The Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales podcast provides tips on how to increase sales, improve profit margins and grow your business. Each week, we address issues related to important topics like targeting your ideal prospects, fine-tuning your messaging, attracting the clients you need, monetizing social media, the MVPs of Marketing and Sales and much more. From mindset to marketing and prospecting to podcasting, the Top Secrets podcast helps B2B and B2C entrepreneurs, professionals and salespeople get more of the customers and clients they need so they can do more of the work they love.
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October 20, 20265 min
The Promotional Products Industry Has Changed. Have You?
There is no doubt that the promotional products industry has changed. The question is, have you? There was a period of time when getting print and promotional product clients was a lot easier. People loved and appreciated your work. They answered and returned your phone calls. They placed orders proactively. Sometimes they even referred enough new clients that your customer base practically grew all by itself. Sounds like a fantasy! But does that still happen? It can. But nowadays? Not so much… Today, too many people in our industry are fighting against reality. They’re pounding away on activities that used to work, but don’t work anymore. Instead of changing their actions, they blame the prospects, or the marketing method, or the economy, or the tariffs. You’ll see them complaining in industry groups, saying things like “People aren’t answering their phones.” “Social media’s a waste of time.” “No one’s returning phone calls.” “Networking events are worthless.” “This economy stinks!” And while people may be experiencing those things, the people who are making money in our industry right now are not doing any of that. They know that all the whining, blame-shifting and scapegoating is not going to fix problems that are partially caused, at least, by taking wrong or ineffective actions that no longer work. So instead, they’re adapting their approach, refocusing their efforts, eliminating ineffective tactics, and engaging in the tested, proven, strategic methods that work right now . You know, the gap between where you are right now and where you want to be is not going to magically fill itself. And you can’t count on the actions that used to fill those gaps to continue to do so in the future. Because they won’t. They can’t. It is literally impossible. Of course, very few motivated people will sit around willingly and do nothing, as the things that used to work for them continue to lose their effectiveness. But very often, they just double down and try to do more of it with brute force effort. Putting in more time, more energy, making more calls, and overcoming more objections, while continuing to fall behind. It’s exhausting to watch, and it’s even more exhausting if you have to do it! So why doesn’t that work? Because taking ineffective actions more aggressively does not create the results you want. Yes, in business, particularly when you’re facing challenges, speed of implementation is critical. But that only works when you’re taking the right actions in the right order. Doing the wrong things faster won’t get you to your goal. It’s like speeding off in a race car that’s going in the wrong direction. So while TYPICAL businesses try to fix the problem by running faster, working longer, pushing harder, and sacrificing more — to try to make the hamster wheel turn faster, and faster, and faster, while still getting them nowhere — smart, focused business owners are changing their approach to suit the times. You probably already know that if your business is struggling, and you don’t change your approach, your results cannot possibly change. It’s like Einstein’s definition of insanity, doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result. And since so much has changed in such a short period of time, you can’t even expect the things that DID work well — even a few months ago — to work well now. So what do you do? Well, it’s likely that if you knew what changes to make — if you knew exactly what to do, and exactly how to fix it — you would have done it by now, right? Because, who wouldn’t? What I’m talking about today is not for the majority of typical business owners who are just going to sit it out, wait it out, or worse yet, whine it out on social media. It’s also not for average performers who take average actions to create average results . That’s going to happen by default. When things get tough, average sales inevitably decline. Those of us who have been through these cycles before? We know the drill. You can read all about it in the industry publications when it’s in danger of happening, when it starts to happen, as it’s happening, and after it happened. Then, at that point, the articles will turn to discussions about the recovery. “Here’s what average distributors are doing right now to get back to their average results!” But what if you could build it out, max it out, and scale it out now, instead of having to ride it out to the bottom, just so you can slug it out to get back to where you were before? If you’ve been in the industry for a while, it’s very likely that your work has gotten better. Your expertise has increased. You have clients who love you, because the results you create are exceptional. If that’s the case, then why settle for lower sales, fewer clients, and “riding it out” when you don’t have to? Right now, I’m working with a small group of industry professionals who are dedicated to growing, building, and scaling their businesses NOW, so they’ll be light-years ahead of the typical, average businesses who are content to struggle and lose business while they “wait and see.” So if you’re ready to make the shift, to get more of your ideal clients faster and easier right now, go to TopSecrets.com/shift and download a copy of my free pdf that explains how we can help you. That’s TopSecrets.com/shift . Are You Ready to Address the Changes in Our Industry? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Ready to Hire Salespeople? If you want to bring in others to grow your promo sales, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, check out this page .
October 13, 202614 min
How to Get More Sales Without Relying on Cold Calls
To get more sales without relying on cold calls, we don’t want to turn the alternatives into something as clumsy and uncomfortable as a typical cold call. Right? Because a lot of times they are. They’re clumsy and they’re awkward and they’re not comfortable. We don’t want to just come up with another way to be that. The idea of looking for these alternatives is to say, “okay, how can I make this experience better for the person that I am trying to initiate contact with?” David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing alternatives to cold calling. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: I am so glad to be here. Thank you. Even the word sometimes, “cold calling.” I get the shivers, not just cause it’s cold, because I think that this is probably one of the most dreaded parts of the sales process, but in many industries, Absolutely necessary. And so how can you make it easier to get more sales? How can you make it better? And what happens if you don’t? David: Yeah, definitely gives a lot of people the chills. And the reason that I thought it would be good for us even to talk about alternatives is that there are a lot of people who have been trained that prospecting equals cold calling. Or cold calling equals prospecting. I need to do prospecting. I need to pick up the phone. I need to call people. I need to get more sales. Some people are actually trained that way. And some sales managers will evaluate people on how many cold calls they’ve made in a day. That’s part of people’s jobs description. If that’s part of your job description I’m not saying don’t do that, right? If that’s your job description, you have to do it. However, for people who have a little more flexibility in terms of the way that they initiate contact with a new prospect, there are alternatives to cold calling. You don’t necessarily have to pick up the phone. And so, there are two aspects of this. One is the first question that you just asked about, okay, now what can we do to get more sales and make cold calling better? Considering the Alternatives And there are certainly things that we can do there in terms of thinking about how we’re going to approach them, what we’re going to say, how we’re going to lead into the conversation, and all that sort of thing. But for a lot of people, a better question might be what could I do to sort of grease the shoot or grease the wheels so that when I pick up the phone and call someone, the results are a lot better. Yeah, and I think that’s so important because you know, you would regret or not want to do cold calling less if you’re getting a better result. And if, when people pick up the phone, they’re not hostile towards you, or they’re not indifferent to you, because you’ve done some things in advance. So that it’s not so cold that I don’t know what you would call it. Jay: Would you call it warm calling or something like that? Warmer Alternatives to Cold Calling David: It’s certainly a lot warmer if you’ve had contact with them in advance. Like if you met somebody at a networking function, you exchange business cards or whatever, and then you picked up the phone and called that person. I wouldn’t view that as a cold call because you’ve already met them. If you’ve got prospects that you’ve interacted with previously, then if you call them, yeah, that’s not really a cold call. So I don’t know, you can certainly call it a warm call. You can just call it a call. If I were to pick up the phone and call you, I’m going to give Jay a call. It’s not cold, because we know each other. So, the question becomes, how can we get to know people better, get them to know us better, so that when we do have contact with them, it doesn’t feel as cold. Even now, things like social media, if you and I connected on social media, if you commented on a post of mine, or I commented on a post of yours, if we exchanged messages back and forth through Facebook or through LinkedIn, we’ve had communications that way. At that point, if we had a telephone conversation, it will be a lot less cold. Jay: Yeah, I can certainly understand. And I see this a lot. Like I will be interested in looking around at something and I will see a social media post. I’m much more inclined to ask a question. You know, via social media or via a chat or something else before I pick up the call as a customer. And that’s going to open up those doors and get more sales, right? For you to be able to now, when we do finally talk face to face or voice to voice, it’s going to be a totally different experience, right? A Different Experience David: It really should be. Yes. And this kind of goes back to what we were talking about in a previous podcast, when people are not comfortable with these other methods of reaching out to people, it really limits their ability to communicate. Because, as you said, there are some people you get a phone call, I don’t necessarily want to call back. Maybe I’ll message you, or maybe I’ll send you something on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever. And, at that point, if I’m, “No, I’m going to talk to you on the phone!” If you don’t want that to happen, it’s absolutely not happening. So I think there is a level of flexibility that salespeople need to start to adopt if they want to be able to reach the people that they need to reach in a way that people are willing to be reached. Jay: Yeah, I’m just curious as people go through your program, what are some of the ideas that come up when it comes to alternatives to cold calling or making at least the process easier or greasing the chute as you said to get more sales? David: Yeah. Greasing the shoot, exactly. Jay: Yeah. Greasing the Chute David: Well, there are a lot of different things that can be done. I mean, even things like direct mail. You could send something in the mail and then if you were to call and say, “Hey, did you get the thing I sent you in the mail?” Now, at that point, you at least have something to point to, to indicate I’m not just calling you out of the blue. Right? A lot of the clients that I work with operate in the print and promotional products industry, and for them to send out some sort of self-promotion item, in the mail, with a cover letter, is a great way to establish rapport and get more sales. It also creates that sort of gift of obligation. So when they get it, they feel like, “oh, somebody sent me something.” And then when you contact that person, you can say, “Hey, did you get the item I sent you?” Whatever that item is. And from that standpoint, they’re probably going to be more likely to take the call, if they have a conscience, than they would be to take a cold call from somebody that never sent them anything or that they had never heard from previously. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve gotten a number of emails from people who have been asking about either being on my podcast or having me appear on their podcast. And a lot of it is just people who are writing on behalf of somebody else. And “Hey, I think so-and-so would be a great guest for your podcast.” And from what they’ve written, I can tell they’ve never listened to the podcast. They have no idea what we do here. Pay Attention to Get Attention And so I just ignore that sort of thing. Recently, there was a guy who was sending me something and I thought it was one of those, but he was actually asking me to be on his podcast, and he paid attention enough to what it is that we do that he said, “Hey, I’d like if you could talk about this particular topic.” It was about market domination, which is something that I talk about. So at that point, it’s like, okay, well that makes sense. Here’s somebody who at least made some sort of effort to understand what I’m all about before reaching out and either asking for a favor or whatever. So I think that’s an interesting approach too. Because in a sense, what he did was a cold email. But by simply putting in a little bit of effort to demonstrate that he had some idea of who I am and what I’m all about, it made me far more likely to respond where other people just wouldn’t have gotten a response at all. Jay: Yeah, I, love this idea. Doing a little bit of research, a little bit of homework. And when you reach out to them even saying, “Hey, I saw a particular podcast,” or “I saw a particular post,” or “I saw this story about you.” Maybe playing to their ego a little bit or at least letting them know that you have a genuine interest because you’ve noticed something about them instead of, “I just want to talk to you so that I can sell my product. So pick up the phone, dang it!” You know? Spamming People on Social Media David: Yeah. And there’s a lot of that happening on Facebook right now. Where people will send you messages, trying to establish a conversation out of nowhere. And they’ll say, “what do you do?” And they’ll send that via Messenger. And so they might have already initiated a friend request. You accept the friend request. And they say, what do you do? And at that point, I’m like, “well, did you look? You know, you’ve requested to friend me. I friended you. Did you look at the profile? Did you look into anything that I do at all? You know, it’s just like, “No, I’m connecting with you so I can send you this message. So I can try to see if I can sell you something.” And it just doesn’t create a great vibe. And so I think part of this idea, when we’re looking for alternatives to cold calls, we don’t want to turn the alternatives into something as clumsy and uncomfortable as a typical cold call. Right? Because a lot of times they are. They’re clumsy and they’re awkward and they’re not comfortable. We don’t want to just come up with another way to be that. The idea of looking for these alternatives is to say, “okay, how can I make this experience better for the person that I am trying to initiate contact with? And all this week in the Inner Circle, this is what we’re going to be talking about. Having Multiple Alternatives to Cold Calling What are the alternatives to cold calling? What can we do better? What can we do differently? How can we do those things differently? So that when we are in a situation where a cold call is either not appropriate or not desired by either us or them, we have, not just one other thing. We don’t just have a plan B. We might have a plan C and a plan D and a plan E and a plan F, right? So that we can initiate contact with the people that we need to reach in a way that is not going to immediately alienate them. And again, I think that’s one of the concerns that people have now with cold calling is that if they don’t know who you are, if they’re not expecting the call, if they’re not in their office and they’re retrieving voicemail remotely, and now it’s somebody who wants them to call back, they’re just not going to want to do it. So it creates a very uncomfortable environment. And that’s why I think for people who have not considered, what are the alternatives? How can I utilize the alternatives and how can I create a series of communications. Not just, “I’m calling you,” right? But a series of communications that could come in different forms, either via social media or email or phone or Zoom or YouTube. I mean, you could literally send them a link with a YouTube video. More Options Give Us More Opportunities to Serve There are lots of different ways to initiate contact with people. And the more comfortable we get at doing that, and the quicker we get comfortable with that, the more options we have and the better we’re going to be able to serve new prospects and clients. Jay: Yeah. I love that I think kind of what I’m getting is a lot of times we think a cold call is a cold call and it has a certain success rate. And that’s what the success rate is. When the reality is, is how you go about it. You could make your chances much worse that it’s going to work, or you can make your chances much better. And so you should be learning and assessing how to do that. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about today. David: Yeah, or at least consider it. Right? You don’t have to do it. Nobody has to do anything. But if they understand and recognize why it is so important to at least consider other alternatives to a communication medium, cold calling, that has been in existence for a long time. It’s also been, let’s face it, kind of hated for a long time. There are a lot of people who hate cold calling. There are people who hate getting them. There are people who hate making them. And there are people who hate both. Why Do Something You Hate if You Don’t Have to? I don’t like making them, I don’t like getting them. So, If you recognize that it’s not the only game in town, particularly now, then you also recognize that there are definitely things you can do to warm things up, to be able to create relationships faster, to get people qualified in or out a lot faster. And sometimes it might not require phone call communication. Jay: Yeah, that last one is the one I want where there’s no cold calling. They’re reaching out to me and I’m answering questions. I mean, that’s the ideal scenario, right? That’s the one I want, if you can give that to me, that would be great. David: Yeah. And you know, in our Total Market Domination course, one of the things that we talk about are “lures.” You know, what are things that we can offer to people to get them to raise their hand, express interest, say “yes,” and get them engaged in conversation with us. Because you’re absolutely right. When you’re able to do that and have them contact you first, they’re reaching out to you first on social media, or they’re calling you first, or they’re sending you an email first. It’s much better from both a positioning standpoint and the ability to close the sale. Because now it’s their idea instead of yours. Or they perceive it that way. But this is the importance of that distinction. Referrals are Great, But Unpredictable In other words, yeah, you can get a referral and somebody can contact you directly and that’s great. But you can’t necessarily control that. You can’t leverage that. Because that’s up to people to refer you. But if you are able to create lures and get them out there, and it could be something via social media, it could be something that happens in the mail, whatever it is, you create a lure that gets somebody to say, “yes, I’m interested in that.” They come back to you, they express interest. Now it’s like a ping pong game, you know, where you’ve hit it first. They’ve hit it back And now it’s my turn. Right? Cold calls, a lot of times, it’s like you’re hitting it over there and they’re just ignoring it. It flies off the table. And you’re like, “okay, well let me call them again.” You just keep hitting balls at people and they keep ignoring it. It’s not ideal. Jay: It’s not ideal. It’s not fun either. And it’s harder to make a living that way, you know, in all honesty. David: Exactly. Right… Continue the Discussion on Alternatives to Cold Calling Jay: Yeah. All right. so how do people find out more? David: Okay, well, if you’re already an Inner Circle member, you could just log into the Inner Circle website. We’re discussing this topic all this week. If you’re not a member, just go to TopSecrets.com/ic that’s TopSecrets.com/ic . You can sign up for the Inner Circle. It’s a month at a time. You could sign up for a month. You could sign up for a lifetime. We have literally members of our Inner Circle who have been with us for more than 10 years. And they only do that because they’re getting what they’re looking for from it. Jay: Yeah, and this week Alternatives to Cold Calling. How to make it a ping pong game, more than just a single player that you’re not having very much fun. David: Yeah. Getting bombarded with ping pong balls. It’s not ideal. Jay: That’s right. David. Thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure. David: Thank you, Jay. Are You Ready to Get More Sales Without Relying on Cold Calls? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here . Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here .
