How To Run a Discovery Call and Close More Clients Over The Phone - Turn Prospects Into Clients 💵

Tips on doing the initial discovery call with a client when you're selling them. On hiring you or after you've hired. You're hired and you're researching the project again. Would like to hear from all panelists and get their perspectives. That's very dangerous. Marcus.

Did he freeze?

Oh, we lost them right in this Trickster. Maybe it was like old school, like when I would pick up the phone on my sister when she was online.

I'm back. I'm still gone.

Oh, no, you just got back. Just came back.

Am I still gone?

No, you.

I can hear you guys the whole time. Okay. I love zoom. After you freeze, Zoom, you come back and then Zoom's like your Internet connection's unstable and you're like, yeah, no shit. I was like frozen for the last minute. Well, yeah, I think for when they're closed, I'm just wanting to hear their story. And I'm trying to dig for like interesting backstories. Cause it's like I've had this experience twice recently with the kind of celebrities. So I'm writing some stuff for. In both cases, it was like a skincare thing. And they're like, yeah, never had any issues with acne. Skin's always been great, blah, blah, blah. And they kept saying that. And if you keep like. I kept kind of asking and, well, why is skincare important to you? Have you always had habits? Blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, you know, I was teased a lot as a kid and blah, blah, blah. Oh, shit, write that down. Or it's like, well, you know, there's one time on set where I had a breakout. And then like, it was the only time I've ever had a breakout.

And.

And like, I, you know, I was really afraid cause I had to go on camera. But I had this breakout, I didn't know what to do. And I think it's cause I used a bad skincare product. And you're like, oh, well, yeah. I mean, so like. But you have to like, really, like pry. Don't let them just be really dismissive and kind of, you know, try to give you surface level answers. Like, make the call in faster. Just kind of go deeper and ask some questions and really, you know, why? Why? Again, curiosity. Same thing we talked about the Armani thing. Like, why? Why is it that way? What are their beliefs? What are their worldviews? How's that impacted them? Like what. That kind of stuff. And then when you haven't landed them yet, then I'm really trying to find out metrics and Then, you know, provide value as a trusted kind of advisor. But with that being said, I'm going to hand off to the panel and I'm going to end the call and I'll let you guys keep going. I love you guys. Thank you, Brooks and Ben and Saba and thanks everyone for joining and I'll see everyone inside the Facebook group too.

Thanks, man.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thank you.

Of course.

Hopefully this doesn't kick us off.

I'm gonna assign Brooks to be the host.

Cool. I would just expound upon. It's interesting. So we have a good friend, Sean Kemp, that's done a really good job. And if you guys don't follow Sean, you should. I know him and Stefan had a pretty good interview, but Sean said the other day, he's like, I think I've gotten really good at copying just overall positioning because it's not that initial. Why it's the seventh. Why, like, just like a little kid, don't take anything at face value and keep digging. Why, why, why? Keep getting deeper. And then at the end of the day, really you're prescribing a solution just like a doctor to them. And that's if you, if you stay positioned that way, if you just kind of go in with an open mind, don't have any assumptions, you're going to be to be able to identify some of like the limiting beliefs or assumptions that the client's making. And it's your job to just really peel back the layers of the onion, keep asking why, keep asking probing questions, care. And then, okay, here's the solution. Because you're helping solve the problem at the end of the day.

And I think you can use that discovery call, you know, to kind of build rapport, if you look at it that way. I really liked how Stefan mentioned that you act as their advisor. That's really going to help you kind of build a relationship and really show genuine interest. Because if you do want to have this relationship with the client, you are going to end up asking those questions and you'll want to know those things. Right. It's not just a sales pitch. You are actually investigating to make sure that first of all that you can do this job right and you can do it well. So you want to keep that kind of open communication and just establish. You want to establish a relationship, basically, yeah.

It's like forced altruism. Like, this is going to help me in the long term, better serve you and we both win.

That's awesome. And then in regards to like sales calls, it's really Simple. Just be like a cool person, right. To start, be nice, ask these awesome questions, and then definitely do Stefan's calculator. Close. Yeah, that's dope. That'll get you paid so much more money. And then, yeah, once they've hired you, then just, yeah, go into straight up detective mode. For sure.

