at the post conversion elements?

Well, there's a few things that you can look at after the sale. Okay, so one is churn, you know, are your chargebacks going down and your returns and your refunds so that's the ultimate goal, is to keep them as a client. So are your, you know, what's your net promoter score? Right. Is your NPS going up or your number of online reviews going up? Are your chargebacks going down or your one and two star reviews going down? But then you start looking at upsells. You know, are you able to sell more warranties or, you know, buy. Buy three, you know, get one free kind of thing, or are they buying a higher quantity? And you can track online? Right. And that the, the delight and the endear kind of, they overlap a little bit. So are you getting more reviews? Are you getting more mentions on social media? But then are you also getting referrals and testimonials? Right. So you track all that.

Yeah.

And, you know, and did the people come back and buy again? So all of those are easy to measure.

Totally makes sense.

So when you're a small company. So I'm just thinking us, you know, there's two of us and a couple other folks that we have that work with us. Do you typically suggest that the same people doing the selling, the attracting and all that stuff will then transition into the delight and endear mode? Obviously, it's be human at the end of the day, but let's talk about, you know, like focuses throughout the day. Is there a way that you kind of framework this out for teams, like.

Small teams that can be tough when you have, you know, the hunter mentality. If you need people to go out and knock down doors and if they're any good at it, they're probably not going to be great at the hand holding in the nurturing.

Right.

Okay. So you got to figure out.

How'S your team, how's the industry, you know, if. If you're super small and everybody's got to do everything, but that will hurt you. Okay. It's not optimum to have a meat eater like me hang out and tie ribbons around a new client. Welcome package.

Right.

Okay. Now in the beginning, do I have to do it? Sure. You know, I, I would. I would put the stuff in the box. I wouldn't tie a ribbon around it, but I.

The box would get shipped out, though.

Yeah, yeah.

You're not sealing it with a kiss.

Well, he is secretly.

Oh, yeah. I pour a little. A little hint of whiskey in it.

There you go.

The ode. The wess.

So. But yeah, you just gotta realize in the beginning you may have to. But if you can start to have a little bit of division of labor, it's gonna help you.

Yeah, yeah.

So this is sort of a shift of topic, but it's something we definitely want to dive in, kind of for selfish reasons when it comes to hiring salespeople. This is a discussion Joe and I have had a lot of recently in our own business, is bringing on commission salespeople. What sort of things should we be looking for? How would you approach that? I mean, I'm not even quite sure the best questions to ask around it, but it's something we're exploring right now.

It's you. You have to screen these people and you have to assess them. You've got to do these different personality tests. I've got a couple guys that I use, but. Because the nice thing with salespeople is that we know and have known for the last hundred years in every industry who the number one salesperson is. Okay. If I ask you who's the best, you know, banjo player, who's the best web designer, who's the best architect? It's. It's a bit subjective. Right, right. And yeah, you could probably narrow it down. You ask 100 people, you'll probably, you know, get. Maybe get 10 or 20, you know, kind of narrow it down. But okay, who's truly number one? But if I, if I say who's the number one Ford salesman in Chicago or the state of Illinois or North America last year, 10 years ago, what? We have those numbers.

Yeah.

And psychologists and analysts, for decades, almost 100 years, probably, but many, many decades, have given assessments to top performers across North America and Europe. And they have built these profiles so they know what a winner looks like. Okay? So when you give someone these assessments, you know, and nothing's 100%, but it's like there's like big alarms that go off if somebody's really low, you know, and so you can make a calculated judgment there. So you gotta have an assessment. You gotta have processes, you know, and you've got to determine too, do you need a meat eater or do you need more of a farmer, a nurturer, you know, somebody to just maintain the relationship. Those are different traits. Okay. And so you have to be very clear on the job description. And.

You have to make every sale.

Right.

When you write that ad, it needs to speak to that person. Don't do this thing, like opportunity of a lifetime, looking for a consultative selling, go getter motivated salesperson to earn unlimited commissions. You know, it's like, oh, yawn, everybody and their brother is gonna, gonna reply to that. Yeah, right. So. So put some ump in there, you know, are you a go Getter. Or do you leave your drama at home? You know, do you have a can do attitude? Can you follow instructions? Can you enter data into a CRM? Can you send emails that don't sound like they were written by a fifth grader who was drunk?