October 6, 202615 min
How to Outperform Your Competition Without Competing on Price
If you need to outperform your competition, you want to look at who is the primary competition and what are their advantages? In what areas are they outperforming me? Are they outperforming me in terms of just price? If that’s what it is. And a lot of times that’s what people are up against in the online market. The online sellers are able to sell for less. And at that point you have to say, “okay, is that something I even want to try to compete with?” Or am I more interested in finding the types of clients who understand and appreciate the value that I bring to the table. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the importance of outperforming your competition. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: So good to be here again, David and this topic is very interesting to me. You know, I’ve been in small business. I know a lot of business owners and I got to tell you, oftentimes you’re so caught up in, just generating sales that what the competition is doing, how much they’re doing. Are you competing with the competition? A lot of times, those thoughts don’t come up because there’s just no time for that. And so I’m wondering what the consequences are if I’m not even thinking about my competition. David: Well, if you’re doing great and you’re making the money you need to make, maybe you don’t have to think about your competition at all. Maybe you’re the one that everybody is trying to come after. And when we think about that, it’s not just about the fact that, okay, well, maybe somebody else is outperforming me. But a lot of people, if they’ve been in a market for a particularly long time and they’ve been selling to people who have other options, they’ll find out who their competitors are. Because they’ll say, “oh, I’m already doing business with somebody.” And you ask who it is and they give you a name or they give you a company name. And you’re like, okay, I’ve heard that name once now. And then you talk to somebody else and now I’ve heard another name and now I’ve heard another name. So you have three different names. Then you go to somebody else. And now you hear two for this one. Then you hear three for this one. And then four for this one. You say, “okay, this person has a lot of traction in this market.” So you start to recognize them as competition. Also, as things have evolved online, there are now online competitors that compete with local businesses left and right. And so there are a lot of people who think in terms of the online competition. How can I compete with that? So, when we talk about the importance of outperforming your competition, it’s not because, “well, I’ve got to win at all costs,” and all that sort of thing. But if you are in business for yourself and you are counting on your sales and your salary to be able to put food on your table. And if your competition is sometimes interfering with that, then the necessity of outperforming your competition becomes very clear. You don’t want to run into a situation where somebody says, “yes, I’m already dealing with this person.” You want that person to go in there and they say, “no, I’m already dealing with you,” right? Jay: Mm-hmm David: You want to be the person who already has that sort of foothold, that sort of traction in a market. So outperforming the competition starts with saying, “okay, who’s doing a pretty good job in this market?” And is there somebody that I think is actually doing a better job in this market? Or is there somebody who is doing a job that the marketplace thinks is better? Right? Because you may know that you are already better than this competitor they mentioned. And nothing can be more frustrating sometimes for people, when you go into a situation, they say, “oh, I’m doing business with that person.” And you want to say, “oh, they’re awful. I can’t believe you’re doing that!” But of course you don’t say that. But when you recognize that you’re already better, but other people don’t have that same perception, you say, “okay, well, how am I going to fix that? How am I going to change that?” Because it’s not just about outperforming the competition, it’s about letting the market know and understand and talk about how you outperform the competition. Jay: Well, it’s interesting. So first I have to assess kind of where they’re at and where I compare to them and then create kind of a battle plan to be able to go up against them and demonstrate to my potential customers that when we talk about outperform, we’re talking about quality, we’re talking maybe about cost, customer service. I mean, there’s all kinds of different ways that “outperform” can be, right? That it can indicate. David: Yeah. And that is a really beautiful distinction that you just drew there. Because for some people, if their primary buying criteria is price and somebody else is charging less than you are, you might not want to outperform that particular person. Because, you know, as we often say, “the rush to zero margin is not a race I want to win.” You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you’re cutting price and you make the sale and you end up regretting it because you’re not making enough money to justify the time that you’re putting in. So there’s certainly that aspect of it. But when we think in terms of outperforming the competition, it’s not even the kind of thing that you need to drive yourself crazy over. It’s not the kind of thing that I suggest that you really think about and focus on and get worried about. If it’s an issue for you, you want to look at who is the primary competition and what are their advantages? In what areas are they outperforming me? Are they outperforming me in terms of just price? If that’s what it is. And a lot of times that’s what people are up against in the online market. The online sellers are able to sell for less. And at that point you have to say, “okay, is that something I even want to try to compete with?” Or am I more interested in finding the types of clients who understand and appreciate the value that I bring to the table and who are more interested in working with someone like me, who may be willing to pay a little more from me because they know I’m going to deliver better and more consistently. And I’m going to be available, and all those sorts of things. So it’s almost like the sliders on a control board or, you know, volume controls and that sort of thing where it’s like, “okay, how’s the service?” Am I pushing the service up or down? Am I pushing the pricing up or down and looking at all the different options there and saying, “where do I want to excel? Where do I want to outperform my competition? Where do I want to be higher?” And price may very well not be one of them. For a lot of us, price is not going to be the one we want to do. We don’t want to become the Walmart of our industries. Instead we need to say, “okay, how does my service compare? Am I more accessible? Do I have more and better options available? Am I more reliable in terms of getting stuff to people?” We did a podcast recently with one of my clients who was talking about the fact that she tells people who say they’re doing business with someone else that ” if you’re ever in a pinch, give me a call.” And she gave this example of somebody who gave her a call because, and this was like a few days after she was told that they did business with someone else. She said, well, if you’re ever in a pinch, give me a call. Couple days later, she got a call and they said, Hey, the people that I use, can’t get it for me. Can you do this? And she was able to do it. And she didn’t even have to break a sweat doing it. It wasn’t like it was an impossible deadline and she pulled it off. It was like, yeah, this is something that she was capable of doing. It was already in her wheelhouse. And she was able to accomplish that and win the client. So once she does that, she becomes that go-to person, because they’d rather deal with the person who can do it for them than be the one who tells ’em they can’t and then they have to go find somebody else. Jay: Yeah. I think that’s such a good point. Part of the key though, is identifying where it is that you want to compete. And you’ve talked about this David: mm-hmm Jay: Do you want to compete on price? Do you want to excel in one way? I think it’s fascinating. You know, I’ve seen studies and research where sometimes when people just pay more for something, they feel like they got a better product, even though it’s the same level of service. Right? So paying a premium can actually be a way to outperform your competition, right? As long as you live up to that. David: Right. It’s an advantage for a certain segment of the market. I remember marketing legend, Dan Kennedy was talking about the fact that in every market, there’s one group of people who will always stay at, you know, the Plaza, you know, the, the highest end hotel. And there’s another group of people that will always stay at the Motel Six. They’ll always stay at the cheapest option. The majority of people are somewhere in the middle. You know, they’ll stay at someplace that is pretty nice. Probably more expensive than a Motel Six. And everybody could stay at Motel Six if it was all about price, right? Same thing with cars. If we’re all about price, everybody would buy the cheapest car. But people don’t. And very often people will spend more money because they feel that they’re getting a better experience. That they’re getting somebody who’s more knowledgeable or more responsive or just nicer to deal with. Or they want to deal with a human instead of a keyboard. They don’t want to be a do it yourselfer. There are lots of reasons that people will pay more. And those are the things we have to look at. Jay: Do you see situations where people are trying to outperform their competition in every aspect? Like price, service, turnaround, everything? And they’re just, killing themselves, trying to do that? David: Yeah, more often than not. I’ve always seen “here are three options, pick two.” You know? It’s like price service or delivery, you know, pick two. I can do two, but I can’t do all three. I don’t know. I mean, I imagine there are people who fancy themselves doing that. They think, “oh yeah, we’re great at all this stuff.” And I imagine there are people who are really good at all those things. And if they are, that’s great. But in every market, it’s not likely that you’re going to get all the business. Even like in our Total Market Domination course. You know, we talk about the fact that there are specific segments of the market that you really want to dominate. The ones who have the money, who appreciate the value, who pay on time, you know, all those types of things. That’s the segment of the market you want to dominate. You don’t want anybody and everybody. You don’t want the people who are going to nickel and dime you on price and badger you, because it hasn’t arrived three days early and are just a big pain. So, deciding what your key criteria are, is very important in this process. And all this week in our Inner Circle, this is what we’re addressing. You know, the importance of outperforming competition, whatever that means to you. Whoever you decide is the competition. And ultimately, the biggest competition that we need to outperform and overcome is ourselves. Ultimately, when we get to the point where we’re really good at what we do, where we’re already pretty much seen as outperforming everybody else in our market, then the goal is to just continue to raise the bar on ourselves. Jay: Yeah, so much of this sounds to me like defining who we are and what our business is and who we want to be. Because if you are trying to serve every customer, like you said, the one who will nickel and dime you, the one who will pay a premium, if you’re trying to serve every single group, it’s an impossibility. It’s like when I go to a restaurant and they have 500 things on the menu, the first thing I think of is they’re going to do 500 things in a mediocre way instead of five things that they’re just going to knock out of the park, right? And so I think that’s kind of what we’re talking about. Decide who you want to be, what segment you want to go after and be proud and be that person instead of trying to be all things to all people. David: Absolutely. And when we talk about outperforming our competition, it’s about identifying what are we going to tell the market that we’re good at? And that absolutely has to line up with the things that we’re good at. Not “well, I’m going to say I’m, going to give them the lowest price, even though I’m not.” No. If you’re not the price person, don’t claim to be the price person. Give them the criteria that actually match what it is that you do. Because when that matches up… when your marketing actually aligns with your delivery and the way that you do things, you’ve got consistency there. And people are going to say, “okay, yeah, this person delivered on what they said they were going to do.” The other thing it does is it attracts the segment of the market that you actually want. If you put out advertising that says that you’re the cheapest and you deliver fast, then that’s going to attract low-ballers and people who are looking for speed. People who want to have everything yesterday. And that takes a toll on a business. That absolutely impacts customer service. Because if everybody’s expecting your product really fast and really cheap, then you barely have time to do what’s necessary from a customer service standpoint. So by deciding “what areas do I plan to outperform in?” And it could be three, maybe four. I don’t think you want to go much beyond that. It could be two really strong ones. I would say two or three is probably the sweet spot. And you say, “this is my focus. This is what I’m great at. If I can help you, let me know.” Then you’ll be attracting the people that you can actually deliver for. Jay: I notice that we’re talking about outperforming the competition, not attacking the competition David: Right! Jay: Or telling people why the competition is bad. There’s a distinction there. And why is that distinction important? David: Oh, well, I think it’s tempting sometimes, if we know we are up against a competitor who is just not good, or not nice, or unethical, to want to share that information in one way or another. To say, “oh, they’re terrible. But you have to resist that urge. Because it will be a direct reflection of you. If you say they’re terrible. If they’ve had dealings with that person and they haven’t had a terrible experience, they’re going to then question your judgment. And so everybody gets to decide. Because we all have our own priorities. Maybe the person that they’re dealing with, maybe the person they chose is better at you are in some of the areas that you really don’t want to pursue. So from their standpoint, they’re better. Yeah. They’re cheap and they’re fast. Okay. Well, if you’re looking for cheap and fast and if they’re cheap and fast and they can actually get it delivered for you. Yeah. Maybe they’re your person. So, It’s important to understand that our opinions are not universal. They feel like it to us, right? When I have an opinion, I’m sure everyone else shares it, but then they don’t. So it’s good just to recognize that we’re not always correct in our assumptions. Or our assumptions don’t always match those of other people. Jay: Yeah. I love how you said it reflects back on us When people are willing to use that tactic, I instantly think about their character. You know, if you have to attack somebody else to make your product look good, I’ve always viewed that as lack of confidence in your own product, not in their product. So I think you’re sending a message that will be interpreted in a negative way. David: Yeah. And if you look at most of the advertising on television, generally speaking, business people, people who are selling products, generally don’t engage in that sort of behavior, right? It is popular, you know, in some circles, political circles, it won’t be about me at all. it’ll be about why this other person is so terrible. But I think in business, that is just not a great strategy. Because people want to know that you’re a good fit for them or that you’re not. So if you’re telling them what you can do, how you can do it, how you can help, they’re going to be a lot more receptive to that than you just saying. Oh, buy from me because the other person is terrible. Jay: Yeah. Yeah. An easier message. But again, I don’t think it’ll be interpreted very well. All right. How do people find out more? David: Okay, well, we’re going to be discussing the importance of outperforming your competition inside the Inner Circle all this week. If that’s a topic you’d like to dive in on, if you’re already a member, you can just log into the Inner Circle website. If you’re not already a member, you can go to TopSecrets.com/ic that’s TopSecrets.com/ic for Inner Circle. And you can register there and we’ll see you inside. Jay: Yeah, I love it. Get some great ideas on how to outperform your competition and set yourself apart. David, it’s been a real pleasure today. David: Thank you so much, Jay. Are You Serious About Outperforming Your Competition? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here . Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here .
