Proven Sales Blueprint for Digital Marketing Agencies: Close More Deals & Scale Faster

All right. Hello and welcome to today's session. We're putting on these sessions specifically for you guys in the Digital Marketing Agency Success Group. I'm really walking through how to land clients, deliver better results, retain your clients at a higher level, and scale your agency to 7 figures, multiple 7 figures, and beyond. I see we have some veterans on with us today. I know you guys all come in at different stages of agency growth. But if I know one thing for sure, it's that sales is one of those master skills you always want to be working on. You always want to be fine-tuning. You always want to be elevating in because it can make the difference between massive growth in your agency or stagnation. So before we get started, since this is live and we get an opportunity to engage, would love it if you just kind of tell me a little bit about your agency. Specifically, what type of agency do you run? Are you a niche agency or a generalist? Agency. You know, our agency, Plumbing and HVAC SEO, very niche, right? We work with plumbing and HVAC companies. Anna is a niche agency. Also just type in what the niche is. Right? Bill Jackman is a general. Matt Watson is niching down right now. Smart move. Anna is commercial cleaning. Jess Clinton is damage restoration companies. Fantastic. Good. It also gives me a sense of kind of who we've got in the room, kind of whether you're niche or whether you're general. The other thing I know is that all agencies go through these stages of agency growth, right? From startup where you just decided you're gonna start an agency to stability, kind of $10,000 to $30,000 in monthly recurring scale, $30,000 to $83,000 in monthly significance where you're over 7 figures, $83,000 plus, all the way through to Titan status, right? We're doing running a multiple 7-figure agency on your way to 8 figures. I'd love for you to find yourself on this hierarchy and just let me know. You know, are you in stability? Are you at scale? Are you in significance? Are you at Titan status? Also kind of helps you see who the players are in the room. Clinton's Titan status. Fantastic. You guys are crushing it. Let's see. Bill's in stability. Tim, stability. Fantastic. Almost stability. All right. Exciting. Threshold to pass. Jason is at scale. Zach is 3 million plus. Yeah. I know we've spoken many times over the years, so Congratulations on your continued growth and success. Very cool. And thanks for engaging with me, guys. It helps to make this 2-way. And if you happen to be watching this after the fact, comment in there as well. Just kind of let's, let's, let's keep a live and dynamic conversation going as we, as we progress through this. I've put together a workbook I'll be sharing with you guys that kind of walks through this process, how we approach the sales process. And if you just type blueprint into the comments, you can get that. We'll send it to you after the fact, the blueprint. Christian says thanks, appreciate from Miami. Fantastic. Speaking of Miami, who's coming to our intensive? We've got our Roadmap Live coming up in Miami, November 11th through the 13th. Just type live if you happen to be coming. I would love to know who's coming live. I know Clinton, we're going to see you as a member. If you want details about that type event, Jason, fantastic. Excited to see you there. We're gonna spend 3 days. We're gonna go deep. It'll be, it'll be a lot of fun. Zach, I'll be sure to get you the details. We'll get you the details for the mastermind days because, you know, I think that's gonna be more appropriate for you at your, at your stage. Esteban and team, if you could reach out to him with those details. Adam will get you the information. If you go to 7figureagency.com or actually Roadmap Live, that gives you the details for the, for the main event. If you're over 7 figures, let me know separately and we'll get you the details for that. In that way. So if we think about growing and scaling our digital marketing agency, we know that there's things we need to do daily, things we need to do monthly, things we need to do quarterly. And this is our Agency Growth System, right? This is the system we found that can help you get to 7 figures over 12 to 24 months or add an additional 7 figures every 12 to 24 months. And it really boils down to we've got to get enough strategy sessions with our ideal prospects in our niche. Right? And then we've got to convert those opportunities, right? And ideally we're converting at 30% or higher, right down here, the KPIs, 30% or higher. If you're selling to a niche, you've got a great sales process, you've got this dialed in, you should be able to accomplish that. If you happen to be tracking this, either for yourself or for your sales team, what's your close ratio? Put that in the comments for me. Last week we talked about traffic acceleration, right? Assuming we've got a funnel, assuming we've got the niche. We talked about how to drive the lead flow. Today we're gonna be talking specifically about the sales process. So we've got the active prospect that's interested in meeting with us. How do we handle that conversation? How do we build the value? How do we ask for the business and how do we close at the highest level possible? Bill says 20%. The rest of you guys, let me know what your close ratios are. Would love to know. I've heard as little as 5% all the way to 70 or even 80%, right? If you're almost all word of mouth or referral based or You just happen to be a rock star like Clinton, 60 to 70%. Amazing. So, so, so good. Okay. But today, it's all about Sales Process Mastery. That's what we're gonna be focused on. That's what we're gonna be getting into. And I always like to think about, like, there's one area within an agency that the very best agencies, the ones that go to 7 figures and multiple 7 figures, have dialed in. It's really this 3% of agencies. I'd love for you in the comments to let me know what you think that is. What is it that the best agencies do really, really well, right? Could be selling, it could be delivery, it could be client relationship management. Um, consistent prospecting, says Matt. What I found to be the case is every one of the 7-figure and multiple 7-figure agencies that I know or have had the opportunity to work with or had the opportunity to mastermind with they're, they're