Right.

I mean, you know, I mean, put that kind of language in there, if that's how you roll. Yeah, right. Because, you know, I. I want people going, oh, this. Who's this arrogant guy? Who's this? Blah, blah, blah. You know, I used to. I had this signature for a long time, and I'll use it sometimes, you know, says, life is.

Oh, heck, what did I say? Like, life is gooder when you're selling. It was something like that. I had the word gooder and I put it in italics. Right. So it's like, usually when something is. Is in italics, you're kind of admitting, I know this isn't correct.

Right.

And I had somebody reply, I would never do business from my grammar like that. And I'm like, great, I just weeded out this person.

Didn't want you anymore.

I don't want you. Right. So starting in your ad, your, Your screening, and this is a hard concept, right. But magnets attract to the same degree that they repel. Right. You can't put two north ends or two south ends together. Even a weak magnet, you can't. I mean that they're gonna pop around and. And, you know, go north to south, south to north, whatever.

Sure.

So are you willing to repel.

As strongly as you attract? And most people are not. They want to please everybody. And as you said, all these things sound really good. Oh, you need to zig when they zag. You need to buy when there's blood in the streets, you know, but when it comes time to do it, it's tough.

Sure. Yeah. And that all starts with that first phase, the attraction. Like, yeah, it should just be saying repel as well.

Now, do you believe that, like, a really good salesperson could sell anything, or should we be, like, looking for someone who already has sort of a specialty in the types of things that we sell?

A great salesperson can sell anything.

And yeah, when you look at. That's a big mistake people make is that they either look for somebody with a Rolodex, you know, or someone that has sold in your industry. But, you know, just because someone has sold doesn't mean they will sell. So you have to look at again, through these assessments, you can see what really makes them tick. You know, are they driven? Because here's the Problem. Most, most companies, they don't have a sales process. Okay. They, so they hire and just think salesperson is going to figure it out. And great salespeople will, as long as there's enough money there and it's worth it for them to put in the effort. You know, but if you have documented processes, if you have CRMs and automation and you know that it takes, you know, 10 calls to have one conversation, you have to have two conversations to set one meeting. You know that out of, out of every, out of every, you know, two out of every three meetings ask for a proposal. And three out of four proposals, buy and you know, two out of four that buy, buy an upsell. You know, if you can lay all that out, you know, salesperson go, oh, crap, let's go. Let's rock and roll, baby. Yeah, but most people don't have those kind of numbers, right? Oh, well, we do. You know, SEO, and everybody needs SEO and you should just come work for us because we're like really good SEO people and, and everybody that has a website needs SEO. And if they don't even have a website, well, they need a website. We do websites and we can do website and the SEO. So go get them.

You know, that's like saying, well, everybody drinks water, so you should, you should sell bottled water service. You know, like, I grew up in the South, I have seven kids. I tell them, go out front, drink from the hose, just like I did.

Yeah.

Not paying for bottled water service.

You know, going back really quick, I want to. So the assessments, you keep mentioning this and some different tools, maybe resources you have. Are there any specifics that you can mention here that we can check out later?

One thing is check out an interview that I did on sales podcast. Actually, I published it not too long ago. Let me see what episode it was. Guy's name is John Pike.

Okay.

And what's unique about John is he offers a one year money back guarantee or at least a replacement. Right. So he'll, he'll find you somebody. It was episode 335 on the sales podcast. So he, he's unique in that he, he'll do more than just the assessment. He'll actually help you write the ad and screen the people and, and then give them the assessment and then pass on to you those that pass the sniff test.

Makes sense. Those are ideal. Okay.

Yeah. And as a one year, if they don't work out, he'll find you someone else.

Love it. Yeah, we did the same kind of thing to get an ops manager.

I've seen 90 day. I've never seen one year.

Year's pretty legit. Yeah.

Yeah. We used a similar service to find our ops manager. And I think it was, what, six months or something?

Six. Something like that.

Who's the best manager? And she listens these episodes.

Sales salespeople are notorious for not being very loyal.

Right.

Yeah. Okay. And ops managers, other positions, they're a little more stable. Salespeople, they'll just. They'll up and leave, you know, so you gotta. You gotta do it right, or.