September 29, 202614 min
Stay Focused: Get More Done in Less Time
Stay focused. It’s easy to say, but harder to do. Anybody who’s been in sales has probably been in a situation where you’ve been in a room with someone and you’re looking at them and having a conversation with them. But they’re looking around the room. They’re looking at things. People are buzzing them on the phone. They’re like, “excuse me.” They’re taking the call and you’re sitting there thinking, “why am I here? Why am I doing this?” So other people maintaining focus (or not) will give you a really good idea of where you stand with them. David: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. We are back once again. Jay McFarland, and I will discuss how to stay focused in your day. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: It’s so good to be here, David. And I know that focus is something that everybody’s working on. One of the reasons I know this is all of the technology companies are building focus tools into their devices. We must want this because I can now tell my phone, no I’m focused on this and it gives me different screens for that particular time so that I can stay focused in on this. So we must all want to be able to focus better. And the question is, how do we achieve that? David: Yeah. Especially when there are other technology companies that are trying to get you to stay focused on them. Right? You gave a great example. I noticed that too, on my phone, there’s the new focus button. And I like that idea, but in the meantime, nearly every social media platform is designed to steal your focus, to derail you from what it is that you wanted to do today in favor of what they would like to have you do today, which is to scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and then scroll some more. So we do have technology that is working for us, and we have technology that is working against us. But last time when we were talking about the idea of building proactively, I think these things tie together. As we’re building proactively, we recognize that it does require us to stay focused day-to-day. And so in order to do that, we have to say, okay, how are we going to make it happen? Particularly with all sorts of forces, potentially conspiring against us. Jay: Yeah. I love that point, that on the one hand tech is trying to help us stay focused, and then everything else in the world, I’m like, “squirrel!” You know, squirrel there’s something new and it’s not just social media who’s trying to distract you. It’s the employees who want your time, the customers who call up because they don’t know your schedule. They just know they have a question, right? So they’re calling you. So how do you go about building some semblance of focus throughout your day with all of these distractions that are coming in constantly? David: Well, from my standpoint, I think we need to decide at the beginning of the day, as early as possible, what really needs to happen today? Because that’ll help us to determine where our focus needs to be. What is it that actually has to get done? What has to happen? What do you have to do versus what do other people in your organization have to do? So if you own the organization, you’re going to have to determine what you’re doing and what they need to stay focused on. And how are you going to avoid distraction? Lots of people have, or had, open door policies when people were working together. Do I have my door open? Do I have my door closed? I liked the idea of having an open-door policy. So for many years in my business, I did. But unfortunately, that sometimes programs people to think, okay, door’s open! I’m constantly available. So you really need to balance that and make determinations as far as how much of your time during a given day is going to be dedicated to focus time. The work that you have to get done in a specific time frame, in a specific way, without distraction. And then adapt or create an environment that allows you to stay focused. Jay: Yeah. I have a funny story. I went to a company, it was a brand new company. They just built this beautiful building. And I went to the CEO and his desk was right out in the middle of everybody else’s. David: Wow. Jay: No cubicle walls, nothing. There’s the CEO’s desk, right? And about six months later, I went back. And instead of that desk, there was an office. And I’m like, what happened? And he is like, well, I just realized, as much as I wanted the open door feeling and that people could come to me. I just couldn’t do the things that I needed to do, because it was like a line, where people were wanting to talk to me every few minutes. David: Right. Yeah. And so everybody needs to determine how much they can take. How much they can actually get done, without completely distracting themselves. And you basically have to engineer your environment around that. But I think the idea of, professionals in particular, requiring the time and ability to stay focused. It can’t be understated. You really need to be able to do that. And a lot of times, because we’re so reactive, we don’t even think about it. And so simply by identifying the fact that you are going to require focus hours in at least some of your days. Probably most of them, if what you’re doing is important work. And because of that, you’re going to very likely have to change the way that things are done. Jay: Yeah, I know people and I’ve tried to start doing this in my own life where they only check their email at a certain time of day. They have an email check time. And their point is that they never get an email that has to be responded to immediately. If somebody has an immediate concern, they’ll call. They’ll do something else. And so they literally do not look at their email. I have my email up all the time. I’m going to be totally honest. And when one pops up, I will leave whatever else I’m doing. And I will respond to that email. And I know that this is an issue for me because then afterwards I’m like “now, what was I working on?” Because if I was typing something up, now I’ve lost my train of thought. And so I know that I’m hurting my productivity, David. But I still do it anyway, because I’m such a creature of habit. And I also have FOMO, the fear of missing out. I have FOMO so bad that I’m not sure how to stay focused long enough to overcome it. David: It sounds a little like a shared malady. Entrepreneurial A.D.D. Jay: Yes. Yeah. David: Where, it’s always the next thing. What’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? I certainly have a tendency to share that as well. But one of the things that I do when something is a real focus project –and actually, you and I through this before we jumped on this call. I literally turned off my phone, not just silenced it, not just turned it upside down on the table. Literally turned it off. Closed out the email, shut everything down, got rid of all the other apps so that we can have this conversation. And for something like this, it makes perfect sense to do that. But if there are other projects that I feel like I need to get done, I just do the same thing. And if it’s available to you, you’re going to do it, right? If you can access that email right away. And if it is in front of you, you are going to be a lot more likely to respond to it. I do tend to check email a couple times a day. There are some times where I’ll grab my phone and I’ll do it in between. But for the most part, I’m not a complete servant to my email for the exact reason that we discussed. It’s critical to set aside time when you can stay focused. Email is a list of other people’s priorities. And so if you’ve got priorities of your own, that are important enough to you, then you’ll start to do that. At least for me, that’s what I did. You know, another thing that helps me stay focused… actually, let’s start with this. One of the things that really distracts me from focus is input. So things like whatever, email, videos, social media, all of that is input. Most of us get paid, not for our input, but for our output. What is it that we’re doing? What are we actually putting out into the world? If you recognize that input is generally not dollar work and output is dollar work. It becomes easier to say, okay, no more input for now. I’m going to stay focused the next two hours on output. And that means shutting down social media, maybe turning off the phone or silencing it. Shutting down the email and then just focusing on the output. If you just think in terms of input and output, you can really start to make a big difference in terms of the focus hours you’re able to put in during any given day. Jay: I really like that. Kind of maybe having a balance scale in your mind. Am I spending more time with the input or the output? How much more could I accomplish in my job? How much more proficient could I be if I stay focused on that output? I have to tell you, while we’ve been talking, a text has come in and it’s up in the top left corner of all my screens. I haven’t looked at it. But It’s there. And I know it’s there. And it is so hard for me, David, to not look over at that while we’re… And so I forgot to put my computer in do not disturb mode. And so now it’s sitting there and I’m like, you know, “what if I just peek over?” But there’s no way that any text that I have coming over is going to be more important than what we’re talking about right now. So I’m going to exercise self-control and I’m… David: You’re doing great. Jay: …going to keep the discussion. Yeah. David: You’re doing great. I think if something popped up in the corner of my screen, I think my eye would automatically go to it. So you’re doing very well. To nutshell it really, I think a good question for all of us to ask ourselves is how much time each day can we actually stay focused? It doesn’t have to be eight hours a day. I mean, you can probably accomplish more in one and a half to two hours of focus than you can accomplish in a full eight-hour day, if you’ve got distractions all over the place. As humans, we don’t multitask as well as machines do. You know? Like if you’ve got windows open, you’ve got 10 different things it’s cycling through as well. It’s doing the same thing that our brains do. It’s just that the computers are able to do it a lot more efficiently. Whenever we have to change channels, we have to switch from this mode to that mode, this idea to that idea, project to project, it takes a little while to get things back in gear. And that just adds to your day. It detracts from your focus and it adds hours to your day. Whereas if you can stay focused on one thing, at least long enough to get through enough of it to have accomplished something for the day, you’re going to be way ahead of if you don’t do that. Jay: Yeah, and it can be exhausting too, if you’re trying to constantly output, there may be a point of degradation of your work product. I don’t know what that point is. It’s probably different for each individual. So it may be wise to put your scheduling in blocks and say, “I am going to take 10 minutes and go on TikTok. Or get up and take a walk and talk to some coworkers or things like that.” Just to refresh your brain and get the blood flowing. I don’t think we want to send the message to somebody that no, you have to, for eight hours a day, be… David: Right. Jay: …working constantly on output. That’s probably too much for most people. David: Right. Yeah, but switching… and there’s I believe it’s called the Pomodoro Technique. You’re probably familiar with this one, where you work for 50 minutes and then you take 10 minutes and you distract yourself. Or you take a walk, you stand up, move around. If you were to do that during any given workday, it just sort of gives your brain a break. But getting back to the idea of doing many things at a time versus focusing on one thing at a time. That by itself, I think is going to give you a lot of traction. If you can just discipline yourself as much as possible. And I’m speaking to myself as well. If we can discipline ourselves as much as possible to focus on one thing, we can spend an enormous amount of time thinking about something. I mean, sometimes days or weeks, “oh, I have to do this. Oh, I have to do this. Oh, I have to do this,” thinking about this one project. And when you sit down to do it, it takes an hour or two, you know, like, wow. I probably spent three hours over the course of the last three weeks, thinking about this thing that only took an hour to do. Jay: Yeah, I forget who said it, but they said that time will fill whatever space you allot to it. And so if you give it three hours, it’s going to take three hours. If you give it one hour, you’ll probably get it done in one hour. And that’s just kind of the way that our mind works. David: Yeah, exactly. Jay: Yeah. And one other thing, one other thing, not to interrupt you, about focus. One of the things that really, really bothers me is when I’m working with somebody, whether it’s my boss or a customer or I’m the customer. and I feel like they’re not giving me their focus. Like they’re… David: Right. Jay: …checking their email. Or they’re checking their text. Or people keep coming up and interrupting them. David: Yeah. Jay: When I don’t feel like I have somebody’s focus, it completely ruins my respect for them and it makes me feel like they don’t care about me. And so I think it’s very important to understand how our focus is influencing the people around us. David: Yes. And for salespeople in particular, anybody who’s been in sales has probably been in a situation where you’ve been in a room with someone and you’re looking at them and you’re having a conversation with them. And they’re looking around the room. They’re looking at things. People are buzzing them on the phone. They’re like, “excuse me.” They’re taking the call and you’re sitting there and you’re thinking, “why am I here? Why am I doing this?” So other people’s focus or lack of focus will give you a really good idea of where you stand with them and… Jay: yeah, David: …there are probably some married people who , who struggle with this as well. I need to allocate more time and more focus to my spouse, my kids, whatever it is. This goes to the whole idea of being present, which is probably the subject of another podcast, but just being in the moment and trying to focus on what it is that we need to do. Just long enough to get it done and then identify the next thing and start on that. Jay: Yeah, and then go back. But if you’re going into a sales call, turn your phone off before you go into a sales call so that you’re not tempted to do those kind of things. Knowing what you’re about to do and what level of focus you’re going to need to do it, I think is something that I haven’t given a lot of thought, David, that’s why I’m glad we’re having the discussion right now. David: That’s great. Well, we’re going to be continuing this discussion inside the Inner Circle this week. If it’s something you’d like to ask a question about, if you got a comment about, log into our Inner Circle membership site, if you’re not already a member, go to TopSecrets.com/ic and we’ll see you inside. Jay: Yeah. And when you’re inside stay focused. David: Yeah, stay focused! Jay: That’s right. David: Thanks Jay. Are You Ready to Stay Focused and Improve Your Results? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here . Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here .