good at sales. They know how to get a prospect on a Zoom meeting to create value and to ask for the business. So super important, like you could, you could be amazing with SEO, you could be amazing with PPC, you could be amazing with Facebook ads. But if you don't know how to sell and you don't know how to close and you don't know how to potentially build a team that can take that over for you, you're not gonna get the, the growth and the outcomes that you're after. And so that's why I think working on this is so important. So let me ask you a question. How many of you have had a sales call where things seem to be going well, but then it just fizzled out? The prospect seemed interested, but they didn't sign. You followed up a couple times and you're wondering like, what went wrong? Give me a yes if that's you, like where it's like, man, I thought I, I thought I just crushed it. I thought this was a perfect sales call. Yeah, even Clinton, who closes at 60 and 70%, has this happen. And, you know, you type in ghosts if that happens to you sometimes as well. And this is frustrating. Happens to me at Plumbing and HVAC SEO. Happens to us at 7 Figure Agency. It's frustrating because you spend so much time, you know, like prospecting to get that opportunity, getting your tabs open on Zoom, doing your due diligence prior to the appointment, only to see them slip away. And sometimes you feel like you're chasing after clients, but don't really get there, right? And it sounds familiar because I'm seeing a lot of you guys commenting, ghosted, frustrated, not getting the outcomes that you wanted. I appreciate you guys engaging with me in the chat. So what if you didn't have to guess anymore? What if there was a clear, proven process for every step in your sales journey from the first interaction to closing the deal? That would be, that would be beautiful. And that's what we're going to be working on today. I'm going to be walking you through the Sales Process Mastery Blueprint, which is the step-by-step process that shows you how to turn prospects into paying clients. This is the sales process we run at Plumbing and HVAC SEO, which now does over $6 million per year. And it's what we teach our 7-figure agency coaching and mentorship members, that 133 have grown to 7 figures over the last couple years. We're on a mission to help 500 agencies go to 7 figures over the next 5 years. So this is what we're gonna be getting into today. And I'm really excited to unpack it for you. Oops, I'm pressing the wrong direction. So this is, this is the, the 5-step agency sales process. And pretty much exactly how we do it in our agency. First, first things first, we gotta get the prospects to raise their hand, right? And that's all about traffic acceleration. It's about all the stuff we've covered prior. I'll talk briefly about it today, but we need prospects to raise their hand. Secondarily, we wanna do a, a discovery conversation with the prospect. You can either do that by surveying them in advance before they get onto the call, or you can have a legitimate discovery call process with your prospects where it's not to sell, it's not to pitch your thing. It's just to understand them, understand what they're currently doing marketing today, understand what they've tried, understand why they're looking to make a change right now. The better you are on the discovery, the better you understand the gaps, the better you can transition and create a value-based sales process in the flow. So step 2 is we're gonna have the discovery call. Step 3 is we're gonna take them through a consultative strategy session. And that's where we're able to say, hey, based on what you told me, this is where you're looking to go. This is what you've tried. Our team did a bunch of due diligence, right? Looked at your website, we looked at your rankings, we looked at what you have in place. And here's where we found the deficiency, right? And get their buy-in, get their excitement, and then say, hey, is it okay with you if I walk you through what we would do, how we would solve these problems, how we've helped other plumbing and HVAC companies, whatever niche you're in, generate these results, right? And ask for the business. And I think that's where most sales processes end, right? It's like we do, maybe we do a discovery call, maybe we don't. And then we have the sales call and we know that either they say yes or they don't say yes, but typically that's where it ends. Step 4 is something I really would encourage you to add to your sales process. And that's a hot lead follow-up. Knowing that unless you're Clinton James, you're not converting 60 or 70% of your sales. You're probably converting 10 or 20%. Some of them say, hey, let's schedule a follow-up meeting where we can, you know, answer follow-up questions. We want to put a hot lead follow-up process in place to automatically follow up, follow through, and convert more of those opportunities into sales. I'll be walking you through what that is and how to set that up, but it was a game changer for us in terms of improving our close ratio at Plumbing and HVAC SEO. And of course, number 5, we want to streamline the, the sales, you know, signature process where they can easily take the next step. So that's big picture of the, of the 5 key steps. Step number 1 is we want to get prospects to raise their hand. Right? And that's about creating compelling offers that grab your client's attention. And make them eager to learn more, you need to have an enticing lead magnet, you know, that you can put in front of your prospects that, that pull them in. Let me know what you guys are using for lead magnets today, right? Because this is, if you don't have gasoline in the tank, right? Lead magnets, interesting things. In our case, our book is one of my favorite lead magnets. So we wrote How to Triple Your Sales by Getting Your Internet Marketing Right. This is something we mail out, something that we hand out. And it keeps us top of mind with prospects. But we also do cheat sheets, we do guides, we do all kinds of other lead magnets to get prospects' attention. And I did another training, and if you need it, let me know, but it's this Ultimate Agency Funnel, which talks about the key lead magnets that we leverage, how we leverage them, and how we can get these prospects entering into our world interested in kind of leaning in for what we have to offer. So