Strategies for Keeping Your Sales Funnel Full and Thriving

Welcome everyone to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. This is the podcast for you if you are wanting to create or already running peer groups. It's what we call PACs, Peer Advisory Councils. They might be known as mastermind groups, CEO peer groups, all the same. But this is the podcast if you want to run better PACs, that you want to be better at being a moderator, you want to up your game, learn advanced techniques, hear from myself as well as guests what works, new concepts, trends, techniques. Also learn content, things you can take back to your meetings, different ways to do different things to solve problems that we all have when we're running groups. It will increase your retention, reduce your attrition, get you more members, make you more money, this is the podcast for you. I'm Tina Corner Stolz, the host. I've been doing this since 2005. I built a territory of 10+ groups, sold for a multiple, started Ellis Council, Leader Exchange Council, in 2012. We are a licensing model. We are the leading educator in the peer advisory council space. We have the podcast. I have a licensing program with certification. I've written 2 books. So today, when you hear this episode each and every week, it's a new podcast where we dive deep into a topic for 15, 20 minutes. One week it's me doing a deep dive on all the experience and insights from not only today with our entire licensed partner community or the past, what I've learned along the way. But we also have guests that are out there doing groups today that share their insights and new concepts. So let's get started with today's episode. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I am your host, Tina Corner Stolz, and today we're going to talk a little bit about sales process for closing members. Now, I'm, I'm probably going to be doing a few episodes on all this because I'm kind of in a mode of being passionate about being very intentional about your leads for members in your groups and having a process, not taking it lightly in order to have the right members in your groups and to have a full group. And I've been talking to many people lately because in running groups you can get a little bit complacent and lazy, and then suddenly you have a couple of members that have to leave for some reason. And now you need new members and you feel like you're in, you know, panic mode a little bit of like, oh shoot, I don't have anybody in my funnel. I need to go find a couple members. You might feel like you also now have another member that's in jeopardy and it just can feel overwhelming and like, oh, you should never be in, oh, mode. You always have to be selling. As much as you may hate to hear that, it's reality. Reality is, is that you're always looking for the right next fit member for your groups. Always. There isn't a time that goes by that you don't do that, that you stop doing that. It's a continuous thing you have to do. It's just the way business is, is that sales is front and center and sales makes or breaks. And if you aren't consistently looking for members, you're going to find yourself in a jeopardy situation one day where you have a bunch of empty seats around the table, and that's not a good place to be, and it's not a great feeling. I always hated it, and I never wanted to feel it again. So sales was part of my everyday thing. I always strove for having a waiting list. What if you actually had that mindset? Is that I'm going to have a waitlist? Couldn't that be amazing? Just take that in for a second. How amazing would that be? Is that— let's just say your goal is that you have 10 members in your group and you have 10 and you don't stop looking for right fit members and you suddenly find one and they are interested, but you have a full group. So you have to say that individual, I'm going to put you on the waiting list and you're going to be the first to call. And then you have to create and keep them warm and keep them engaged. Etc. You don't just not speak to them. That's a whole nother episode in itself for how you keep prospects warm, particularly to have a waiting list. But it happens and it can work, and I've done it, and it's amazing about the peace of mind it gives you and the confidence it gives you that you actually have a waiting list for your members, for your group, and for your group to know that. How amazing would it be that your members actually know there are people waiting to come into their group? Do you think they're going to want to leave? That's the case. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So first and foremost, I hope the one takeaway already you're getting is the power of having a waitlist and what it can mean to your peace of mind and to your members staying in your group. Now, if you are anything like a regularly privately held business out there, You have no sales process. 92% of companies report no sales process. 90% report that they don't even follow a process of the one that they have, and 84% don't even document. So being a solo entrepreneur of a small organization and running peer groups, do you have a process? I can't imagine that many of you all out there do. It's probably in your head. And you probably, you know, because you might not do it that often, you don't have it written down because why do you need to write it down if you're the only one that's doing the selling? But I suspect not. And if you do, you wing it. Now, I can say that because like I did that for many years and my background is sales. So I'm like, I don't need to write this down. I don't need to be sure that I have this, this, and this. My closing ratio is very high. And why do I need to do that? Well, first of all is because at some point you can get lazy and forget a step. That's not good, and that can cost you a really good sale, and that's not what you want to have happen, right? So to keep your groups full, you need a predictable, repeatable, scalable process. You need mile markers to know how you're doing. So what am I talking about with the mile markers? Like, well, Okay, what do you think the steps are of a process? Right? So I have a lead, I talk to them and close them, and then I put them in a group. That's kind of 3 steps in a way. Well, let's just say that was or is your 3 steps. A mile marker would be as well, how many leads do I get and how many leads convert into a conversation and how many of those conversations do I need to have to get a member? Those are mile markers. So a mile marker is I made it to here and how long did it take me to get to here and how often am I successful when I get to here? So you're measuring success in time and that is important because when you're in a position where you need to fill a spot in order for you to know how quickly you can fill that spot, you need to know time, right, and volume that's going to get you there. So it's accurate forecasting. Okay. And you need to be able to accurately forecast what's the likelihood that you're going to have a new member in a group to backfill that spot. So it's documenting all those stages that you go through. You have to have stage 1 where most people don't have all the proper stages. Stage 1, qualify. So you have a suspect, you have someone, and you have to qualify them. Never make the mistake that somebody qualifies for you. I've made that mistake multiple times. I've thought an existing member obviously knows who a right fit is. They've been an existing member for so long. I'm, you know, I trusted that they qualified and boy, did they not qualify. So you can never trust that somebody else has qualified properly. You