It's. Yeah, just, it's a matter. I was just talking to Krista Edsel about this the other day. It's like, it's so all you, you have to 10x your value and do the math for them. So it's like once you know what their core metrics are. Right. So what's, what's the cost per click? What's your average order value? What's your close rate or your cbr? And then what's your ltv? And when you spell that out for them, okay. Based on this campaign, make sure that they're sharing those metrics with you. Do the math with them. Show them. Okay, well, if you stand to make, whatever it is, $30,000 off this campaign, I'm just asking for a mere 10% of this deal. $3,000. That's fair, isn't it? And it's just that positioning where you've diagnosed the problem, you've gone off of their math and their assumptions. They share that data with you, you show that you're knowledgeable about their core metrics and it's just like, okay, well, in order to make this many sales at this many dollars, you're going to need this much traffic and you just do that for them and it's that.

Much easier, I guess then Brooks, a really good point, but obviously, you know, most freelancers will encounter this where the client will say, that's all well and good, but what if I have a freelancer that's going to be willing to do it for 5%?

Right, right. Well, you get what you pay for, right? Yeah. I mean, and practice with each other and yeah, like we were talking about that, I said, trust me. And I believe, at least in the light group, Brian Spiranella is going to be doing that moving forward. Right.

The more people you can practice confidence. Right. You just have to self yourself confidently enough that the client feels confident in you. Like, the more that you know that whether you, whether you sincerely know that you can do the job, you know, nobody can guarantee that they'll be able to do it perfectly or they'll get the results and everything. But you have to feel, you know, your intention is to do the best possible job, to get them the best Possible results. And if you can sell that to the client, they'll feel much more, much more likely basically, to bet on you. Right. Versus somebody else. Even if it was just her, even.

Stefan getting paid 50 grand sales letter, he still loses sometimes. Like, it happens. But I think that emphasis of like, I'm going to work to exceed your expectations till we surpass that and to emphasize that you're trying to mitigate risk on their side and make it all about them. That's how you set up a successful agreement.

Yeah, totally. And then highlighting the gap as well. Right? So, like, for example, I've got a client who this year 2020 is offered in a million dollars. I asked him what he wants it to do next year, he said 3 million. So that's like, really easy then to sell because as long as I come in under $2 million, which I came in, I'm coming in just under. You know, it becomes a really obvious choice. And then it is just having a bit of swag at the end of the day. Right. Like you said, you're my favorite, but the most expensive. And I was just like, yeah, for sure.

That's what's up.

You have to make them feel good. Yeah. You have to. Just like in sales, you know, you have to make them feel good about their investment. Right. You'd have to make them feel like they're making a smart choice. That's another way to go about it too, right? That, you know, you can show them that they're making a smart choice by choosing you. Because if they choose someone else, they might go down this road and paint a really ugly picture. You know what that might look like?

Yeah, totally.

Once you have those demonstrable. And it gets. Just gets easier when you have the portfolio and they've shared metrics with you, your current and past clients, you're able to push that in front of them. I just love this story about Judge Judy. She goes out to dinner. This was recently in the past couple of years with the TV exec. And the guy's like, okay, let's start talking about. And she goes, no, no, no, listen, we're here to have some fun together, to enjoy each other as friends. We can talk business later. And then it was like some baller number, like 40 or $50 million. And she put it on a piece of paper and slid it across the table. And she's like, that's my rate. You know why? Because she commands her value and she knows how much she's worth. Pretty baller.

Power move right there.

Yeah, yeah.

Same. Same idea.

Right, Right.

It's again, yeah. It's building confidence, and you just have. You have to believe it stronger than the. Than the client might believe it at the time, but. And then communicate that.

Yeah. And it comes from that mindset. Right. No one ever walks out of an iPhone store or an Apple Store with a new iPhone and goes, ah, I can't believe I bought that. It's like a status thing, Right? Like, if you get to the level where you, like, you could hire Frank Kern as a consultant. Like, that goes on your bio almost. Right. Worked with Frank Kern. Like, that's, like the type of positioning that we're all trying to establish. Oh, and a couple more snuck in.