I see lead, I see ebooks and downloads, I see free audits. Awesome. Cool. So action steps here, and again, I don't wanna, I don't wanna beat a dead horse, but we wanna create lead magnets that speak directly to your clients' pain points, right? Not getting enough leads, spending too much on marketing. You know, spending money and not getting a return on investment, not being able to track the results. Feel like, you know, not getting enough reviews so they can't rank on the Google map, right? They have issues, pains, frustrations. You hear them on your sales calls. You hear them when you're talking to your clients. That's the kind of lead magnets that you want. And you want to set up a simple capture mechanism where they can enter their name and their email address and their cell phone number and then follow up, right? Speed to lead is the name of the game when somebody opts in for your stuff. So again, just a brief high level there. We've got to make sure we've got lead magnets that bring people into our world. Let me know in the comments how many of you have a strong lead magnet right now. If you don't, don't worry. You're not alone. Just type need one if you need kind of like some raw materials to work from. Like, you know, like, give me a swipe and deploy, give me an asset. We will reach out to you guys after the fact. So I'm seeing lots of need ones in place for those of you that haven't. Fantastic. Kudos. Well done. See lots of need ones. Okay. Well, we will hook you guys up. Step 2 is the discovery call. Right? And so let's discuss, let's talk a little about the discovery call. This is your first real interaction with the prospect and it's Crucial, right? What we're trying to do with the discovery call is build rapport, understand their needs, and set the tone for successful relationship. The other thing we're trying to do on a discovery call is identify they're not a good fit, right? If it's— if they're too small for you, if they've got crazy expectations, if they're talking trash about their previous provider, sometimes you can use that discovery call to say, hey, you know what, I appreciate your time, but this isn't gonna be a good fit, and you can dodge a bullet. Right? We do a lot of our discovery call process through an initial form. And so you can do a deep dive discovery call. A lot of the members in our program do that. Or you can, you kind of, kind of screen them in advance. And so we ask a lot of the questions like how much you're spending in marketing, in our case, how many trucks they have. And if they're answering incorrectly, we don't want that noise on our counter. So we pre-screen them out. And so they come in and we know they're qualified. But if you don't have that process in place, you definitely want to do a discovery call. Let me know in the comments right now if you're doing a discovery call or just type 1 in the comments if you do like a one-step, you're gonna cover it all and you're gonna ask for the business. A lot of one-steps. Okay. I think we used to, we used to do discovery call and then we went to this prescreen process before we had the prescreen process. It was even more important than ever. Clinton says they're gonna move to a discovery call. Excellent. So this is important. Without a structured approach to your sales process, your discovery call can feel scattered and unfocused. But with the right framework, and we'll talk a little bit about the framework and I'll share it with you in the, in the blueprint, you can guide them forward to yes, again, assuming they're the right kind of fit. And so as part of 7 Figure Agency, you know, we give you a lot of training resources. We give you a lot of materials. But we actually have a scripted discovery call and some of the top salespeople in the program have recordings of those discovery calls and simulations for those discovery calls. And so we actually have that script in the flow and we have this Google Sheet questionnaire, which obviously you don't wanna script your call to the point where it feels too formulaic, but having a place where you've pre-populated some of their key details and you've got the questions that you can ask, makes it easier for you to get the right conversation flow every single time. It also makes it easier for you to hand it off. Like, if you're looking— how many of you guys would like to replace yourself from the sales process? Just type replace in the comments if that's you. I know that, that, that was always a big priority for me, and now we've got a sales team. I haven't been selling in the agency for over 5 years. The only way you can replace yourself in the sales process is if you've got a trained sales team, right? And you can only train the sales team if you've got a dialed-in sales process that's very consistent from one call to the next. And so having this type of discovery call process, the first thing you can do for your sales team is say, hey, look, you're gonna handle the discovery calls, right? Get to know the prospect, ask the questions about what they're marketing today, what they've tried, why they're looking to make a change, what their goals are, and most importantly, like, why is accomplishing that goal important? Right? Why is that a priority for you right now? How will your life be different and better? Right? Really making sure that they understand to ask those questions and get that inflection point. So whether you're still selling or whether you put a sales team in place, this is step 1, being able to ask those right questions and kind of develop the gap. So action step here is we wanted to customize your discovery call form and script, and you want to practice some of the common Objections with Confidence, and then run at least one discovery call using the framework to refine your skills. If you're doing this for the first time, right, you're like, you're gonna fill it in with the right questions. You're gonna make sure that you're comfortable, you're confident, and then you're gonna role play it, probably with yourself. Like, hey, let's pretend like this is a prospect and have those questions and kind of imagine what they might say. And then if you're part of 7 Figure Agency, I would encourage you to get on a Wednesday Wednesday Breakthrough Session. Every Wednesday, Josh Konigsberg is on there and he runs simulations and he gives you the opportunity to role play and you can jump into a breakout with one