Selling Amidst Economic Uncertainty with Billion-Dollar Sales Coach Ryan Dohrn
In this episode of the Ryan Dohrn Business Show, the billionaire‑sales coach tackles how to sell effectively during periods of economic uncertainty. He outlines three core strategies: (1) focus on immediate, short‑term value (“sell in the now”) by framing offers around what can be delivered in the next week or 30 days; (2) identify the buyer’s mindset—ego‑driven, logical, or emotional—and tailor the pitch accordingly, noting that roughly 75% of buyers are currently emotional; and (3) replace mass‑email blasts with high‑touch, highly relevant outreach that references the prospect’s recent activity. He expands on emotional‑buyer tactics, emphasizing storytelling and social proof to lower risk perception. The episode then answers two listener questions: Teresa’s query about voicemail strategy (advocating brief, action‑oriented voicemails that reference a prior email rather than asking for a callback) and Morgan’s request for an email‑sequence formula (the “3‑and‑3” format: three‑word subject line, three‑sentence body—social proof, relevance, specific ask—delivered via five rotating templates over five weeks, ending with an “escape” template). Ryan also recommends sequencing tools such as Mixmax, IfNoReply, and HubSpot, and provides his contact information for further resources. The overall message is that sales success now hinges on immediacy, empathy, and personalized, high‑touch communication.
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Live from the BrainSwell Media Studios, this is the Ryan Dohrn Business Show. Coming up on this month's show, we're gonna focus in on selling in the now. Buyers' brains are kind of mushy, economic uncertainty in play. What do we do to sell right now? Then we've got 2 listener questions. The first from Teresa in New Mexico. Her boss has said, stop leaving voicemails. Hmm, I've got some thoughts on that. And we've got Morgan up in Boston who's doing some email sequences not having the best of luck. And so we're going to give her some advice there as well. All that and so much more coming up on this month's episode. Hey friends and fans, Billion Dollar Sales Coach Ryan Dohrn here. Welcome so much to another episode. I sure appreciate all your friendship and your support over all of these years. Hey, are you like me and waking up in the morning and watching the news and listening to my podcasts and whatnot? And I'm just like, holy cow, What in the world is going on out there? Well, you are not alone, and neither are the buyers that you are trying to sell to. Whether you're like me, that I sell a lot of marketing solutions, sales training solutions, maybe you're in the media business, insurance, automotive, it does not matter, friends. We're dealing with a lot of uncertainty out there. People are worried about what's gonna happen tomorrow and what's gonna happen the next week. Very rarely are people worried right now about what's happening in Q4, even kind of Q3. People's brains are kind of mushy out there, and whatever the circumstance is, when people's brains are mushy, we have to really focus in on 3 core strategies. The first is recognize that you need to be talking about things you can do to help people right now. So the whole idea— and I know a lot of sales managers out there, you're like, Ryan, we need long-term contracts. I totally get it. What I want to do though to book meetings is I want to be talking to folks About what I can do to help them right now, as in, what could I do to help you next week? What can I do to help you in the next 30 days? Those conversations about big picture, 90 days out, 6 months out, a year out, even when you have a long sales cycle, friends, it's really important for all of you to remember you have to be selling vividly in the now and recognize that people's brains are just a little bit mushy out there. Now, we're also getting a lot of objections that we're getting kicked back. So that leads me really to point number 2. And that is recognize what type of buyer that you're actually dealing with out there. Are you dealing with an ego-driven buyer, a logical buyer, or an emotional buyer? So, recognize every Friday we do a study, a little informal kind of, if you will, a Google Form that the coaching clients that I'm dealing with or working with, not dealing with, working with each month. You know who you are. I love y'all. The coaching clients I'm working with on Fridays, you turn in a little survey to me that says, What types of buyers were you actually dealing with in the last 7 days? And we've been doing this since well before COVID What's interesting is 5% of buyers right now, according to my coaching clients, are in that egotistical kind of mindset. The second group, the logical buyers, coming in around 25-ish percent. And then you've got the emotional buyer set that's in that 75, if you will, range, and plus or minus kind of 4 or 5% in each category. So even if we're at 70% of people out there that are buying emotionally, we've got to recognize what that means. Most of you, most of us in sales, we sell the way that we want to be sold. So if I'm an emotional buyer, I'm typically an emotional seller. If I'm a logical buyer, I'm typically a logical seller. If I'm an ego-driven buyer, I'm an ego-driven seller. Let's set ego aside for a minute because most salespeople aren't ego-driven. Most, but a lot of salespeople are logical buyers. So you're a logical seller. The problem is a lot of times you're a mismatch for the person that you're actually talking to. So let's talk about that large swath of people, that emotional mindset. Well, the emotional buyer is somebody that can't be won over exclusively with facts and stats. Typically, those that are emotional need to be told some type of story. Usually emotional buyers. Stories resonate well with them about your other buyers that have been very successful with you. Typically, emotional buyers are very risk-averse, so you want to make sure you lower risk by mentioning other successful clients. If you do need to mention facts and data and stats, it's not that it's going to fall on deaf ears of the emotional buyer. It just needs to be tied to a story. So if you are 75% better than your nearest