September 22, 202615 min
How to Rule Your Territory and Dominate Your Market
It’s not like there’s just one method to rule your territory. But the one thing that is critical to all of it, is identifying your area. Identifying your territory. Focusing in on it. Making sure you become a known commodity, so people have the opportunity to choose you. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast in today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of ruling your territory. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Yeah. Thank you, David. This is a really interesting topic. I’ve been excited to get to this topic, ruling your territory, being the master of your general… David: your domain Jay: …area. Yeah, of your domain. David: That was a Seinfeld episode, I think. Jay: Yeah, that’s right. However you want to say it. So many of the things that we talk about, I don’t know if they’re top of mind for business owners or for salespeople. They have so many other things going on. For them to be thinking about market share or things like that and how that can affect their business, especially over the long haul. David: Yeah. That’s why I think it’s great to discuss. Because when we are in the thick of it, we tend to forget about the fact that, whoever we are, if we’re a business owner or a salesperson, we are operating in a particular territory. And recognizing that we could be spread out, we could have a few customers. Let’s say we have two customers in one huge city, and we’ve got two customers in another huge city somewhere else. If we’re sort of spread out, but nobody else in either of those cities even know who we are, at that point we’re really not ruling our territory. And this idea sort of traces along with the idea of dominating your market, which is something that we talk about quite often. You know, what is your market? What is your territory? How do you define it? Is it defined primarily geographically that you sell primarily in your small geographic area? In your area of town? Your city? Your state? Is it nationwide? Is it with particular industries? How do you define it? Because that’s going to determine whether you are just inhabiting a territory or ruling it, dominating it. Jay: I like that question. Are you just inhabiting? Are you just there? Or are you ruling it? And I think one of the things that can be done, and I don’t see this in a lot of small businesses, is just making a list of all of your potential clients. And that should give you an idea of where you stand. And then if you know a list of who they’re using. And so, you know, your client and you know who your competitors are. I would think that that’s probably a good place to start. David: It’s a great place to start. And also thinking in terms of the other people who are like your clients who operate in a similar area, either in a similar geographic area or a similar demographic, however, you’re defining your territory. Also, when I use words like ruling and dominating, I don’t want them to sound as intimidating as some people interpret them to be. What I mean is that you’re essentially staking your claim. You’re saying, okay, look, this is an area where I want to do well. I want to excel. I want to be known. I want people to know me and I want to know other people in this particular market. They’re not all going to do business with me. I recognize that, but I want to make sure that all of the people who could potentially use my products and services at least know that I exist so that they could consider me if it makes sense for us to work together. Jay: Yeah. I think that’s really important. I think a lot of times people think about, well, I go in and I get the sale and if I don’t get the sale, well, then I’m done with that customer. But if you make it more of I’m going to go in and get a relationship, instead of a sale. If you get the sale, that’s great. But if you don’t, what happens when the customer they’re using falls down? David: Right. Jay: When the customer they’re using makes a mistake or goes out of business. If you already have that relationship, well now you are going to be the first call, right? So that relationship, I think, is so important. David: Yeah, I agree. And I think for most salespeople, the idea of relationship, it’s always a great talking point. Not always as well practiced as it should be. But it’s absolutely true. If we’re establishing relationships, that’s going to be great. And as many relationships as possible and as makes sense in a particular area. So let’s say somebody’s focused on selling to a niche industry, a niche industry, however you want to pronounce it. And you’re selling to the tech industry. You want to make sure that you’re interacting with as many tech people as possible within the market or territory that you’ve identified so that they have the opportunity to potentially talk about you. Oh, do you know Jay? Oh yeah. I know Jay! Right? Because if that happens, then you can start to develop a little bit of buzz. You can start to get more referrals. And when you become better known in a market, it just becomes a whole lot easier to dominate, you know, to actually score in that territory because they talk to somebody else, “oh yeah, I know them. I use them.” And when that happens enough, when they have enough of those conversations, they’re going to be a lot more likely to use you than if nobody else has any idea who you are. Jay: Yeah, in that first blush cold call. Is this a reason to like go to Chamber of Commerce meetings, and get involved in those types of organizations? David: It could be… Jay: …to help build those relationships. David: It could be. I think they definitely require investigation. Because some of them are great and some of them are terrible. And I know a lot of people who have gone to Chamber of Commerce functions and you go back week after week and it’s the same people and everybody’s trying to sell and nobody’s trying to buy. But I think that also goes to the strategy. Because if it’s the same people coming each week, then you want to at least build relationships with them and find out who in their organizations could actually potentially buy from you. As opposed to “yeah, I don’t do that.” And we’re just going to stand around and eat food and drink drinks and not get anything accomplished business-wise. That can happen. So I think it’s a good idea to say, okay, how far can I take those relationships? If they can refer me to the people in their organization who either could use help regarding what I do. Or if they could introduce me to somebody else that they know who could potentially use that sort of help, then you can get some sort of viral effects going. Jay: Yeah, I like that. I know you’ve also talked in the past about sending something to everybody who may be a potential customer. If you’re in the merchandising or print-on-demand business, sending them something with their logo or something like that, just so they’ve seen your name a couple of times. That can be a good start as well. Correct? David: It can, and when you’re doing something like that, some people say, “well, I don’t want to spend the money to do that.” But when you realize that your time is worth at least as much as anything that you might be sending to someone, it can really change your perspective. Some people are like, “well, I don’t want to spend 10 bucks and send somebody a promotional gift.” And you say, “Okay, well, are you going to spend three months of your life trying to figure out if this person is a good prospect for you?” What’s that worth? It’s worth a whole lot more than 10 bucks, probably. And so, if you can utilize something like that to get their attention, to get them engaged in conversation sooner, and to get them qualified in or out faster, it becomes worth a high multiple of whatever it is you would pay to send that out in the first place. Jay: Well, and also maybe you don’t send it to every potential customer. David: Right. Jay: Maybe you send out 10 a month, you know, five a month, whatever you can budget and just have that as part of your plan. So you don’t have to write this huge check that you can’t afford right up front. David: The other thing that something like that does, is it forces you to think about who it is that you’re reaching. Because you’re not going to want to do that with just anyone. And that’s actually a good thing. Because it forces you to think, okay, this is a large company. This is a person who probably makes the buying decisions here. This is somebody who’s worth a $10 investment to even have a conversation and get them qualified in or out. So I think it does a lot of good things in that regard. Jay: Yeah, I, love that idea. What else can I do as a business owner to focus on mastering the market? David: Well, I think if you really look at where you are currently spending your time, again, is it geographic? Is it within a particular industry? Are you spread out all over or do you have a nice, tightly concentrated group of clients in a particular area? If you do then to be able to spread out from there is easier. You can spread out closer to home, essentially, closer to where you’re already dominating. If you automatically jump to a new area, a new pond, you know, you want to be a big fish in a small pond or whatever. If you’re jumping from pond to pond, you’re not going to get the traction you’re probably looking for. So if you are established in a particular area, get as much business there as possible and then work to slowly spread out as close to that area as possible. If you are known in a number of different areas and you don’t have your business sort of consolidated, then explore which of those seems like the best opportunity for you. If you’re operating in a number of different industries, for example. So if you’re dealing with manufacturing companies and you’re dealing with non-profits. Okay, which one seems more receptive to my message? And then how can I work on cultivating and developing new clients within that particular one? And if you find out one’s working better than another, focus on that one and focus less on the one that’s not. So I think a lot of it is just about building from where you are and growing things from where you are. And once again, it’s the idea if you’re taking dots all over the place and I’m here and I’m here and I’m here, it’s going to be a lot harder than if you’re really building a core anywhere. So if you are in a number of places now, you can start building a core of business around the areas that you have. Again, whether it’s an industry or a geographic area, that’s going to allow you to start to dominate your area or mark your territory a lot better. Jay: Mmm. I think, again, this is such an important conversation, because like when I go on Google AdWords, the first option it gives me is do I want to advertise to the whole United States? And I’m like, well, yeah, that’s cool. I’d like the whole United States to use my product. But can you master that market? Can you get it to where a good portion of that market can know your name and who you are? The odds are probably not. But if you zero it down to your zip code or your general area, if that’s your type of product, then start there. Master that market and then expand. That’s one of the beauties of at least the online marketing tools that we have. We can be so specific. Maybe your market is not geographic. Maybe it’s age. Maybe… David: Right. Jay: …it’s profession. Maybe it’s something else. And these tools allow us to zero in on that. It’s so amazing. David: Yeah. And when you think about the idea of marketing to everyone, let’s say you start out a campaign. It could be Facebook, could be Google ads. Let’s say you’ve done some wide targeting where you’ve targeted the whole country or something like that. You can actually get a lot of good data from that as well. You could look at what are the leads that I got? Which leads were most valuable to me? And what do they have in common? And you may notice that they are, Hey, the bulk of these came from certain states. So then I might want to focus on those states. So it can work both ways. You can start in a particular area and spread out from there. You can test a lot of different areas and then hone in on the ones that are most responsive to you. Either of them will work. So it’s not like, well, there’s one way to do all this stuff. But the one thing that is critical to all of it, is identifying your area—identifying your territory. Focusing in on it and making sure that you become a known commodity in that area. So that people have the opportunity to choose you. Jay: Yeah. And take advantage of the analytics that come along with that type of digital advertising. You can learn some tremendous, tremendous things about who came to your site. What type of person actually closed the sale? The tools that we have at our fingertips are amazing, but I think people feel intimidated sometimes by them. So if you are, find somebody who can help you to interpret that data. Because if you can really identify your ideal customer, wow, can that help you in that sales funnel. David: Right. And if you’ve been in business for any length of time, you know the types of customers that you like. You know enough about them to be able to probably target a lookalike audience, as they refer to it in social media marketing terms, and test it out. See what works for you. But just make sure that you’re focused on one particular area, one particular market. You want to be the big fish in the small pond. And then, as you continue to grow, your pond gets bigger. And then you’re a big fish in a bigger pond. It just works. Jay: I love that mentality. Because everybody who starts a business wants to be a global, you know, dominating… David: Phenomenon! Jay: That’s right! From day one, you know, go on Shark Tank, or whatever, and be this unbelievable deal. But it’s just not very likely. You probably won’t be able to care for your customers the way that you need to. And it may overwhelm you. I mean, you may get so much business that you can’t handle it. And then that turns into a bunch of bad reviews and you’re wiped out, even though you had a great product. So kind of this slow, methodical process I think, David, is really important to talk about. David: yeah, I had a situation years ago. We did some postcard deck advertising. This was probably back in the nineties. Where there was this company that would send out a packet of physical postcards that would have different businesses in them. And they talked to me about this for a really long time. And I finally said, okay, I’m going to do this. And it was not inexpensive. It cost a lot of money. And they said, it’s going out to, I don’t know, it’s like a hundred, some thousand marketing directors and companies across the country. And I thought, okay, well, this should be good. And it was. They sent out the mailing and we got like 800 leads in a matter of a couple of weeks. We didn’t have the staff for it. We didn’t have the ability to keep up with it. We got some business out of it. It way more than paid for itself. But there are probably 750 people who didn’t hear from us because we just couldn’t keep up with it. So I think there’s a definite advantage to focusing on your small pond, growing that as much as possible so that you can establish some relationships that will allow you to grow further. Jay: I love it. Such great feedback. What a great story. How do people find out more? David: Okay, well, if you’re already an Inner Circle member log into the site, we’ll be discussing this topic all this week. If you’re not just, go to TopSecrets.com/ic for Inner Circle, that’s TopSecrets.com/ic and join the conversation. You can join for a month. You can join for a lifetime. If it makes sense for you, stick with it. If not say, Hey, this doesn’t work for me. But if you’re really serious about growing your business proactively, if you’re serious about identifying the markets that you want to reach and dominate and create an impression with, then I think this should be a no brainer for you. Jay: Yeah, I absolutely love it. David, thank you so much for your time. David: Thank you, Jay. Are You Ready to Start Ruling Your Territory? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here . Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here .
September 15, 202614 min
Is Customer Service Really Dead?