of the other members and actually practice this and get some live feedback. Type helpful if you feel like that would be helpful, like to, to have a place to role play, have a place to refine your skills, to have a place to maybe even drop that sales team in so that they can get up to speed quicker. No doubt. Seeing some helpfuls. Fantastic. Okay. So if you'd like this, just type discovery. If you feel like, you know what, I could use some help with my discovery call process, type discovery. Again, we can reach out to you and talk to you through what's included in the 7 Figure Agency and how you can get access to this and everything else that's part of the 7 Figure Agency program. Awesome. Fantastic. Okay. Step 3 is we have to prep and run the strategy session. And, you know, I believe mainly in a, in a consultative sales process, right? So when we prepare, like, we should have looked at their website. We should have run a keyword ranking report. We should have run it through some of the common tools like Search Atlas or BrightLocal or Yext or SpyFu so that you can say, hey, look, I did my research. I looked at the website. You told me your goal right now is to go from $500,000 to $1.5 million. You told me you're working with Scorpion right now. You're spending $5,000 per month. Me and my team looked at the site, right? And here's the keywords you're not coming up for. Here's the deficiencies with, like, why the website probably isn't converting the way that it should. Here's what I'm seeing. You told me you guys aren't doing any marketing automation to follow up with the leads when they come in. Just like prep. If you feel like, you know, you really, you see the importance of preparing and Like being able to make a case, not just for like, hey, here's our program, but a case for where there's a gap between where they are today and what you can bring to the table and how you're gonna close that gap. Amazing. So if you go to the strategy session unprepared, you're gonna lose credibility, right? You have to show up with insights, a clear plan, and build trust and excitement. So, this in the training, we've got ready for you, like ad nauseam, right? Exactly the exact tools that I use, the how I do the keyword research, how we run the ranking report, all the tabs you want to have open prior to the appointment, so that you're prepared, right? And there's a fine balance here, right? You want to be prepared enough to show there's an issue, but if you just spend the whole time going through all of the data analytics without connecting with them and making sure they're engaged, making sure that, that they see why this is important, you can lose them, right? So there's a fine balance between being prepared and being ready to have a technical conversation and boring the client and losing the, the opportunity. But we definitely are gonna like get you guys that, that prep sheet. And so, you know, in the training we get, we give all kinds of swipes and deploys, but when it comes specifically to the, to the sales process, how to run the keyword list, because this is part of what we offer in our discovery, but we're gonna give you a list of the most commonly searched keywords in your area, how to figure out the search volume for those keywords. And then actually want a ranking report, whether you do that in BrightLocal or Search Atlas or one of these other tools, it's super powerful. Like when the, when the point in the sales process comes to be able to say, hey, look, you told me you're doing SEO and, you know, I looked at the website, looks pretty good. You got the pages and all that stuff, but here's the keywords, right? Do you agree these are the right keywords? These are important keywords. You know, here's where you're not coming up, right? And so let's look at the website, right? And here's why the website's not ranking. You know, you don't have this, you don't have these pages, there's not enough links, you don't have enough reviews. You can point through by using these tools. If you had a good discovery call, if you understand what their goal is, to transition that to, okay, these guys have the answer. They have the, they have the solution. So let me know in the comments. I'd love to know, like we got some veterans here. What tools do you guys use in your sales process to kind of create that gap? Are you using BrightLocal? Are you using Search Atlas? Are you using Screaming Frog or some other random tool maybe that I've never even heard of? Let me know in the chat. S-E-R ranking, SEMrush and BrightLocal. BrightLocal and Google. Yeah, Google Ads keyword tool. Absolutely. My website audit is a great tool. Ahrefs says Monique, great to see you, Monique, by the way. BrightLocal, Ubersuggest, LeadSnap. Just getting started with Search Atlas and love it. Me too. We've moved all of our SEO stuff over to Search Atlas, and I'm still updating our process because we have a certain thing we look at in BrightLocal that paints a vivid picture, and we're trying to figure out how to replicate that in Search Atlas, but we love Search Atlas as well. Fantastic. Okay. So big picture, that's kind of like what we want to do to prepare for the sales call. And if you want some additional tools, let us know. We can get you the tools and resources and exactly what we do to prepare for those conversations. But ultimately, big picture, like now we've got the call with the prospect. Initial call to understand what they need. Then we're gonna do the review, right? We're gonna review the rankings, the reputation, and showing them exactly how we can help. And then we're gonna follow up to close. We've got a, I believe in a framework-based sales process, right? And, you know, there's a line between having a, you know, a presentation deck and you're slamming slides and having a conversation with the prospect. And I think sometimes we feel like there's gonna be some magical presentation deck that we can slam through and it's gonna resonate with the client. It's gonna help us close at a higher level. Prior to doing this, I was a sales rep at ReachLocal, right? And at ReachLocal, it was all hard close sales and you go to like sales boot camp and there's a specific way they want you to sell. I found I was much more comfortable just having a business conversation with the prospect. Right? And having a framework that guided me through the flow, guided me through that process, made a huge difference in how effective we were in closing deals. So let me know where you sit on that spectrum. Type script if you're like, I'd love to have a script. Deck, if you're like, no, I need a deck, I need to like slam through the slides, or conversation if you prefer more of a conversational tone, a conversational sales process where, yeah, you're showing the stuff, but you're also, you know, meeting that prospect where they're at. A lot of you guys like the conversation and the sales deck, kind of a mix in between. So what I found is a good balance for that is to have a presentation flow. Where you're using a framework that you can hit all of the key points. And ideally, you've got tabs open with their website, with a couple of other client websites, maybe with a page that's got all the details about what you're gonna do within your program. That way you can move between the conversation but still keep things going. You know, these are the key boxes. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this. I'm gonna look at it with you guys from a big picture. But, you know, as, as members of Centrifiguration, this is one of the things that we pride ourselves in is giving you a really great flow and training you up so that you can level up in your conversion process. But I really believe there's 3 steps to the sales process. There's, we want to lead, we want to establish the gap, and then we want to present, right? So lead is when you step into that sales conversation after the, maybe say after the discovery call, we want to build rapport. Right? You know, get to know them a little bit, talk a little bit about their day, talk, you know, have a little playful banter at the beginning of the conversation, but then move straight into the agenda. Hey, you know, I've got a loose agenda for these appointments where, you know, I've done some due diligence. I've looked at what you have in place. I'd love to spend a little bit of time getting to know you and your goals and kind of refining that if we didn't cover it in the discovery call. And then I'll show you exactly what we found and where we think we could help. Is that okay with you? Right? Get their buy-in on the agenda. And then ask for the decision. Look, I know you're a busy person and we're busy here as well. All I ask is if this makes sense, can we make a decision to move forward? Yes or no? Sometime between now and 2 weeks from now, right? Or you can, if you're more bold, I'd love to know how you do this, Clint. Do you ask for a decision right on that first call? Or do you like ask them for a commitment that we're not just gonna play footsie, but we're actually gonna make a decision and no is okay, right? Right? We're okay with getting some nos. So that's what we're doing there. We're like kind of setting the expectation for the meeting, setting the agenda, and then we're getting their acceptance that we're gonna make a decision. And if they're not gonna make a decision, you might as well just stop the call right there, right? Because you're wasting your time, they're wasting their time. From there, we want to establish the gap, right? And this is either repeating back to them what they said in the discovery call or that your salesperson got from the discovery call or doing that on the one call, right? Which is, tell me a little bit about your goals. Where are you looking to go within the company? Where are you today? What's the gap between where you are and where you want to go? And then reviewing the findings. Right? And there's, there's a lot of nuance as you're getting the feedback, and that's why having the framework is so helpful. As you're asking them about their goals, as you're asking them about what they're doing today or what they've tried in the past, you're asking like, why is that important? How's your life gonna get better? What are you gonna do with that increase, right? Or maybe you're gonna hire some more people or you're gonna do some different things within the organization. There's key points and inflections throughout this process. And then we transition to reviewing the findings. So, hey, look, appreciate you kind of bringing me up to speed, making, making it clear exactly where you're at and where you're looking to go and what you've tried. Like I told you, our team did some due diligence leading into this. We ran a keyword list. We've looked at the website. I think there's some very specific things we can do to help take things to the next level. Is it okay with you if we get into that now? Right? And you're asking for these yes questions as you go. And they're like, okay, yeah, let's do it. And you can transition to pulling up those tabs. Hey, so these are the keywords, right? And then you're showing that in the ranking tool. You know, these are the ranking report. This is where you're not coming up. You see like these are important keywords and why this is gonna be important that we get it dialed in. And asking the yes questions throughout, making sure that they're clear on those findings. And then we can move to present. Right? We can say, hey, look, you know, do you see these gaps? Do you think it's important to solve these? Do you think once we've got this figured out, it's gonna help you get the outcomes that you're after? And they're like, absolutely. Is it okay with you if we kinda shift to show you what we do here at Plumbing and HVAC SEO and how we can implement this strategy to get you better results? Absolutely. Right? And we're gonna present the program overview. Right? And it's gonna be different for all of us, but ideally, you've got a plan laid out in advance and you're gonna stack with the high higher price thing in the front. Look, here's what we wanna do. Website, SEO, pay-per-click, social media, like, have a way that you walk them through it. And then give them examples and expectations. Right? So show them, look, you know, client just like you, this is Shamrock Plumbing, right? We've been working with them for this amount of time. You can see this is their website. Here's the keywords that they come up for. Here's our ranking report. Here's our call tracking data where we can show them exactly how many leads we get and how much they've grown over the years. You see how that's gonna help you get to where you are after. Yeah. And then you, you move to ask for the business. Right? And I like to use a 3-question loop here, which is, are you