competitor, saying that to an emotional buyer is sort of like, eh, whatever. What you really want to do is say, you know, we have found that we're 75% more effective than our nearest competitor. We know that because Company A, Company B, and Company C have all utilized our services, and what they found is tremendous return on investment. You mention other happy clients. So, that's really the second thing. And then the third thing that you want to be thinking about is how relevant are you being in your outreaches, whether it's email sequences or whatever the circumstance is. Typically in 2025, mass emails don't work very well. Now, from a retail perspective, they may work well, but typically in the sales process, mass emails aren't working. What you really need to do when people's minds are kind of mushy is you really need to be doing a lot of high-touch activities, highly relevant activities. So, hey Sally, I saw on LinkedIn you guys are doing this. I can help you with that. Hey Bob, I saw on your Twitter feed or X feed, I saw you doing this. I can help you with that. It's really being highly relevant in the circumstances. Friends, it's not like political or economic uncertainty is new. A lot of times we're living in the now and people are like, wow, okay, this new person in the White House is causing all these problems. I mean, maybe so, but you can't say in the last 8 years we haven't had other economic problems, right? And this really isn't a Republican versus Democrat conversation. What it really is is a conversation about buyers. When buyers' brains are a little bit mushy, We have to up our game. We have to adjust our sales strategies, recognizing that when people's brains are a little bit mushy, we have to be high-touch, highly relevant, stop mass emailing people, sell them in the now, and so much more. Friends, I want you to recognize we're all going through this together. You, friends, you are not alone. Just recognize that you typically sell the way that you want to be sold. So if you're a logical or ego-driven seller, more than likely you're a mismatch for a lot of the buyers that are out there today. So you just want to evaluate yourself, look in the mirror, humble yourself, and realize, if I make some adjustments to my sales game, I might just be able to sell a little bit more right now. And those now conversations lead to longer-term relationships and longer-term buys and contracts as well. Never forget, friends, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it. And they're not. We're not crazy, friends. This is a great career. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. All right, listener questions coming up from Teresa and Morgan. Teresa's in New Mexico and she wants some advice on leaving voicemails. Morgan's up in Boston. And speaking of email sequences, we're gonna talk about strategies and ideas for email sequences for Morgan coming up next. All right, friends and fans, welcome back. It is time for your listener and viewer questions. If you like what we're doing on the podcast, if you like what we're doing on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to the channel and be sure to like. You know, it's interesting, about 80% of the people that watch these videos don't subscribe to the channel. Please do that. It rewards me for doing all this content and keeps you informed of what is going on as well. Give us a like and a thumbs up as well, would you? All right, first listener question comes in from Teresa. In New Mexico. What a great state New Mexico is. All right, Teresa's question. Hey Ryan, I've been told by my boss to stop leaving voicemails. I like leaving voicemails. He says it is a waste of time. What really should I do? Your help is appreciated. So Teresa, great question, and this is something that comes up on the blogs that I write and podcasts, and I get this question live actually a lot. Some people have actually said, do people even have phones anymore? Well, of course they do. They may not have a desk phone, but they definitely have one phone, if not 2 phones or more, depending on the circumstance. All right. So, I want you to always do, Theresa, what your boss tells you to do. Don't get in trouble on behalf of good old Ryan Dohrn here, okay? But for me, voicemail, Theresa and everybody, is a differentiating factor. It allows me to be able to express verbally, orally to somebody, my charisma, My excitement, my coolness, you know, the ability that I know what I'm talking about, that I sound good, that I present good. It just really is a differentiating factor because, Teresa and everybody, a lot of managers are saying cut the voicemails, no reason to leave a voicemail, nobody's listening to them anyway. And I disagree. I have had so many clients say to me, Ryan, thank you for the voicemail you left. It reminded me of the email that you sent. Aha! That really is the game-changing moment, friends. What you need to do is alter your voicemail strategies. And I've been talking about this for a while on the podcast and the YouTube channel and when I'm at conferences and things like that. We just were talking about it last week in Denver. Voicemails really should not be about you and your name and your rank and serial number. Voicemails should really be about an action that your buyer can take after the voicemail. So, for me, the voicemail does not sound like, hi, Bill, it's Ryan Dohrn from such-and-such calling, because he's just going to go beep and delete. For me, what it's really about is, hey, Bob, I sent you an email with the subject line blah, blah, blah. If you could give me a quick reply to that, I would greatly appreciate it. You do not need to call me back. Because I promise you, he wasn't going to call you back anyway. Oh, by the way, it's Ryan calling from such-and-such company. So, what I'm doing in presenting myself is, hey, I'm respectful enough not to ask you to call me back, but I'm reminding you of the email that I sent so you can reply back to that email. Now, someone the other day said, well, why not leave your phone number? What if they're going to call you back? All right. So, they're probably not going to call you back because strangers don't call back strangers, and it's okay. Recognize though that voicemail, Teresa and everybody, can