They're hustlers, man. I mean, they're. Yeah. And the big thing is, I mean, I ran a sales team of five people at first, and, yeah, it was a big. Or, you know, obviously feed them leads. You gotta have leads coming in. The interesting thing, because I. When doing these. And this is the first hack, we were kind of just going for it, but we had them collaborate. And from your experience, have you seen it work? Well, as a team, you know, still splitting out the leads, but more or less sharing war stories with each other to help each other out. This group that we had was amazing together, but we've also heard just the opposite. You know, if you get salespeople together, kind of compete more or less than collaborate.

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. Like I said, a meat eater. Yeah. I don't want to collaborate. I want to win.

There you go.

You know, but again, when you. So you got to get clear on what you're hiring for. What is the position? Does the position require collaboration? Okay, well, that goes in your job description. That goes in, you know, in the assessments on the things that you look for. And there's traits that you can. You can pick out. You know, what. What motivates these people, what drives them? And I mean, these things, man, they're like.

It's like a little crystal ball, you know, It'll give you some very good information. It's true. Like I said, we know the top salespeople are. So we can test them and create a profile.

And that's huge. I mean, that's. Every hire that we ever do now is always personality tests. Even just, you know, Matt and I have our own personality test, and we're like, ah, that's why that thing always, like, maybe bugs us. You know, if there's a topic that comes up or. Or why this flows so well. So.

Well, ever since y' all got your medications right, y' all are a lot easier to be around. So, I mean, just.

Don'T. Don't cut back.

Okay. Follow the doctor Keep dosing up.

That's awesome. No, yeah, it unlocks some pretty big ahas all around, so just. Just makes sense when you're hired sales folks too, so. Super cool.

I have one last question and then we can go ahead and wrap up because I do want to be respectful of your time. It's actually about your podcast. I'm kind of curious how the podcast fits into the whole mix of your business. And I pretty much ask anybody who comes on the show who has a podcast how it fits into the. Fits into the mix of their business, because everybody seems to have a different point of view on podcasts, a different reason for doing them. So I'm kind of curious what yours is.

Oh, man. I mean, I started.

So many years ago and I liked it. For me, it gave me access to some cool people, you know, and still does, but it also, it helps you stand out. And, you know, we talk about bonding, you know, multimedia, multi step. So you can read my website. I've got videos, I've got free reports. You can get a private consultation. But now you can listen to me. Right. So just like we were saying, make it easy to accept payments. Right. And you know, take, take PayPal, whatever. So I want to be easy for them to get to know.

Yeah.

And so, you know, when you have. I look back at my numbers, I mean, tens of thousands of hours a month.

People are listening to me.

Yeah.

I mean, and grows on them. And people call, you know, I've been listening to your podcast. Great job, blah, blah. I'm finally ready. Because people need to hear things over and over again.

You know, and I don't want to tell them over and over again, not one on one.

Just go listen to podcast. 335, four or whatever. Yeah, well, yeah.

I mean, it's even great for, like, what you did here. When we were asking a question, you're like, oh, I talked about it on this. We talked about it on this episode. It gives you a great reference to point people to when questions that you have to answer often come up.

Yeah, exactly, because that's the whole thing. I mean, teachers don't make a lot of money.

Okay.

Even though they're valuable, things that they do are valuable. They don't make a lot of money. You don't make a lot of money teaching. Okay. But the customer does have to get educated. Doesn't mean they have to get educated one on one with you.

Okay.

Yeah.

So write a book, write a blog post, make a video, create a tutorial so you can point people to It. Because, yeah, I want to be the one educating them. I want them reading my stuff.

But I don't want to do it one on one. It just doesn't scale, you know? Plus, I mean, the stuff I sell is. Is international. I got clients around the world, you know, so if it's, you know, if it's noon in Australia or, you know, whatever, I may not be ready. Or, you know, it's noon on a Monday. Well, it's Sunday night for me. I'm like, I can't talk.

So have these resources.

Love it. Yeah. Now, the podcast is a massive arm for. I feel like every person with the podcast says something very similar along those lines. And, yeah, it's the most valuable resource we have for content and attracting that whole bond phase. So wrapping it up. I know you mentioned Dan Kennedy. I don't want to feed that into this question here, but is there a book that specifically on that bookshelf you just like, okay, I gotta read this thing every year? Or you just find yourself recommending it? If you have one of those, that stands out for you.