comfortable with everything we've covered so far? And they're like, yeah, this sounds great. Sounds fantastic. Awesome. You have any questions? And this is where you can get those objections in advance. Last thing you wanna do is ask for the business and then they throw 3 questions at you. But you should be answering those questions throughout. Maybe they got some answers, maybe they got some questions that they don't. Where do you think we should go from here? And, you know, this I found to be very effective for my sales style. I don't like to do a hard sell. I like to guide them to a yes. And so they're usually like, well, how much does it cost? Right? And then you can get into the price and then you can ask, are you comfortable with what we've covered so far? Are you comfortable with that pricing? Yes, no, maybe so. Any questions on that? Where do you think we should go from here? And if they've got a question, you address the objection. You handle it right then and there. If they say, well, I don't know, let's get started. Then we say, awesome, I can take your credit card right over the phone and we can get the ball rolling. Or maybe they say, hey, you know, I gotta schedule a follow-up or I gotta do something different, right? But continuously going back to this 3-question loop to get the yes and to get things moving forward. Clinton, I'd love to hear your 2 cents on this and kind of how you approach this being a 60% plus close ratio guy here.

Well, first of all, thank you, Josh. Um, I, I'm— my closing technique is, is really assumptive. Um, early on in the conversation, I tend to use phrases like 'when we' as opposed to 'this is what we do.' It's 'when we do this for you,' right? And if I get any pushback, then I know not to use those assumptive phrases. But traditionally, if I recognize that I've got a great solution for the clients, I know they meet our qualifications and they're a good fit to work with me. If I use that assumptive terminology as I'm going through my sales presentation, by the time we get to the end It's not a matter of, do you want to do business with me? It's, here's the next step. So that's worked really, really well for me.

Love it. So good. Thanks for sharing, man. Appreciate it. Amazing. I'm trying to remove spotlight. Okay, cool. All right. So there is a flow to this process, and especially when you're doing this for the first handful of times or you're trying to train up a sales team, Having the rapport, agenda, decision, goals, current situation, tried in the past, review the website, review the rankings, review the on-page, good, bad, and different. Show examples, present the program, get the buy-in with the 3-loop question, and ask for the business, right? This works really, really well. Of course, it's nuanced, right? As you do it, you find little things, you find little questions, you find little conversational points that help drive this process for you. But it, but it works really, really well. Some great questions towards the end. You know, it's like, how does this sound in comparison to what you had in mind? Can you see how once the website content, local listings are up, this is gonna lead you to more business and growth? You know, if you had to rate your interest in moving forward right now from a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate it? And if they're not saying a 10, okay, cool. Like, what would it need to be in order to move you to a 10? And you can have those conversations. And then, hey, let's get started. Would you prefer to use a credit card or debit card? You know, at this point, credit card or ACH, right? And we all would prefer ACH. You're not going to get the business if you don't ask, right? So you got to get comfortable asking for the business. You know, getting that 3-loop question saying, okay, let's get started. Right? That works extremely, extremely well. So action steps here on the sales process. We're gonna run the reports to analyze their current digital presence and identify opportunities. We can use like tools like Loom to engage with the prospect before and after the sales call. And we're gonna lead the strategy section and present your findings and ask for the business. Now, I would say in our business today, it's probably like out of the clients that say yes, it's probably like 20% that will give us a credit card right then and there, right? Out of the ones that close, the other 80% are saying, all right, this sounds good. Can you send me the program overview with all the details? Right? How many of you like, they say they want to schedule a next meeting? Just type next in the comments here. That's typically what you're seeing, right? Obviously we've painted a value proposition, but they want to review the proposal. They want to discuss it with their team, right? Usually there's next. So a couple of key things. Never let that be an open loop. Okay, I'll send you the proposal and we'll see how it goes. Set the next meeting, right? Right then and there. Okay, not a problem. We both agreed we make a decision sometime in the next 2 weeks. Can we schedule a follow-up meeting, right? You know, how much time do you need to review this, to discuss it so that we can discuss next steps and get things going, right? And schedule that right on the call. If they're not willing to schedule the follow-up, you don't have an opportunity in play, right? You might as well just close it out and move on with your life. You can still send the thing, but if they're not scheduling a next step, it's probably not going to happen. So just be really clear on that. Super important. If they didn't give you the credit card, you need to schedule the next call and try and enforce that 2-week buying decision frame. Because if you say, hey, look, at the beginning of the call we agreed we'd make a decision sometime in the next 2 weeks. Are you still comfortable with that? Yes. Okay, great. We're just gonna schedule to meet on next Thursday at 3 o'clock. I'll send you the calendar invite. We'll meet then and, and discuss next steps in getting this started. But you can engineer your hot lead follow-up, which we're gonna talk about next, based on that 2-week timeframe. And that's important for 2 reasons. Number 1, it gives you a reason to follow up. It creates urgency, but it also will create mental space where you guys say a lot of people ghost you. You say there's a lot of people that you meet