are the best qualifier. So you have to go through that stage of a suspect, a lead, whatever, to qualify them because certain ones are just going to fall out for various reasons. And then once you qualify on the high end, the thing to ask yourself is, what questions do I have to ask to be sure that they are qualified? So I get so many people that kick the tires about wanting to be a licensed partner or get into this business of running groups that I will tell you, qualifying those that really have the skill set, the desire, that it's a right fit, it's a super low percentage. It is very, very low. How low is it? It is less than 20%. It's close to 15. So that means, right, I talk to a lot of people that don't make it past that. But if they happen to, they go into what's a discovery call. So it's just like you with a prospect. You qualified them. They're not a startup. Let's say, you know, they have a viable business. They meet some of the criteria that you're looking for. Now you go into the deep dive, the discovery call. That's where you're being curious. If you listen to any of my episodes in the past about curiosity or the $100,000 question, that is critical in this stage of discovery, that you're screening them for a right fit as much as they are screening you to participate. So that's your whole discovery, right? And now what do you do after discovery? Do you do a proposal? Rarely do we do proposals in this space, right? It's usually your offer that you're saying, well, here's the situation. So here's the monthly dues, here's the the, um, criteria around them, the notice, here's how long you're expected to participate, etc. And that is then your presentation of what the offer is. But you do have that. So what is it that needs to be included in that to ensure that you have a high closing rate, which is your last step? You either win or lose. Now, in some cases, there might be a negotiation stage You might not negotiate anything. In some cases you might negotiate. It just depends. So that could be another stage for you. So you have the qualification stage, you have discovery, you have where you present the offer, you might have negotiation, and then you might have then the close. So you have questions that are critical to get asked And until you know the answers to them, they can't go to the next stage, right? So, so you have to— and if anything, I encourage you is to write those questions out and what's required to go from one stage to the next, and know and be prepared, right, for where you're going to have to handle objections, etc., so that you do that effectively. And you're going to have to also decide what your follow-up tactic is. For example, whether you're going to send a thank you note, whether you're going to send a follow-up in regards to a summary of the discussion, whether you're going to send any homework they need to do before you talk to them next, whatever, whatever, whatever it is. Because at some point in all that, you also have to be sure that you have made sure there is no conflict of interest. With your group. And so where are you gonna put that checkpoint in this whole process? And you might even have in your process a demo. So a demo in our world is that you have a mock meeting, right, where you might invite them to experience a mock meeting. And some of you, I know, like to invite to come to a real meeting. And come and sit through part or all of that, and that, that is part of your process. So we're back to writing out your process. And when you do what you do, what questions do you ask for each stage? And what is required in answers, etc., before you move to the next stage? And then as you take somebody through to document, how long does it take? And your success rate so that you absolutely know your stats. Because the power of that knowledge is amazing when you know that, because it gives you the confidence level to know how many people have to go in the beginning of your funnel in order to get to the end result, because your percent to close is so important. And your time to close is so important because time kills all deals. And what I mean by that is, aside from if you let too much time go by with a prospect or something, something happens and they will not move forward. If you don't fill a seat in your group fast enough, something will happen to your group. It won't be the best meeting. You'll have another turnover. It just— you don't want to go there. So I'm back to— it's likely that most of you out there do not have a sales process. What I'm encouraging you today is it doesn't have to be elaborate. Do exactly what I was talking about and get an Excel sheet and track it. If you have lots of prospects because you have many, many groups, and I'm sure you have a CRM system and it should be integrated with your CRM system. But know where your leads are coming from, where your most successful leads are, you know, come from. Meaning when a lead comes in from that particular source or whatever, you have a higher closing rate, it's a better prospect. All of those things will matter and give you peace of mind, even if you are not, quote unquote, a salesperson or you don't like sales. The unfortunate reality is, is it's real and you have to or you will not be successful. And if you don't want to do it, you got to get somebody else to do it. Sales has to be front and center every day. Every day. And I know, I know many of you out there are thinking, no, it doesn't. I can be doing fine. I am telling you, if you want to be super successful, and never have that moment, you know, it takes sales front and center as a priority to keep your business running successful. Okay. So with that said, that's the message on sales today. I hope it's helpful. And I do want to put out there to everyone is if you have a topic that you would like to hear more about on my podcast, I would really like to hear from you. So please send me an email at Tina@lxcounsel.com and say, hey, I would love if you talk about this or have a guest on this, et cetera, because I would love to hear what you want to hear about. And with that said, you guys go have a great day and make it happen. Thank you everyone for listening to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. And to get access to today's episode, not only the show notes, but any tools and resources, encourage you to— not only will you find them in the episode show notes, but also you can go to the website www.lxcounsel.com. So lx counsel.com, and you will find a plethora of articles and content and tools and resources and worksheets and things like that that can be helpful to you in creating and running successful PACs. I want to leave you with one thing that we end and teach to do in every single meeting, and that is the very last thing is to ask, what is your takeaway from today's episode? I encourage you to give that thought. Take advantage of the time you just invested in listening to the episode, and what can you do to move one step closer to the vision that you have and the goals that you're trying to achieve with your groups. So again, take a step back. What's your key takeaways? What can you actually act on? And I leave this with one note, and those of you that have read my book, Your Seat at the Table, you know that I ended the book with a story about my mentor. He always, when he met people, had a pebble in his pocket that he passed to them when there was knowledge shared. And so I ask you today to think about that pebble concept and to pass what you learned today on to someone else, which could be your members, or take it internally to yourself and act on it. So now go do something with those takeaways.