Yeah, I really got. I got a bunch. But one that'll, I think will make people better humans in their marketing is the guy named Roy Williams. He wrote three books and all feed into one another. It's the wizard of Ads. If you look up the wizard of Ads, Roy Williams trilogy, you'll find his. His books.

Nice.

And, yeah, they're on my bookshelf. I recommend them. I go to Austin about once a year to take one of his classes, and he has a reunion every year in October, November, down in Austin. So just a good dude, good people.

Awesome, man. Yeah. Roy Williams. I don't think that was recommended on the show yet.

No, I think that's the first time.

First. No, it's always funny because we had another podcast earlier, and it was a lot of Dan Kennedy talk. We're like, oh, man, it's always crazy in these podcasts. There's always like a name that pops up multiple times. So it means something. I don't know what the heck it means, but.

So the interesting thing is, you know, I'm buying old books, man. I'm buying books 100 years old and 50 years old, and I'm finding all the sources that Dan Kennedy found. Yeah, right. And even seeing some of the lessons that he taught. So I'm like, oh, I remember him saying this. That's where he got it. So, again, I mean, there's nothing new under the sun.

Nothing's new.

He may be modern and you know, making it a little more current. But he didn't invent this stuff.

It's funny. Modern is one of, is a word that I think people rarely describe.

Dan Kennedy with his machine.

Well, he, I mean he's currently writing books.

Right.

But I'm reading, guys. I mean I got books right now I'm reading that were printed in the, in the 20s.

Yeah.

And I know Dan Kennedy read them. Yeah.

No, comparatively, he's definitely modern. It's just kind of funny what he talks about, telling people to fax their orders in and you know, he doesn't have a cell phone and things like that.

Oh yeah. He's, you know, he repels the same that he, that he attracts.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's the moral I'm getting from it is just, it's, it's repel. Know what your intentions are, what your goals are and then create this, the most badass cycle, this five step process you laid out and just stick to it. It's not rocket science, it's not difficult. But if you complicated, it does, it does get that way.

Right.

So yeah.

And you know, he, he says as well.

Embrace complexity. And I remember when I heard that, I was like, what? Because there's always a dichotomy of life, you know. And what he meant was if your business is just so super simple that, you know, an 18 year old with an Internet connection in India can knock it off, you know, clone it, then you don't really have a great business.

Sure.

So there should be some intricacies, there should be some nuances, there should be some complexities. Right. That you know, like a Tesla or you know, an iPhone or whatever the.

Was it, was it canon? You know, it's so advanced, it's simple.

Yep.

So, so you need to be hard to knock off.

Okay. So something in there needs to, needs to be unique, complex, whatever. So keep that in mind.

Like it, man. Well, I appreciate your time and your advice here. I know. I'm going to go print that thing off and list out. All right, what can we do in our business in each one of these five stages and go to town on them. Pick out the best one. So where's the best place folks can go? Check you out. I know we mentioned your podcast on here, but where do you want to take them?

Yeah, just go to the sales whisperer.com and you can find everything there. There's contact us and my social media accounts and my phone numbers there. So call them up Sunday night.

Sunday night, call west. I'm just Kidding. Don't do that.

I probably won't answer.

Just don't be comfort in.

If you leave a message, I probably will call you back.

Yeah, I know you're good for it. All right, man. Well, I appreciate you. This was fun.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, man.

Have a good one, dude.

All right, man. Now go sell something.

All right.

Thank you. And I hope you just enjoyed this episode you just listened to. Now, right now, before we sign off, I have a few things I would love for you to do. So the very first thing is to go find our guest on Facebook and tell them that you loved their episode with us. That's going to help them just feel good about themselves, but also it's going to spread the word a little bit more for us. Go find them on Facebook. Everybody's on Facebook. And go say that you love their episode and maybe one cool thing that you learned there. The second thing is to go to itunes and subscribe to our podcast. Just look up Hustle and flowchart and hit the subscribe button. And the very last thing, the third thing, is to leave us a review on itunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast and help us spread the word more. That's how more people are going to get this awesome knowledge, this, this cool podcast training and a whole bunch of other cool, free training that we give out@evergreenprofits.com so that's about it. Go find them on Facebook, go subscribe on itunes, and leave us a review. You would be amazing if you did that, but you're always amazing. So thanks for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.

You're awesome.