with and you thought it went well, but then it just fizzles out. They've committed they're gonna make a decision sometime in the next 2 weeks. We're gonna put a hot lead follow-up in place that actually disconnects the opportunity at the end of those 2 weeks. And either you're gonna push those people off the fence and they say yes and they give you the credit card or they fill out the online form, or they don't and you remove them from your pipeline and it gives you the space to go hunt down other prospects, people that are actually interested in doing business with you. It's a simple thing, but it will have a big impact on your ability to continue to grow. So before we dive into the next thing, you know, if you'd like to get the document that goes along with this, type blueprint again in the comments. We're gonna be sending this out after the fact and getting you all of those details. Okay, step number 4, and that's the following up with your leads. So Not every prospect's gonna sign immediately. I already talked about that. So a strong follow-up process is essential to keep your agency top of mind. This is super important because without follow-up, you're gonna leave money on the table. But you need to be strategic with the way you follow up, and this is what we call a hot lead follow-up process. Type busy if you feel like, you know, you should follow up with those people that said yes. You know that maybe they set the follow-up call, but you're too busy. To follow up via email, to continue to push those opportunities over the hump. Clinton says busy. We all get busy. And so what we found is that this hot lead follow-up process can convert 2 to 3 times more of your opportunities into sales because we know if we remain top of mind, if we follow through and we follow up, they're going to remember and they're gonna do business. And so simplest, highest level version of this is We're gonna put them into an email sequence. We today, we use HighLevel for this. All of our 7-figure agency members, we give you the, the, the actual workflow with the text and you can just modify it for your particular niche. And then we send a shock and awe, right? They're probably meeting with 2 to 3, maybe even more other agencies. And if you follow the sales process I've just dictated, you're gonna stand out because you will have done your due diligence. You'll have a professional conversation. The other thing that you can do that will make you stand out is to show up physically in their mailbox. And so what we do is we've got a custom printed envelope with a copy of our book, with testimonials, with a program overview and a cover letter. And every time we finish a sales call, we move it to Hot Lead Follow-Up in our pipeline. That automatically gets sent out. We got a mailhouse that grabs it off the shelf and sends it out. And so what happens automatically. And we get compliments all the time. Like, you know, out of the other agencies I met with, you guys were the only ones that followed up via email, that sent me case studies, that sent me testimonials, and actually, actually sent me the information. What do they do? What do they send out? So basically, we got a mailhouse called City Blueprint, and there's a workflow inside of our hot lead follow-up process. And I'll get you all the details on this. They, they grab, they print out the COVID letter. They have our brochure that's got the entire program overview. In the COVID letter, we've got a stack of client references that they can reach out to if they want to. And then it's also got a copy of our book. So it's just bulky mail that shows up and it's like, okay, cool. These guys are on top of the ball. They're paying attention. Are you doing overnight, 2-day? Based on where they are in the country. We tend to work with US and Canada. That's like where most of our clients are. And so we're just doing 2-day and that's usually quick enough. You don't want to send it snail mail because that's going to take a while, right? So that's a good question and an important thing to consider. And so this is what the workflow looks like. What do we put in the workflow? Again, I can give you guys as members the actual workflow itself that you can swipe and deploy. But it's, hey, thanks so much for your time on the call. You know, here's Here's an overview of our program and exactly what we're gonna do. Here's some client case studies and, you know, preparation for making your decision. I'm sure you'd like to see what we've done with other clients, right? And you stack your case studies there. What you can expect, right? Here's what we're gonna be doing over the next couple of weeks as we get started, what your onboard process looks like, what the first month looks like. If you can have a customer journey to get them excited about how they're gonna buy in, that works well. And if you look at the end of this workflow, it counts down 2 weeks. And so there's 2 critical pieces of it. The day before that, you can send a message, hey, look, we, we both agreed we'd make a decision sometime in the next 2 weeks. Can we jump on a call tomorrow to discuss next steps and get this party started? Right? And then 2 days after that, after the timeframe has elapsed, we send a disconnect message. And this has powerful ramifications because you're basically saying, sorry. Hey, I just wanted to check in. Sorry you decided not to move forward with us. It was a pleasure to connect with you. There's anything I can do in the future, please let me know. And if they weren't interested, boom, they, they like, they're moved on. But if they were interested, and a lot of them are, they come back right away. They're like, no, wait, I do want to do this. Let's, let's discuss next steps. And so that's why having the countdown and kind of like that deadline in a non-obtrusive way works really well. And you remove them from the pipeline at that point. So you have a clear pipeline. And this, this really works exceptionally well. So I've got some visuals there. Actually, this visual still has CDs. We don't send CDs anymore because cars don't have CDs in them these days. But, whatever you can do to make it bulky, to make it stand out. So action steps, implement an automated sequence to stay engaged with those prospects after the initial call. Set up a sales tracking dashboard so you can track your pipeline. We do this in HighLevel. We also track this on a spreadsheet. And