Is customer service really dead? Technology can either help customer service a whole lot, or it can harm it a whole lot, depending on how it’s used. It’s like a weapon. You can use a knife to cut a steak, or you can use a knife to hurt somebody. And I think technology is being used the same ways. They’re trying to save themselves time, energy, and effort. But they’re forgetting the fact that there are other human beings on the other end of that technology. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of customer service. Is it well and truly dead? Welcome Jay. Jay: Well, I think it depends upon the industry, but I’m going to say it’s more dead than not as far as I can tell. David: Yeah, it’s sad. And I feel like in some businesses, in the best businesses, it’s not dead. And it creates a tremendous advantage for those who are still keeping it alive, whether on life support or just because it’s the way they do business. But wow. I have had so many experiences recently where it seems like not only is the customer service unresponsive, uncooperative, unpleasant… Jay: Mm-hmm David: And there’s just this level of apathy that seems to go with it, which when you combine those things, really does seem pretty deadly. Jay: Yeah. And I think there is a temptation, because there’s such great technology out there. There is a temptation to say, “look, we can cut our costs if we just implement this new technology that maybe answers questions online” or “press one for this or for that.” I can see the temptation, but I don’t know if they clearly understand the frustration. I’ll tell you one of my pet peeves right now are the chat bots. I’ll go online and they’ll say, “Hey, if you don’t want to sit on hold,” which is an admission already that you don’t have enough people, ” go ahead, just chat with us.” And I’m thinking I’m going to get a live person. And no, I get a chatbot and I type in my question and it sends me to a predefined link that doesn’t answer my question. And I’m like, “I’ve just wasted 15 minutes and I could have been on hold the whole time.” So, very cool tech, but on the customer end, I think it’s frustrating a lot of people. Does Technology Help or Hurt Customer Service? David: It really can, particularly because technology can either help customer service a whole lot, or it can harm it a whole lot, depending on how it’s used. It’s just like any other weapon, right? It’s like a weapon. You can use a knife to cut a steak, or you can use a knife to hurt somebody. And I think the technology is being used the same ways, where they’re trying to save themselves time and energy and effort. And they’re forgetting that there are other human beings on the other end of that technology. But even beyond that, tech aside, there are now situations where you leave a message for somebody, or you send them an email. I mean, that is obviously tech as well, but if the human being behind the email does not respond to the email or they don’t return the phone call or they don’t return the voicemail or they don’t return the text. Now it’s actually more human error than tech error. And that’s where I think customer service is really struggling right now. Because if you’ve got well-meaning well-intentioned people who are determined to use the technology to make customer service better, then those companies are not just going to survive, they’re going to thrive. But the problem is there are people in organizations who just don’t care enough about the customers to even do the basic minimum things like returning phone calls, returning voicemails, and that sort of thing. Jay: Yeah. And then there’s the question of, you know, how do you know if you’re a business? How do you know if those calls are being returned? How do you gauge your customer service? Do you have a system to follow up with customers to see what their experience was like? If you don’t have a system to gauge that, you may be in real trouble because of your customer service and not even know it. David: We were talking in a previous episode about the idea of when costs are increased and you have to look for places to cut back. When there are situations where a company is employing people who are not taking care of the customer, if you’ve got to cut back personnel, that’s the best place to start. If there are people who will not be educated, and who are unwilling to learn what it takes to continue conversations with clients, that is really problematic. And so for the people who are serious about growing and expanding their business, who are serious about maintaining the type of customers that make you want to go to work in the morning, instead of the type of customers that make you want to run screaming from the room? Then it really means that we’ve got to up our game. We have to up our game from a customer service standpoint, a management standpoint, and an ownership standpoint, to ensure that our people are being taken care of. And as consumers, I think it’s essential for us to let businesses know when we feel like they’re falling down on the job. Because you’re right. They might not know it. And they might not have the systems in place that they should have in place to track that. So if they don’t, really, the only thing that’s going to get their attention is the squeaky wheel, right? The customer who says, “Hey, listen, this is the experience I had, is this what you meant to do to me?” Jay: Yeah. And unfortunately, I think from the research and surveys I’ve seen, people are more likely to just stop using you than they are to tell you that they had a problem. Or they’ll go online and they’ll give you a nasty review. The nasty review can be a source of finding out where your problems are. But a lot of times I think customers just say, well, I’m done with them and they move on to the next guy. David: That’s exactly right. And most of the time that’s what I would do, I would say, “Okay, that’s it. Never going back there again,” I recently had a situation where we went to a restaurant that we go to pretty frequently. And I got an email from them saying that I had a $15 credit that was good till the end of the month. It was some sort of promotion or something like that. And I use their promotions frequently, so I was like, “oh, okay. I got a $15 credit. Let’s use it.” It was close to the end of the month. I said to my wife, “Hey, we should go here and grab some food.” It was, I think it was the 30th. It was going to expire on the 31st. We hadn’t planned to go out, but I thought, okay, $15 credit. I’ll use that. Right. Drop it on the floor. See how quickly I pick it up. And so we went to the restaurant, and had a great meal. Good time. The server was fantastic. Got to the end. Attempted to use the coupon. “Oh no. That’s only for people who took part in this particular promotion that went from this date to this date and who bought a gift card.” And I was like, “I don’t think it said all that in the email I got.” So she apologized and she was very nice about it. And like I said, I go there frequently, I like the place. But when I got home, I’m like, “this does not sit well with me.” So I submitted essentially a review, not an online review that people could see. I submitted it to their complaint department, which would go to somebody who could read it and address it. And I got a call back the very next day from the manager who apologized for the confusion. He said, “don’t worry, we’re going to take care of this for you. I see you’re a good customer,” I’m like a frequent rewards member, stuff like that. Go there a lot. So they saw how much we spent and the guy was great. He made it right. And in those situations you can say, “all right, whew. That’s good. Glad I was able to bring it to their attention and I’m glad they were willing to address it.” But there are a lot of businesses who are just like, “eh, yeah, too bad.” Gone. Jay: Yeah, and this is one of the things that bothers me. It’s that I think sometimes businesses, fear the customer that is complaining. And really they should be looked at as an opportunity. Because I’m going to bet that even though you had a bad experience with that restaurant, the fact that they called you right back after that whole process, I’m going to bet you’re more loyal to that restaurant. Because we all know that nobody’s perfect. All we want to know is that if they make a mistake that they’ll fix it, that they’ll solve it. And if we know that, we’re going to be more loyal, not less loyal. So having good customer service, especially when it’s complaints, I think is an incredible way to build loyalty. David: Yeah. And I think also when you’re complaining, you don’t want to burn bridges. Because if you’re a jerk about it, they’re going to be a lot less likely to help you. When I reported this incident, I talked about the fact that the food was really good. The server was great. It was a great experience, except for this one thing. And so I gave them an honest evaluation of what happened and they responded appropriately. But when we think about the idea of customer service, I like to believe that customer service is not dead, particularly among the companies that are smart about it and take it very seriously. I think that it does give a tremendous advantage to the people who are committed to fixing things that go wrong and who are committed to continuing to look for opportunities to make things better than what other people are doing. And to better serve their customers. With technology, it can and should be easier when we utilize it the right way and when we put that first. When we put the idea of engaging our customers, keeping them happy, and keeping them coming back, that’s going to do more to improve customer service than anything else we could probably talk about. Jay: Yeah. You talk about how technology can help improve things. There are so many situations like food delivery services or things like that, that I use now, where the minute my transaction is done, I get a prompt “please rate your service. Please rate the experience.” And I do it every time. I would never go to their website and do it. But because I’m prompted immediately to do it, I do it right then. It’s just become a habit because I want to reward those people that did a great job and they’re giving me a way to do it. But if I don’t see it right that second, I’m not going to be proactive and go out and find a way to do it. One of the other things that frustrate me with customer service is that companies are afraid to empower their frontline employees. Allowing them to make decisions. In your example with the restaurant, I believe that what the best situation would’ve been for that server to say, “I apologize for the confusion. I’m going to give you the discount anyway.” And… David: Mm-hmm Jay: so right then you’re like, “wow, that was the right response.” So I understand if it’s a big deal, you know, having to get approval from a manager or something like that. But I think the best situations are when that frontline person can just say, “you know what, you’re exactly right. Let me give you that discount.” And then you move on. You salvage the situation right away. David: Yeah, I agree. I think they probably had some latitude, but they didn’t have that level of latitude. They probably had the ability to bonus you a dessert or something like that, but maybe not take $15 off the bill or whatever. But you’re right. I think a lot of it goes back to the whole idea of the systems. If the systems you have in place are set up to empower the employee to fix problems immediately, it’s better than having to stew on it. Drive home, write something on a website and wait for a response. If it had been resolved immediately, you’d be like, “that’s great.” And even now, I mean, I’m happy it was resolved well. But I feel like every business should be able to learn from the good experiences they have and from the not so good experiences they have. And look at that and say, “how could I have done that better? How would I have handled that if it happened in my organization,” Jay: I think also looking for trends. People sometimes fear looking at the results, but if you do have a good system to harvest these things, you can change your systems, identify trends where things are falling down, identify employees that are representing your company on the frontline and they’re regularly getting complaints or issues. You know, if you’re just haphazard about your customer service, you may not know that you’re losing customers or that people are being frustrated. And if that’s the case, it may be too late by the time you find out. David: And it’s so easy to send an email to your best customers, just asking what sort of experience they’re having. “How are things going? Do you have any questions? Do you have any concerns?” It’s also a great thing to do with people that you haven’t heard from in a while. If there are people who have ordered from you regularly in the past, and you haven’t heard from them lately, You can just drop ’em an email, and ask them how things are going, because you can find out things that you might not know otherwise. And if they’ve already moved on to what they consider to be greener pastures, that’s not going to be good. So it’s not just a matter of providing the best service you can. It is a matter of finding out are people perceiving that as well? Because it’s one thing if we think we’re providing great service. If our clients don’t feel that way, then essentially we’re not. Jay: Yeah, it’s also a great opportunity for the upsell. And I think that’s where people miss out. So again, looking at customer service as an opportunity, I think is so important. Very good. So how can people find out more? David: Okay. Well, you can go to TopSecrets.com/call if you’d like to schedule a time or we can just discuss what’s going on in your business, and where you’re struggling. If you’re struggling with customer service, if you’re struggling with growing sales, growing profits, we can walk you through a couple of questions to try to find out where you are, where you’re looking to be, and see if we can help. If we can help. We’ll let you know that if we can’t, we’ll let you know that too. You can go to TopSecrets.com/call to schedule a time that works for you. Again, that’s TopSecrets.com/call Jay: Yeah, I love that you’re offering that service, David. Sometimes it’s just a matter of having people vocalize their issues and having somebody to talk about it. Or talk with other people in similar industries. So I think that this is a real benefit that you’re offering. David: Very good. Thanks so much, Jay. Ready to Growing Your Sales & Profits Faster? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here . Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here .
September 8, 202616 min
How to Lower Customer Acquisition Cost and Improve Conversions
What’s your customer acquisition cost? I’ve been accused of being a bit of a maniac when it comes to lead tracking and making sure that we know where everything is coming from. I was a bit of a tyrant about that in previous businesses that I had, because you have to know what’s producing and what’s not. Otherwise, you can waste enormous amounts of money. David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing what it costs to get a new customer. Welcome, Jay. Jay: Hey, it’s so good to be here, David. And customer acquisition cost is a very important metric that all companies need to know. It’s almost as though it’s part of your cost of goods sold. And if you don’t know this answer, you may think you’re making money and you might not be. David: Yeah. It’s really funny when I ask audiences that question, if I’m in front of a group and I say, “What does it cost you to acquire a new customer?” I get some blank looks, I get some smiles, some nervous laughter, some looking around. It’s generally a very small percentage of any given audience that actually knows their customer acquisition cost. And I think it’s interesting because if you don’t know this, or if you don’t even have an idea of what that cost might be, then you really have no idea not just what you’re putting out, what you’re getting from it, but you really have no idea how to continue to build from there. And I think to the extent that I do get answers when I ask the question, a lot of it is just generalities. It’s like, “well, I spend a lot, Oh, it’s a lot, it costs a lot.” But what is it? And some people are like, “Well, I don’t spend anything because I get referrals.” And whenever someone tells me that, that tells me that they’re probably doing 10 to 25% of the business they could be doing. Because if they’re getting a lot of referrals, that’s awesome. But if they’re just relying on referrals alone, there’s a lot that they’re leaving on the table. What is Your Customer Acquisition Cost? Jay: Yeah, I think that’s a great point. If you don’t know what your customer acquisition cost is, you can’t impact it. And it should be a goal to try and drive it down if you can. And if you can’t, work it into your sales costs, work it into your systems so that you can make sure that you’re profitable. David: Yeah. I think something else that people often don’t think of, particularly small businesses, they may go to Chamber of Commerce functions, they may do different things, go to different networking events and that sort of thing. And they don’t really think of that as a customer acquisition cost. Because they don’t value their time enough in a lot of cases. And so even if you’re not putting out actual cash in the form of advertising, marketing, things to get you noticed like that, there are acquisition costs. It’s going to cost you a certain amount of time out of your day. It’s going to cost you in terms of energy. It’s going to cost you in terms of effort. It’s going to cost you in terms of what could I be doing instead of what I’m doing now that could potentially produce a higher return? So there are a lot of different aspects to this and that’s why I thought it would be a good conversation to have. Jay: Yeah, I do agree with that. And you’re mentioning all the different types of customer acquisition. I mean, it could be something that doesn’t cost a lot. Maybe you can make viral videos and that’s driving customers to you. But there’s still an expense of creating those videos. There’s a lot of time and effort put into that, and they’re not calculating that in. They would probably tell you we don’t have a customer acquisition cost. But they’re paying somebody to spend 30, 40 hours a week to create viral videos. That’s a cost. David: Yeah. Or they’re doing it themselves, and if their time’s not worth anything, then they’re not spending money, but our time is worth something. Everybody’s time is worth something. And so those are the things that have to start going into the equation. Also, I think a lot of times people don’t bother tracking to see what is their customer acquisition cost in terms of time, energy, effort, and of course, money. Now, if they are spending money to generate leads, maybe they spend a certain amount of money to whatever, buy or rent a list, or maybe they spend a certain amount of money on advertising. Maybe they’re doing Facebook ads, or YouTube ads, or billboards. I mean, it could be anything, any sort of advertising, Newspaper advertising, obviously not as popular these days, online ads, lots of different ways that one can advertise to get their information in front of people. So if you’re generating leads or clients on social media, there’s a definite cost associated with that in terms of how much time are you putting in while you’re online, even if you’re not spending money on ads themselves. There is definitely a customer acquisition cost involved. So these are the types of things that it makes sense to sort of think about as you’re going in on a monthly basis, weekly basis, if not a daily basis. Jay: Yeah, and I think actual individual tracking, I mean, maybe it’s even just a spreadsheet of each platform that you’re using, if you’re paying for Google AdWords. If you’re paying for boosting on Facebook or anything else. Track what you’re spending. And then the other part of that, and I think this is where a lot of people miss, is when that lead comes in, it’s important to ask. It’s important to know, “Hey, how did you hear about us?” Because if you don’t do that, you’re not going to know what’s working and what’s not working. David: Yeah, absolutely. You have to be able to track your customer acquisition cost on the back end once that happens. And once again, I think there are a lot of people who don’t do this. They’re just out doing a lot of different things, potentially. And if you don’t know the things that are actually generating the results, how do you know how you can improve? Because it’s possible you could eliminate a number of different things that