be a differentiating factor. And I would encourage you to use voicemails as a part of your total sales process. If sales was easy, everybody would be doing it. It requires some new strategies, new ideas. Teresa, I've got the utmost of faith that you can make this happen. Like Teresa, if you've got a question, send it in, ryan@ryandohrn.com. All right, next listener question sent in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. Boy, I love all of your questions and give me a thumbs up if you like them as well, if you don't mind. All right. Next question comes in to us from Morgan in Boston. And Morgan's question is this: Ryan, my boss has been putting in place email sequences through our email service provider. Great. Now what I need to know is what should these email sequences look like? What should they contain? What's the frequency? And what really do I do? I haven't been given a lot of support. Just a directive. So Morgan, that's not necessarily uncommon. I've been in sales management way too long. We sometimes tend to roll things out and don't give a lot of training and advice on it. And that's our fault as managers, right? All you managers out there. All right, Morgan, I love email sequences with a couple of caveats. I do not love generic email sequences. And I consider a sequence to be generic if it's like, hi Ryan, comma, enter, enter, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, enter, enter, best regards. Morgan. Okay, that to me is a generic email even though it contains my name. It's a generic email, looks like a letter. Okay, for me, the success— I've had a lot of success with email sequences, but I want them to look like a regular email that comes from a regular person. I need it to follow the 3 and 3 format, so that's like 3 words in the subject line, 3 sentences max. Now, what do these sentences of the sequence look like? The first sentence is always going to contain social proof. So that's going to be like, hi Sally, we're working with Company A, Company B, Company C, and they're loving it. So the first sentence is always social proof, not your promotion, social proof. All right, the second sentence is what's coming up that you can help them with. Okay, what is it? Do you have a special section coming up? Do you have a special offer coming up? You know, a point of relevance that you can make. Something along those lines. And then the third sentence is always your ask, and you need to specify how much time you need, what you're looking for. So I always end it with, Bob, could I get just 5 minutes for an extremely brief chat about this, perhaps Thursday or Friday sometime after 2? Now, I don't get specific on the times. I give them a swath of time. But that 3 and 3 format is something that's worked for my clients for quite some time. You know, keep in mind, Morgan, if these ideas didn't work, I wouldn't have crossed over the billion-dollar mark, right? These ideas do work. Friends. I sell every day just like all of you. Now there's a lot of trainers out there that don't sell anything. I'm on the street making phone calls every day. After I do this video, I'll be sitting down and doing more prospecting. Now there's a lot of providers of sequencing tool sets out there. You can use the add-ons like Mixmaxx, for example, or IfNoReply. You might be using HubSpot, or you might be using different tools built into your CRM. It really is up to you. I think the biggest thing, Morgan, that I can share is generic long type of sequences just don't work. Now, the other thing on sequences, I try to put together 5 templates, Morgan, for every project. So those 5 templates, each one is going to have a different subject line, contain a couple of different happy clients. The second sentence, a little different thing of what I can help them with. That third sentence, that ask for time. I'm being very, very specific about times, but then— I'm sorry, I'm not being terribly specific, but I am being very specific about the length of time that I need. See, it used to be that you'd say, could you meet with me Friday at 2? Well, the problem is that's kind of a yes or no question. So, I am specific about, could I meet for 5 minutes with you? 5 minutes. But I'm not as specific about the date. I like to say, could I call you Thursday or Friday after 2? Gives them a big kind of opening. And most people's afternoons are a little more chill than their mornings. And so, that really is why I think— what I think about that. So Morgan, you really do need 5 templates for every project. So if you're selling like an event, you need 5 templates for that. If you're selling a special section, 5 templates. Where does the 5 number come from considering I'm a big rule of 3 kind of person? Well, what I found is when you go every 3 business days with your email sequences and then when you reach out over the course of 5 weeks, if you got 5 templates, you're not going to reach out On the same day, but every 2 or 3 weeks, every 3 business days, following the rule of 3 and 3, 5 email templates. And then that last template is an escape template, like, hey, are you the wrong person? If you gimme the name of the right person, I won't be bothering you anymore. It's kind of an escape template. So if you wanna copy those templates, you can always reach out to me, ryan@ryandohrn.com, and I'll be happy to send you a copy of the ones that I use on a regular basis, free of charge, of course. So Morgan, I hope that's helpful to you. So Morgan and Teresa, thank you so much for your questions. Keep them coming in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. And that's the show for this month. Sure appreciate all your support out there. I've got 40 topics of sales training and motivation that I can share with your group. So please invite me to your sales meeting. I'd love to motivate from the stage or work with you one-on-one. You can always find out more over at ryandohrn.com. D-O-H-R-N.com. H-R-N. ryandohrn.com. And never forget, friends, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're not crazy. This is a great career, friends. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. Get out there and sell something. Make us all proud, and we'll see you on the next episode. Take care. Reach out if I can help.