use both inbound and outbound to keep those prospects warmed up and moving in the right direction. How many of you guys have a hot lead follow-up in place? If not, just type hot in the comments if you feel like that's something you can implement and maybe you'd like, you're like, I'd love to swipe and deploy your hot lead follow-up. That would be super beneficial, at least like kind of the framework and what the messaging looks like. Clinton, come on, man. You just got 40% of those sales that you gotta follow up with after, right? Fantastic. That's a plus one. Get, you know, go get it and plug it in. Okay. Step 5, and this is just, you know, the housekeeping, the basics, right? Finally, once the client says they're ready to move forward, you need to make the process smooth and efficient. Automate the proposal and contract, finalize the agreements quickly, and start onboarding right away. So ideally, we've got a program overview document that spells out exactly what it is, exactly what they're going to get. Without being over the top. Like, it's just a super clear document in HighLevel, super easy to get them to sign directly online, give you their credit card details, and you're off to the races. Simplify the process, right? Make this as easy as possible for them to say yes. That's why we take credit card directly over the phone. In a lot of cases, it is no resistance. We still want them to sign the annual agreement, and so we send that out so that they sign it, right? And you can do this inside HighLevel or DocuSign or wherever you want to use. Slower clunky closing process can kill deals at the last minute. With automations and streamlined approach, you keep your momentum strong, right? And so this is, this is basic stuff, but use tools to automate the contract process, make it easy for them to sign and commit, and kick off your onboarding immediately. Like the moment after they give you that credit card, they go straight into buyer's remorse, right? And we need to make sure we don't just sell these clients, but we retain these clients long term. And so, hey, look, glad to have you on board, really excited about working with you. The next step is I want to connect you with Linda on the, on the onboarding team. Let's go ahead and schedule that now, right? What day and time? Once you've got the credit card, do that, right? Because if you delay and they got to get their email and they got to fill in a form and then Linda's got to call them and schedule that meeting, they might be a week, 2 weeks in before the kickoff call even happens. So train your sales team or train yourself right after the deal's closed, that needs to happen like, boom, like the next couple of days so we can maximize retention. Zach says, annual agreements. Have you always done this? At what stage did you switch? Great question. For the first, I would say probably 3 or 4 years of our agency, all month to month, all like, hey, look, the onus is on us, let us prove our value. We started seeing churn issues because when you sell, a month-to-month situation, they're thinking, I'll give this 60 days, 90 days, and let's see how it goes. You don't have much grace. However, if you set the expectation, look, we're gonna do all of this stuff, right? And we've got all these proven results, but this needs to be a long-term business relationship, right? We're not in the business of just setting things up and calling it a day. You've gotta give us the time to build the website, to write the content, to build the authority, to, to put all of the tracking mechanisms in place. To drive the traffic to get you the outcomes. And so if you're not in this, you know, you're not committed to 12 months, let's just, let's just not do business. Right? And when we made that change, I figured we would lose our close ratio and like, like really reduce our close ratio. It didn't. And it had a big impact on our retention. So that's why we do annual agreements. And do we have an out clause? We don't actually enforce the agreement, right? So a client could sign up with us. They could be with us for 6 months and something happens and for whatever reason they don't like us and they say, hey, we're canceling. And we're not gonna chase them down and say, hey, you have to stick for the full year. It's just the agreement mentally frames them that this is gonna be a long-term business relationship. And that's what you want, right? If you're selling 30-day trial, 30 days, let's see how it goes month to month. They're automatically like with their hand on the ripcord the second something doesn't go right. The second they have a month where they're not seeing ROI, they're out. So just give me a yes. Hopefully, Zach, that answered the question. I was very against this, by the way. It like kind of shifting gears to where we're talking about sales, but from a business development perspective, I was resistant to doing an annual contract. And one of my, I was in a mastermind like this and one of the, one of my colleagues said, look, we moved to annual contract. It didn't hurt our sales. And As a matter of fact, it's made a big impact on our retention. Just give it a try, right? And worst case scenario, say that it's an annual agreement, have that on your terms and conditions. And if they push back, you can always negotiate down, right? And that was what kind of helped me with it because I was like, well, if they do want to negotiate down, we can always say, hey, look, in your situation, we'll do it for 6 months of commitment. Will that work for you? And make that a term for them to say yes. And like 1 in 10 have any issue with the fact that it's a long-term agreement. Alright. So if you feel like you don't have the signature automation down, type sign in the comments here. These tools exist, right? Let's get with the times. Let's make sure that we've got digital signature set up. We're making it easy for the client to say yes. We're making it easier to capture the ACH or the credit card details. Fantastic. Alright, so those are the 5 steps to mastering your sales process. We're gonna get prospects to raise their hand. We're gonna master the discovery call. We're gonna prepare and execute an effective strategy session. We're gonna put the hot lead follow-up in place and we're gonna automate the signature process. If you nail these 5 steps, you're gonna have an improved close ratio and overall growth within your agency.