you’re doing that just aren’t producing as much. You could double down on the things that are working and you could generate a lot more customers in the same or less time. Jay: Yeah. And the beauty is with at least digital products or social media products, it’s so easy to track where those leads came from. If you have Google Analytics that will help you. Or we kind of talked about it last time, where you used to have an individual phone number for each type of advertising. Now you could just send them to a unique URL for each advertising vehicle and know instantly how many leads are coming through. And then the next step would be, well, how many of those leads are we closing? Because that’s how you really calculate your customer acquisition cost. David: Yeah, and I think in a sense what you said, that’s the ideal. That’s exactly what everyone should be doing all the time. But even getting to that, if people were to do things as simple as pay attention to what it is that they’re putting out, pay attention to where those leads are coming from, even generally. If someone contacts you, however it is they contact you and you’re not sure where they came from, just to ask them, “Hey, where did you hear about?” Now, if they’re contacting you online, if they’re contacting you through Facebook Messenger or something like that, then that gives you a bit of a hint that they probably saw something that you posted on Facebook and they’re responding to that. So you should be able to track your customer acquisition cost that way as well. Without that information, you really have such a disadvantage over the people who are paying attention to those sort of things. Jay: Yeah, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve been really surprised. You know, we make assumptions about what’s going to work. And of course, people selling us advertising products, they tell us how it’s going to work. But when you do actual tracking, I’ve been really surprised. I’m like, Really? That was the one that I thought, that was just a shot in the dark. I didn’t think that was going to work at all. And that’s the one that’s really performing. So I’m going to dial that one up. And these other ones that I thought were going to perform, and they’re not, I’m going to dial those ones down. I mean, this is how you improve the entire process. And it should be a constant process, right? David: Yes. And that is absolutely the case. I know, I’ve been accused of being a bit of a maniac when it comes to lead tracking and making sure that we know where everything is coming from. I was a bit of a tyrant about that in previous businesses that I had. I had a direct mail catalog business. And it’s absolutely critical in a business like that, because you have to know what’s producing and what’s not. Otherwise you can waste enormous amounts of money, and so that’s something that I’ve just carried over. So even now, if I run ads. There are different types of ads that can be run through different organizations that’ll be doing email communications that can be coded and tracked to a specific page on a website, as you indicated. So if they opt in from that page, you know that it came from this particular ad. It’s very easy to do. And as you indicated, sometimes you think this one thing’s going to be great, and it turns out that it’s not. Sometimes you think it’s going to be great and it is. Sometimes you’re right. But what’s really interesting is sometimes you can have a lead source that will generate a lot of leads and you think, “Wow, this is great.” But then you find out that they’re not producing anything. They’re not converting into sales. So you can have fewer leads coming from one source that generates more revenue for you, more sales and more long-term customers. And then you have something else that’s generating a lot of leads, but they’re just taking up your time, and they’re not converting. All that plays into your customer acquisition cost. Jay: Oh yeah. I’ve totally had this experience. We had set up Google advertising and instantly we were getting leads like you couldn’t believe. And we started going through ’em and spent a lot of time with them, and none of them were valuable. Our close rate was like, 1% on this group. And we’re like, “that is terrible. ” So we refined the keywords. We did a lot of research and we were able to crank the close rate up to about 28%. And that’s just by watching and learning and you know, figuring out what works best. But it’s still a constant process. We’re still looking every day at that rate. And it will start to fluctuate sometimes. And we’re like, Okay, what’s going on? Is there an industry shift here? Are the needs of customers changing because of trends that we’re not seeing? It’s just a constant labor that we go through. David: What’s really interesting about that, is the idea that you can engage in an activity that will create a 28 x return, right? We were getting 1%, now we’re getting 28%. That’s 28 times… Jay: I know! David: …the result, right? And assuming, all things being equal, which of course they never are, but I mean that could mean a 28 x increase in overall gross sales. And the more you dial it in, the better it gets. But many people fail to even think of that sort of thing, let alone take consistent action on it. Jay: Yeah. And the incredible thing is that we’re actually spending less money to get those leads. Because we got the system so refined. So we reduced our customer acquisition cost and we improved our close rate at the same time. I mean, we were just jumping for joy when we figured out this equation. Now, not everybody is that simple. I’m in an industry where there’s a very specific type of customer and we were able to hone in and identify that individual. Not so easy in every industry, though. David: Right, but just the idea that that can be done. A lot of times what will happen is when people are running an ad or they’re doing some sort of outbound effort, if it doesn’t produce results, if you talk to a hundred people and you’re only able to close one, if you get a 1% closing rate. You may look at that and say, Oh, well this doesn’t work. And those three words, “this doesn’t work,” are deadly in marketing and sales. Because too often we blame the one thing, whether it’s the ad or whether it’s the medium that you’re using. If it’s Facebook or if it’s Google or whatever, you say, “Well, that doesn’t work.” “Facebook ads don’t work.” In the work that I do with promotional products distributors, there are customers for promotional product salespeople who say, “Well, promotional products don’t work for us.” And you can’t really just come out and say this, “Well, it’s your fault.” But it’s the truth. You can’t have an entire advertising medium that produces results for a whole lot of other people. That, for some magical reason, doesn’t work for you. It’s always a matter of saying, “okay, could this work? What can I do to tweak this? What can I do to make this work?” And you try some different things. It’s like the old story about Edison and how when he was asked about his many failures when trying to create the light bulb, or “you’ve tried 10,000 different things, they’ve all failed.” He said, “No. I’ve successfully identified 10,000 approaches that don’t work.” And then eventually he identified one that did. And that’s the reason you’re doing it. You’re not doing it for the failed experiments, you’re doing it for the one that actually ends up creating results. Jay: Yeah. Such a great point. And I do think it’s also important to talk about the closing process because you may have a great system that is actually generating good leads. But you don’t have the right closer, the right person on the other end, the right system on your website to actually get them to finally click that purchase button. So you may have actually a good system of generating leads of good customers. But then you’re falling down on the closing side. So there’s a lot of different aspects to this process that need to be looked at. David: Yeah, it’s true. There are lots of different places along the line where things can potentially go wrong. And the most important, or one of the most important aspects of this, is identifying that correctly. And not just saying, “Okay, it’s this,” when you haven’t actually determined that it is in fact that. Jay: Yeah, not guessing, right? Using key performance indicators, all of the information that’s available out there to make the best decisions about where you are falling down. David: Yeah. So I think for most people who haven’t really thought about this, take just a little bit of time, jot down a few notes in terms of, okay, what am I doing right now that is working well and how can I leverage that? How can I amplify that? What am I currently spending? In terms of money, in terms of time, in terms of energy and effort? If there are particular activities that you’re engaged in that just drain you and cause you to lose enormous amounts of time because you just can’t stand it and the rest of your day goes away, notice those types of things. But then also just look at those costs and identify what they’re likely to produce. And again, it doesn’t take a whole lot to be able to do this. But if you just pay attention to where those leads are coming from and which leads are closing, and you can literally do this anywhere. I get a lot of questions about this. Well, do I have to have a contact management system that I put this in? That’s ideal. You want to have a place to store all the information, have it all there so that you’re not looking around for different scraps in different places. So it’s good to have it all in one place, but within a customer record, you can identify this, Where did they first hear about us? And so if it takes three months or six months or a year to get them closed, hopefully it doesn’t take that long. But if it does, you can still go back and say, Oh, okay, this lead came from this particular source. So it just allows you to know. Because when you have some idea of where your existing customers are coming from, then you also have some idea of where to go to get more. Jay: Absolutely. Such great information. How do people find out more? David: Well, you can go to TopSecrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team. We can work through whatever it is that you’re currently dealing with, where you are now, where you’d like to be, and see if we can help you. And if we can, we’ll let you know. If we can’t, we’ll let you know that, too. Jay: All right, David, thank you so much for your time today. David: Thank you, Jay. Ready to Grow Your Sales & Profits? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here .
September 1, 202613 min
How to Monetize Your Sales Pipeline and Close More Sales
To monetize your sales pipeline, you need to fill it, prioritize it and tackle it. This whole idea of knowing what to do and not doing it, is rampant. It seems ridiculous. It’s like, “who would do that?” And the answer is nearly everybody does it. And none of us do it on purpose, but we all, to some extent, end up doing it. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing how to monetize your sales pipeline. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you, David. It’s such a pleasure to be here. I really can’t wait to talk a little bit more about this process. I see people who kind of think they have a pipeline. But they’re not sure exactly what to do with it. So a good, important topic today. David: Yeah. What to do with it or in a lot of cases, even what it is. I think even before we can talk about how to monetize it, you almost have to identify it. What is it? What is your sales pipeline? Who is it? Who are the people who are in it? Where is it located? Is it just inside your head? Because if it’s just inside your head, leaving enormous amounts of money on the table. Jay: Yeah, and we’ve talked in the past about key performance indicators, KPIs. First you have to know what that pipeline is. Then you have to know how to track it and where people are at in each stage so that things ideally trigger automatically. I think that’s the end goal, but getting there can be difficult. 3 Steps to Monetize Your Sales Pipeline David: Yeah, I mean I think of it in terms of filling it, prioritizing it and then tackling it. Because if you’re not doing it in that order, it’s going to be problematic for you. Jay: All right. Well then let’s start with filling it. Let’s get that going. David: Okay, Well, when we talk about filling our pipeline after we’ve identified what it is and where it is, filling it obviously is the biggest thing. And I think a lot of salespeople tend to think of this as being pretty important. Getting new leads into their pipeline. And of course, it is very important. It’s the number one step. Because until you know who’s in there, you don’t really have anything you can do. You’ve got to have the prospect first. So filling it starts with asking yourself, who goes in here? And what types of clients am I looking for? Are they in particular types of industries? Are they located in a particular geographic area? What are the different things that I’m looking for in terms of a good, solid prospect for my pipeline? So who goes in is very important. But who stays out is also extremely important. And we don’t think about this, but it is so critical. In my sales career over the years, particularly in the early stages, I just thought if someone was willing to talk to me then they were a good prospect. And I learned, not as quickly as I should have, that that’s just not the case. There are people out there who will be happy to talk to you again and again and never actually buy anything from you. So when you’re looking at who goes in and who stays out, think in terms of exactly that. When you are talking to someone, if you’re not able to get them qualified in as quickly as you’d like, to make sure that they have the need, the desire, the money, the budget, the willingness to spend. Then, don’t keep going back to that well and expecting to get water out if there’s no water to be found. Jay: You know, we had exactly this problem here recently with the company I’ve been doing consulting for. They wanted to start using Google ads and David: mm-hmm. Jay: So they just put out some general pay for click kind of stuff, and their phones and their online scheduling just lit up. I mean every single day, packed and full. But only about 3% of those calls were related to their actual focus and their product. So they ended up spending all this time. And then what they had to do was go through a process of, like you said, Okay. Identifying the core customer and refining your keywords down to a point where you’re not getting all of that other stuff. At first, they’re like, “look at all these calls. This is going to be great,” and it turned into a huge detractor very quickly. To Monetize Your Sales Pipeline, Don’t Overfill it David: Yeah. And so when we think in terms of filling our pipeline, and I led with that. I said, Okay, first we have to fill it, but we don’t want to overfill it. And we particularly don’t want to fill it with people who have no likelihood of becoming clients. So, a lot of times the thought process is, you know, where is the next lead going to come from? Whether it’s coming from online, whether you’re doing something with Google, whether you’re doing in person prospecting, whether you’re doing it through social media, where they come from is not as critical as making sure that you’re getting people into the pipeline that you can qualify in or out as quickly as possible. So that’s really the first thing. Fill it, but don’t overfill it. Because I know people who have what they think are sales pipelines. It’s basically a database of thousands of people that they’re never going to get to, because they didn’t do the second thing we’re talking about, which is to prioritize it and decide, you know, who are the people in here that I need to be in touch with now? We need to rank the contacts inside that database so that we can be in touch with the right people at the right time. I mean, that’s really all prioritization is, starting with the most important contacts first, and that’s a challenge sometimes too, is to say, Okay, well who is most important? is it what they refer to as the bleeding neck thing? You know, who’s in the most trouble? Or is it, hey, I’ve got a really good, loyal client who reached out to me. Do I reach out to them first, or do I reach out to the person who’s screaming, who I might not know as well? That’s a personal decision, but in a lot of cases, you need to do your prioritization based on what’s most important to you. If it’s serving a really good customer first, then that person has to come first. If somebody else is screaming for service, but they’re new prospects and you have no idea whether or not they can spend a dime with you, you need to decide how that’s going to fall on the prioritization scale. And to the extent possible, if you have help, if you’ve got an administrative assistant who can help with some of that stuff, that’s great. But prioritization is absolutely key. Is it our best customers? Is it the person with the biggest, most pressing need? Now, biggest and most pressing are also two different things, right? Somebody might have a very pressing need for a very teeny, tiny order. And so if that’s the case, does it make sense for you to step away from what you’re doing with a bigger, more important order or customer to deal with somebody who’s got something smaller in mind. And once again, you’ve got to make some of these decisions for yourself. But when you recognize that there are different criteria that go into this decision, then it really becomes more of a simple thought process. Because you make those calls for yourself and then you make those decisions accordingly. And there are always people who are going to have time sensitive projects. So where does that fall into the overall scheme of things? People, you know, say they need stuff tomorrow or they need it immediately. And sometimes that’s the case and sometimes it’s not. So finding those things out is also part of this process. Jay: Yeah. One of the ways I ‘ve seen this done, kind of what you’re talking about, is identifying where different leads are coming from. So I have leads that are referrals and I have leads that are from Google Ads. And then I’m tracking my close rate on both of those leads, and I’m realizing that the ones that come from referrals or my current database, my close rate is 30%, and from Google it’s 10%. To me, that’s a great way to be able to identify where you should focus your time. David: Yeah. And in those situations too, I mean, some people will look at that and say, “well, I got 30% here and 10% there. Let’s forget about that.” But hey, 10% is still 10% right? And if your qualification procedure is tight, and you can disqualify the unqualified as quickly as possible, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that in future podcasts as well, then it makes perfect sense to look at that. Because the 10% that you’re getting from one source might actually perform better than the 30% you’re getting somewhere else, depending on how large a customer it is and what they’re buying. So there are all those different factors involved, and it’s smart. What you’re doing is very smart. Looking at that and trying to make those best decisions based on what’s actually happening in real life, in your customer base, in your prospect base. Jay: Yeah. Such a great point, because I may be able to close 30% of this type of lead, but I’m only getting three of those a day. And then on the 10% side, I’m getting 20 of those a day, so David: Right. Jay: That’s part of that calculation, right? David: Yeah, 10% of 20 is two. So if you can pick up two customers from it, then, you don’t want to throw that away. Jay: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other part is you don’t have to ignore those smaller percentages or things. You can have systems to deal with those people. Maybe you put them in a drip program so that they’re still getting contact from you. There’s other ways you’re not going to just, you know, kiss those people goodbye. You just may have a different way to reach out to them. David: Absolutely. All right, so we talked about identifying it, well, identifying it first, but then in terms of the 1, 2, 3 of it, filling your pipeline, prioritizing your pipeline, and then tackling it. So we talked about filling it and prioritizing it. Now, when it gets down to tackling, it’s really just a matter of doing. Once you’ve done your prioritization, once you’ve decided who the next person is, or who’s the first person I need to be in touch with, then it’s a matter of executing on your plan. So your prioritization is essentially your planning stage. And then tackling it is just about taking action. It’s about doing it. And we’ll be talking about things like call reluctance and things like that in future podcasts. But this whole idea of knowing what to do and not doing it, is rampant. It seems ridiculous. It’s like, well, who would do that? And the answer is nearly everybody does it. And none of us do it on purpose, but we all, to some extent, end up doing it. It’s like, Well, I know I need to do this, but then something pops up on our radar and we do that. It could be shiny object syndrome. We’ve talked about squirrel before, right? Squirrel. That was from a movie, right? You had mentioned that in a previous podcast. Jay: Yeah. That was from Up In Disney’s Up. David: Right, okay. The dog. Jay: The dog, yeah. David: Yeah, and I think we can all relate to that. So it’s like we know what we need to do, but then we get distracted. And so tackling it simply means having the self discipline to, once you’ve made that plan, to stick to that plan. And follow your instincts in that regard, because if you’ve taken the time to identify who needs to be in touch next, then you want to make sure that that’s the person that you’re being in touch with. It’s very straightforward, but needs to be mentioned because a lot of times it just doesn’t happen. There are probably situations. I know I’ve been in this situation, probably anybody who’s watching this podcast has been in a situation where you’re like, Oh, I really need to call so and so. I really need to get in touch with this person or that person. And then days go by, or weeks go by, or months go by, and in a lot of cases it’s because you didn’t do step two, you didn’t prioritize it. You didn’t actually put that person on a list, at or near the top of that list where they would be seen, and it could be acted. And once again, going back to what we started out on this, if you’re doing it all in your head, you are going to miss things. There’s no way you will not miss things. It’s just the way things work. You get it down on paper, you get it into one prioritized list, you organize it, you sort it. You start at the top and work your way through. That’s about the best way that you’re ever going to be able to get these things done. So, the topic that we started out with was monetizing your pipeline. Now, all we’ve really talked about is filling it and prioritizing it and tackling it, but that’s what leads to the monetization. Because it’s the failure to do those things that puts you in touch with a lot of the wrong people at the wrong time with the wrong words. That leads to non monetization. So if you really want to monetize your pipeline, you still need to focus on these three things. First, you have to fill it, then you have to prioritize it, and then you have to tackle it and be ruthless about eliminating poor quality prospects. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And again, looking at tackling knowing your sales cycle is something that can be critical. Like if you, if you discover that, if you don’t get back to them in a week, then the close rate goes down. I mean, it depends on what type of business you have, but that timeliness is also something you should study and look at. Because you may learn, if I don’t get back to these customers in 48 hours, then my percentages go way down. David: Absolutely. I mean, I’ve always maintained that a hot lead is like a hot cup of coffee. It doesn’t get any hotter as a result of neglect. You know, you’ve got to get to it fast. And leads are like that. And I know I’ve made that mistake in my business over the years where something comes in, I get distracted. You follow up later and they’re like, “Oh, I already took care of that.” It’s like, “ugh.” Now I haven’t done that at all recently, but I know years ago, and in the early stages, I’d just have things falling through the cracks because I didn’t do this consistently, these three things. When you do it, it works really well. When you don’t, you really pay the price. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. How do people find out more, David? David: Well, you can go to TopSecrets.com/call if you’d like to have a call with myself or my team to talk about how you’d like to grow your sales and profits. We can have a strategy session, discuss where you’re struggling, what you’re looking to do, and if we can help, we’ll tell you how we can do that. And if we can’t help, we’ll tell you that too. So I’d start with that: TopSecrets.com/call. Jay: All right, Dave, I love it. Thank you so much for joining us today. David: Thank you, Jay. Ready to Grow Your Sales & Profits? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here . Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here .
August 25, 202615 min
How to Increase Sales, Profit, Cash Flow, and Personal Income
To increase sales, profit, cash flow, and personal income, understand that money is always flowing in one direction or another. In a business, it needs to flow in from the customers. It needs to flow through to the employees and to the suppliers and to everybody who is providing you with services. And there needs to be something left over at the end to take home. And when you’re able to make those things happen consistently, everybody’s just better off. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing how to increase sales, profit, and personal income. Welcome Jay. Jay: Yeah. Thank you, David. I’m so excited, as usual, to talk about these topics that we discuss every podcast. I think that people often get caught up, especially small business owners, in one of these aspects, instead of having balance between all of them. And I feel like the one that they think about the most is sales. We have to increase sales. And if you’re not focusing on profitability in that regard, you could be generating all kinds of sales, but you’re not controlling your costs. And so ultimately those sales aren’t helping you. David: Yeah. Been there, done that. I think anybody, if you’ve started your own business, you’ve probably found yourself in this situation and gross sales is usually a good place for people to start. They’re thinking in terms of top line. Okay. I need to bring in as much as possible, which is true. You got to be bringing it in. But if you’re not paying attention to the rest of it, as you indicated, you could be selling a lot of stuff and losing money every day. And unless you’re keeping track of that, you’re not going to know it. I remember in the early days of my promotional products business, I would get together with my accountant once every 90 days. At the end of every quarter, actually the beginning of the following quarter, we would review the numbers for the previous quarter. And at that point, it’s too late to do anything about it. You feel like things are going well because you know, you’re selling stuff, but then you look at the expenses, the cost of goods, the cost of people, all your internal costs, your overhead costs. And you find out that you’re not making money on it. And 90 days later is too late. So once we got that in focus and we started doing it every month, reviewing what happened last month, where are our expenses too high and where are our gross sales too low? And which customers take up too much time and don’t generate enough revenue? Once we’re able to focus on the things that actually allow you to operate a profitable business, things got a lot better, a lot more quickly. And when we think in terms of these three things, how to increase sales, profit, and personal income, it’s almost like you’re starting here with the sales and then that generates whatever profit you have. And then after you’ve spent money on overhead and things, then you have some money to pay yourself, get some personal income going. But different businesses operate different ways. There are some business owners who are so focused on what am I going to bring in for myself that they may cut costs. They may short change people in terms of what they’re delivering in terms of product. They may choose less quality products. And so depending on where people’s focus is, determines where they’re going to be successful among those three things. Jay: Yeah. And I think you need balance. I mean, they’re all important. And so as you talked about looking at things monthly, I think having systems to identify and track each of these areas and have proper goals and benchmarks and reporting systems so that you can catch issues quickly. And pivot quickly is the only way you’re going to find balance in the force with these three things. David: Yeah, I agree. And I’ve operated businesses that had overhead that was too high. And that’s really hard. Because you feel like you’re trying to do everything right. And you’re trying to take care of the business and you’re trying to take care of your employees and you’re trying to take care of your customers. And if you don’t have the metrics right, it’s going to be pretty darn close to impossible to do that. And so finding the balance between the quality of product, which has to be high, the customer service, which has to be great. And the quality of client you’re interacting with, which also has to be great. When you get those three things lined up, you’re more likely to be successful, but if you’re not quite connected with some of those things, it’s a really uphill slog. Jay: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve kind of mentioned this in some other podcasts, but I see businesses when they need to increase their profitability. Their default is we need to increase sales or revenue. And I think that can be misguided. Because in order to make a dollar in profit, you may need to increase sales by $10. But if you focus on reducing cost, like for example, in a restaurant, if you can reduce your food cost by 1%, that immediately goes to the bottom line and increases profitability. So I find that the much faster route to profit than just to increase sales. And I don’t know that every business person understands that. David: Right. And I think it’s probably because there is a limit to how much you can cut. But theoretically, there’s not a limit in terms of how much you can generate. Now, obviously there is. If it’s a restaurant, you’ve got a certain number of seats or whatever. In a promotional products business, there’s a certain number of customers that you can visit with. Whatever your business is, there are going to be limits on the upper end. But most businesses never see that. They never get to the point where it’s like, I’m totally overwhelmed. I’m extremely profitable. I’m making a lot of money and I’m capped out. Because when you’re doing things well, when you’re doing things right, you’re generating the revenue, you’re generating the profit, which means you can hire additional people. You can add the staff, you can get the help and you can still continue to make money. But when you’re not in that situation, when you’re just sort of barely eking things out, and you’re saying, “okay, I need to increase sales. I need to generate more.” Yeah, you probably do. But as you indicated, if you are able to cut some of your overhead costs by even just a small amount, all of that drops, whereas gross sales don’t drop. Gross sales do not drop directly to your bottom line. And I can’t tell you how many people I’ve worked with who forget that. And when they think about gross sales, when they focus on gross sales, when they talk about gross sales, they’re like, “oh yeah, we’re generating all of this.” It doesn’t matter if you don’t get to drop it and keep some of it and pay everybody who needs to be paid. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things is knowing what your cost should be. What is the ideal cost that you’re shooting for? Because you’re right. You can’t continue to reduce costs. There is a line. There’s a threshold. My experience, like in the restaurant business, we had something called a theoretical food cost versus our actual food cost. The theoretical was if we had no waste, if we had no theft, if we had no shrinkage, if we ran perfectly, what would our food cost be? And then we compared that to our actual food cost. And so the goal was constantly trying to close the gap between those. And if you’re not an industry where there’s no shrinkage or things like that, then that’s not going to be as easy. But this was a great system for us to always be trying to achieve, to close that gap between the theoretical and the actual. David: Yeah, there are also a lot of business people who, when they start talking about this or thinking about this, it feels cold. “Well, I don’t like thinking about the numbers. I want to make sure I’m taking care of my people” and all that sort of thing, which is great. You do want to take care of your people. But the only way you can take care of your people is by remaining in business. Cause if you don’t remain in business, you can’t take care of anyone anymore. Can’t take care of your customers. You can’t take care of your employees. You can’t take care of yourself or your family. So, paying attention to this and recognizing that, yeah, this is a real thing and it’s not just driving gross sales is absolutely critical. I’ve operated businesses that generated huge gross sales, but they didn’t have the profitability they needed. I’ve operated businesses that didn’t generate a huge gross amount of money, but they had really good margins. And that works well too. And I’ve also operated businesses that generated a lot of sales and had a lot of profit. That’s my favorite. That’s probably most people’s favorite. That’s what you want to stick with. But if you recognize that that’s the goal and you’re taking the actions necessary to make it happen, then you’re going to be in a much better position. Jay: Yeah, totally. And then, you know, something like a pandemic can come along and your sales drop and now you’ve got to pivot dramatically to figure out how to increase sales and stay open. And so it’s not like you can assume that the status quo is going to be the way it always is. You’ve got to be prepared to identify issues quickly and pivot quickly. David: Yeah, you should probably assume that the status quo is never going to be the status quo. Because in life and in business, things are constantly changing. And some people were able to pivot extremely well and extremely effectively during the epidemic. And some people were just like, “I don’t know what to do.” And we’ve, we see the results of that. There are a lot of businesses that are no longer around because they couldn’t do it over. Even over the past six months. I’ve still seen a lot of that fallout happening, where there’s still businesses that are sort of merging with others or they’re being acquired, or people are retiring earlier than they would’ve otherwise because they just couldn’t figure out how to do it. And I think if you recognize that there are these three primary things, what am I making from it is the third part of it because you’re not making anything if you’re not able to increase sales and if you’re not generating profit, but looking at those three things and saying, okay, where do I need to focus my attention? Do I need to focus on how to increase sales? Do I need to focus it on trying to reduce my costs without reducing the quality of the product and the service that I’m delivering. I mean, if you cut food costs by getting cheaper, less tasty ingredients, then you can save some money there it’ll drop right to the bottom line. But then your gross sales are probably going to drop too. So it’s this constant balance. It’s this constant process of looking at, where am I, where am I trying to be? And what do I need to do to get there? Jay: Yeah, it feels complicated, but I think if you have good systems, if you have key performance indicators, ways to easily capture and process this information, I think that’s critical. You know, In my experience, a lot of restaurant operators don’t even know what their theoretical food costs should be. They don’t even know what a plate of food is supposed to cost. All they know is what their sales are and what they’re spending. And that’s it. So whatever your industry is, knowing what those ideal goals are, and then having systems to identify early issues, I think it’s the only way you’re going to find balance. Otherwise it’s an emotional process instead of a tactical process. David: Right. And knowing the how is extremely important. I know I need to increase sales and bring in more customers. How do I do it? I know I need to cut my costs. How do I do it without impacting quality? I know that I need to be able to increase my personal income, to be able to maintain the standard of life that’s going to allow me to want to continue in the business. I mean, I talk to people. Particularly in the last six months where they’re just tired of doing it. They don’t feel like what they’re generating for themselves is worth it. Because they’re doing all this work and they feel like it’s benefiting their suppliers. They feel like it’s benefiting their coworkers and it’s not dripping down to them. You know, they’re paying everybody else and there’s very little left. And so recognizing that in order to maintain a healthy business, it’s got to be healthy for everybody. It’s got to be healthy for the business owner, for the employees, for the clients, and not always necessarily in that order. Jay: Yeah, such a great point. I’ve seen this happen so many times. People start a business because it’s their passion. David: Mm-hmm, Jay: It’s a product that helps people or they love to cook for people or whatever it is. And then as things tighten up, it starts to be very stressful and it starts to feel like a job, not like your own business and you become a servant to that business. And that’s a tough place to be. So,, figuring out how to make it a love instead of a job, I think if you can balance these three things, you’re probably going to be able to do that more effectively. David: Yeah. Trickle down economics was actually the term I was struggling to think of before, ties to the idea of cash flow. In other words, money’s always flowing, it’s flowing in one, direction or another. And in a business, it needs to flow in from the customers. It needs to flow through to the employees and to the suppliers and to everybody who is providing you with services. And there needs to be something left over at the end to take home. And when you’re able to make those things happen consistently, everybody’s just better off. And I think a lot of it does come down to mindset too. If we recognize that our goal is to service our customers, whether it’s the people coming into a restaurant or the business owners, we work with, whoever it is, if we’re able to provide them a good quality product, a good quality service at a reasonable price that is profitable enough to us, that we can pay our people and pay our suppliers and pay ourselves. Then that’s a real win. Jay: Yeah, I love that you brought up cash flow and you might want to make it sales, profit, cash flow and personal income. It’s that important. David: Yeah. Jay: I worked for a gentleman who had a great business. I mean, he was making money hand over fist. But he wasn’t getting paid from his clients for three to six months. And so making payroll, being able to cover all your expenses becomes very difficult if you don’t have the money. You know, you can have the sales, but you don’t have the money. That can be a very difficult situation. And so cash flow is equally as important as these other things we’ve talked about. David: very true. So it’s going to flow from sales to cash flow to profits, eventually, when you get the cash flow in, and then eventually to personal income. So it does flow. That’s the point. And sometimes it trickles and sometimes it floods, and our goal is to try to get it to move at a steady enough pace that everybody gets paid. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. How can people find out more? David: Oh, you can go to TopSecrets.com/call. If you’d like to schedule a time to talk with our team about how we can help you grow your sales and profits. If you’re an Inner Circle member, be sure to log in. We’ll be talking about that all this week. If you’re not an Inner Circle member, you can check out that service at topsecrets.com/ic for Inner Circle. That’s TopSecrets.com/ic. Yeah, thank you so much, David. I love that we’re sharing this information and hopefully just planting seeds and helping people think about things that perhaps they haven’t thought about before. So thank you for joining us and for sharing all your great insights. Thank you, Jay. Ready to Increase Sales & Profits? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here . Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here .
August 18, 202614 min
Uncover Customer Needs and Sell More Effectively
Knowing how to uncover customer needs is critical. Essentially, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs implies that when one need is satisfied, another one is likely to pop up. Once I’ve got this satisfied, then I’m going to be working on this. And then I’m going to be working on this. It’s human nature. So if you recognize the fact that the needs are constantly going to be changing and you adopt a policy of constant requalification with your people — staying in touch, building that relationship, and finding out what they need next — you’re going to be in much better shape. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of uncovering customer needs. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. It’s such a pleasure to be here. I think that this is another great topic because a lot of times we just decide on our own what we think the customer needs, right? So we formulate that in our mind and we try and force that square into a round hole. You’re probably creating a lot more problems that you really don’t need to have. Uncovering customer needs in sales David: Exactly. When salespeople go in with the idea of “what I want to sell this person,” instead of “what does this person need,” they’re behind the eight ball right from the beginning. And I think there are some schools of thought in terms of sales, particularly if it’s a company that has one primary product that they’re looking to push, that, okay, you just have to go in and sell this. It reminds me of, you know, selling things door to door. If you’re a Fuller brush salesman and you’re looking to sell this one particular brush, well that’s my thing. That’s what I’ve got to sell. If you are sort of a one trick pony like that, if you’ve got one thing you want to sell, then this can still actually apply to you. Because when we think in terms of customer needs, I think a lot of people get stuck on the idea that uncovering customer needs means discovering which products they want to buy from us. And uncovering customer needs goes way beyond that. It’s more about what do they really need? Where are they struggling? What do they need help with? What are they trying to accomplish? Because even if you’re selling a Fuller brush, if you go in with the idea of “do you want to buy this brush,” the answer is no. But if you find out that what they’re struggling with is that they’re very busy and they don’t have enough time, and their life is chaotic. Then you may be able to let them know that this Fuller brush is going to allow them to clean things faster and be more economical in their time and accomplish some of the things that they’re telling you are actually important to them. So while that’s a rather extreme example, it really goes to the whole idea of what I believe uncovering customer needs is all about. Uncovering customer needs with questions Jay: Yeah. And I think there’s only one way to get to customer needs and that’s to ask questions, right? David: Right. Jay: If you start out with your sales pitch, you’re not going to know what their needs are. And I also like the idea of letting them talk and that helps you build the relationship and discover their needs. Is there another way besides asking question? David: I don’t think there really is. I mean, you’ve got to be able to get the answers from them. The only way that you can actually uncover what a customer needs is if they vocalize it. I mean, unless it’s something that you’ve observed, Hey, it looks like you could really use this. Right? Or if somebody refers you to that person and says my friend could really use what you’re offering here. But even then, it’s somebody else’s opinion. So that’s just the beginning of a point of conversation. Hey, your friend suggested I give you a call. I understand that you’re looking to accomplish this and perhaps this item can help. Wanted to see what your thoughts are about that. And then yeah, as you indicated, let them talk. Jay: Yeah, and letting them talk, I think you kind of help them understand why the customer needs your product. And like you said, it may not be something they’re thinking about. They may not know that they need your product. But like you said, maybe there’s something else in their life where they don’t have a lot of time. This product will save you time and so you can actually deal with other issues in your life better. So, figuring out how you can best serve them and then helping them come to that conclusion. I love to go down that path in the sales process. David: Yeah, I agree, and I think this really kind of ties to the idea of what a lot of people think of in terms of features and benefits. If I’ve got a phone what’s the feature of my phone? Feature of my phone is that it’s this big and it’s got a big screen and lots of colors and good audio quality. But what are the benefits? Well, you know, the benefits are that I can be in touch with the people that I care about. I can be responsive to customer needs. I can have the latest and greatest in terms of technology to allow me to connect better with everyone. So, there’s features and benefits, and I think that’s something that a lot of people talk about. But if we really want to get serious about it, it even goes beyond that. And it starts to get into sort of the emotions and the experiences that people want to have. Like we were talking about before, if somebody wants to clean their house, what do they want it to feel like? What do they want it to smell like? What’s the experience that they want people to have when they come in? And I mean, we’re not selling cleaning products here. Again, I’m using this more of an extreme example than anything else. But recognizing that there are a lot of different stages to this. And if you focus just on uncovering product needs, you are very likely going to be selling a much smaller percentage of the audience than would potentially buy from you. Jay: Yeah. And I think oftentimes, depending on what your product is, what you’re really selling is yourself. And once they trust you and believe in you, then they’re going to take your word for it, that that product will do what it says. So you got to realize that it is about relationships so often. David: Yeah. And it’s a lot easier to sell someone on you, if you are interested in them . Right? I think there was a, a brief synopsis I heard one time of How to Win Friends and Influence People. And it basically said if you talk to other people about themselves, they’ll think you’re the most interesting person in the world. Jay: Yeah, I can remember going into a situation, I had a partner at the time, and every time we went into that situation, all he did was talk about himself and then talk about his product. And people would just sit there and they would start to tune out and he never figured it out. I’d come in and when I led, I’d just ask questions and ask questions and you look for those nonverbal cues as well. You know, are they paying attention to me? If they’re not, I need to get their focus again. Are they nodding their head in agreement? Okay, that means they’re coming along. If they look confused, of course, that’s very hard over the phone, but if you’re doing it in person, I find those nonverbal cues to be essential in determining customer needs. David: Yeah, and a lot of people just don’t always do that. I mean, I think another important aspect of this whole topic is that customer needs are always changing. So when we talk about the idea of uncovering a customer’s needs, just because you did it today doesn’t mean that those needs are the same tomorrow. They’re not going to be. And if you are in the kind of business where you’re looking for long term business and long term relationships, and you want to be able to continue to sell to someone, then you really need to sort of get things in gear and recognize that it’s a constant process of requalifying and finding out where are they now? What did they need today that they didn’t need before? How did what they purchased from me before now create new situations that they need to tackle that could require something that I could provide to them later. I mean, a great example in the promotional products industry where we do a lot of business, is that some people use a promotional item to get people to come into a retail store, Come on in and you’ll get this free item. So let’s say it’s a car dealership. Come on into this car dealership and you’ll get this free key fob, right? And on the key fob, there’s a key, and you can try it out in the trunk of this car that’s in the showroom. And if it opens up the trunk, then you win some sort of prize. Right? So that would be designed to get somebody to actually come in. So once they come in, what’s the next thing you want them to do? The next thing you want them to do is probably to take a test drive. Because the goal is to get them to buy a car. They’re not going to come in for the free thing and then just immediately buy a car. So you say, Okay, what we’re doing today is for everybody who takes a test drive, you get a free dashboard cell phone holder for your car. And so then that would increase the number of people who’d be taking a test drive. And then it’s great, okay, so they’re in the test drive, they’re doing the test drive, they’re enjoying the feel of the car, the smell of the car, everything like that. And then the person says to them, you know, for people who buy a car today, we’re including a pair of Italian leather racing gloves that match the interior of the vehicle, right? Custom imprinted, of course, when that’s what you’re selling. So you can use your products to lead your prospects down a path that accomplishes their goals and accomplishes your goals, sells more stuff, and sets you up for future business. And when you do this type of thing, people look at you and say, Wow, you’re really thinking about not just what I said, I needed , but what I actually need. You’ve taken the time to think things through for other people, which is really essential and entirely endearing. People love that for long-term results. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. You’re building that relationship of trust and it should be easier the next time you come to them with a product, right? You’ve already torn down some walls. You know, as long as they were satisfied with your last product. We have a guy, he’s a car salesman, and I went to him for a referral. He didn’t treat me like a normal car salesman. He got to know me. He gave me a great deal. I never, ever thought, David, that I would say I have a car salesman guy. Like people say, I have a mechanic or a doctor. In my family, we’ve purchased seven cars from this man over the last 10 years. And it’s because of that first interaction and that building of trust. I get emails from them, and I’ve reacted on some of those. But if that first experience wasn’t there, he would’ve lost out on six other vehicles, right? So to me… David: Yes. Jay: If he would’ve tried to cram me into that same hole as every other salesperson, I would’ve been out of there. I wouldn’t have bought the first car, and I wouldn’t have bought six more from him either. David: Well, I’ve got exactly the opposite experience that I can share with you very quickly, and that is that I purchased a car from somebody. It’s got to be 14, 15 years ago. And when I was ready for a new one, I went back into that same dealership and I saw that same guy, his name was Kerry. And as I was about to walk over to say, Hey Kerry how you doing? He came up to me and said, Hi, may I help you? Jay: Oh. . David: Okay. He had no idea who I was. He had no idea that he had sold me a car. And at that point I looked at him and I said, “no thanks, just looking.” right? Jay: Yeah. David: So instead of “Hi Kerry,” you know, we could have picked up the conversation where we left off years before, it didn’t happen. And I was just like, I looked around and I walked out and I’m like, Nah, I think I’ll go somewhere else. And I mean, it wasn’t like he was rude, it wasn’t like he was obnoxious, but it’s like, I’ve spent some money with you, you know? And… Jay: And you were going back to him for that reason. And when that reason disappeared, You did too. David: I did too. Just like the wind. Poof, . Jay: Yeah. So again, knowing your customer needs and if you can fill them, that’s so important. Oftentimes, we just ask questions upfront to try and get to know them. But I think asking questions the whole way. So like if you’ve presented your product as a solution, asking them if that really matches their needs before just going into your close process. I think asking questions all along the way, helping them come to the belief that your product is helpful instead of just telling them is a great way to go. David: Yeah, and when you think about needs, you know, there’s a whole thing about the hierarchy of needs and all that sort of thing, but basically what that says is that when one need is satisfied, another one’s going to pop up. Once I’ve got this satisfied, then I’m going to be working on this, and then I’m going to be working on this. It’s human nature. So if you recognize the fact that the needs are constantly going to be changing and you adopt a policy of constant requalification with your people, staying in touch, building that relationship, and finding out what they need next, you’re going to be in much better shape. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And it’s funny that you mention the hierarchy of needs. I find that when you’re not building a relationship, when you’re just going into your close or whatever, what happens is you drive price to the top. That’s all people will focus on is the price. But the more they get to know you, the more you build trust, the more your products do fill their needs, that price, or the need for money, or for the sale starts to go down. And they start to not even worry about that anymore because you’ve got that relationship. So I think you have the ability to determine if they’re going to only focus on price or if they will trust you in other ways. David: Absolutely. Jay: All right. How can people find out more? David: Well, you can go to TopSecrets.com/call. That’s TopSecrets.com/call. Schedule a call with myself or my team. We’ll figure out where you are now, where you’re looking to be, what you’re looking to accomplish, and if we can help, we’ll let you know that. And if we can’t, we’ll tell you that too. Jay: I love it, David, And often just talking to somebody else about it is just a great way to, you know, sometimes you’ll come to your own conclusions just hearing yourself talk, so I love that you provide that service. David: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. I mean, I love talking to the people that we talk to. And it’s a similar kind of situation. Not everybody is qualified to be a client of ours, and that’s perfectly fine. We like having the conversations and if we can help, we like doing that. And if we can’t help, we’ll normally just redirect them to someone that we think can. Jay: Fantastic. Thanks, David. David: Thank you, Jay. Ready to Grow Your Sales & Profits? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help . Need Clients Now? If you’re already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here . Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry . Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here . Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you’re serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here .
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