The key to understanding how to sell into the C suite doesn’t come from understanding how to sell to c-level executives, as much as it does from understanding how they buy.
C-level executives don’t care about the features, advantages, and benefits of your product.
Instead, they care about how much of an impact your product or service will have on helping them to solve their biggest problems.
Think Like a C-Level Executive
To understand what is important to the C-suite, you need to think like them.
For example, below is a small sample of some of the top problems that many of today’s top C-level executives face:
How do we increase market share?
How can we ensure that we continue to meet earnings expectations?
How can we increase our profit margin?
How can we create a sustainable competitive advantage?
How can we increase operational efficiency?
How can we ensure that we keep our investors happy?
How are we going to stay compliant with regulatory requirements?
How can we lower the cost of a service call?
How can we lower the cost of acquiring new customers?
How can we attract more of the right talent for our team?
Making a Positive First Impression
The C-suite is not looking to be sold on why your product or service is the best/cheapest/fastest, etc…
If you begin your conversation with them by talking about your how awesome your company and product is, the chances that you will be referred to one of their staff, or ignored altogether, is extremely high.
The key to making a positive first impression with the C-suite is to show them that you are genuinely interested in helping them solve their business problems, regardless of whether or not you have a product or service to fit the bill.
While it’s true that you probably do have a solution of some kind (which they also realize), making your stuff the topic of early conversations is a huge mistake.
Focus on Building Trust
The best way to build trust with someone is to focus on helping instead of selling. This is where the field of sales has drastically changed in recent years.
Thanks to the internet, today’s buyer has easy access to more information about your company, your products, and your competitors than ever before.
The days of the sales rep holding all the power are long gone.
Today, the customer has the power, and they know it. As a result, positioning yourself as their most trusted advisor has never been more important.
What hasn’t changed is that every executive still has just 24 hours in a day, and as a result, they need to ensure that they get the maximum benefit from every hour of every day.
As a buyer, I don’t have time (or interest) in hearing you tell me all about why your product is the best.
Blah…blah…blah…
I can read all I want online and I can easily see what other users are saying on sites like G2Crowd.
However, it’s unlikely that I know about the vast array of helpful resources that are available to me to help me solve my most important problems.
If you selflessly help me to solve my greatest problems, I’m much more likely to trust you…and (eventually) I will become interested enough in your products and services to want to buy from you.
Step 1: Starting the Conversation
Whenever I’m talking with a new prospect or existing account for the first time, I have only one objective: to learn as much as I can about the problems they are most interested in solving.
As a result, I spend the vast majority of my time asking questions that will help me to understand their problems and top priorities.
These are the things that they are most likely to allocate resources to solving.
So that you better understand how to do this, let’s suppose that I work for a large software company, and I’m tasked with selling their CRM product.
If my conversation started at the C-level, I sure as heck wouldn’t be asking them about what kind of features they are looking for in a CRM! (If my conversation started with a user, then I might ask about features they need.)
If I did start by asking about features, they would see me as just another CRM sales rep and would have little interest in talking with me again in the future. At best, they’d refer me to someone lower down the totem pole.
Instead, I’d be asking them things like:
How much revenue do you need to produce to hit your numbers this year?
How many new customers do you need for that?
What is a customer worth?
Do you have customers like this now?
Where did they come from?
What does it currently cost you to acquire a customer like this?
How many sales reps do you have?
What does each one cost you?
What percentage of your reps achieve quota?
Will you be hiring more reps this year?
How many?
How will you find them?
Besides hiring more reps, what else are you planning on doing to increase the number of leads into the top of your funnel?
What does the current sales process look like?
Do you have insights (from data) into which parts of your sales funnel are working and which aren’t?
Is repeat business going to play a big role in hitting this year’s revenue targets?
What does customer retention look like?
Do your sales and services teams have access to the same pieces of customer data?
How does your team handle support?
Do you have field support reps?
How do you manage them?
How do they get access to the information they need while on the road?
Have you investigated any technologies that could help to improve customer service?
What have you looked at?
What is working best for you now?
The list of questions above is only just a fraction of the questions that, over time, I need to ask the customer if I’m to truly understand what their greatest challenges are.
As I work my way through these questions, some of them will provide me with the opportunity to ask more detailed follow up questions, and it’s these “2nd and 3rd layer” questions that are most likely going to give me the really deep understanding of a problem that I’m going to need to understand if I’m going to be helpful.
Remember: asking questions isn’t about just completing a checklist. Instead, it’s about ensuring that your customer gets the impression that you are genuinely interested in helping them to find a solution to their problems….even if that solution isn’t something you sell.
When a customer sees you asking this many questions instead of talking about your own products, two things are going to happen:
They are going to appreciate your interest in their problems
They are going to start trusting that you are putting their needs ahead of your own
Step 2: Focus on Helping (Not Selling) to Build More Trust
If you take the approach I’ve described above from the start, you will have taken the first step towards becoming a trusted advisor.
What you do next will either move you closer to that goal or further way.
Let’s assume that in your first conversation with your customer, you learned that they had the following priorities and problems:
They need to hire 50 more sales reps this year
They don’t have enough insight (data) into which parts of their sales process is working / not working
There is a disconnect between sales and customers service
They need to increase revenue by $100,000,000 (each new rep will have a $2M quota)
Is now the right time to start talking about a demo for your CRM product?
Definitely not.
If you immediately start trying to sell them on why your CRM is going to make life easy for their sales reps, you will erode trust.
If you continue to focus on helping find solutions to their problems, you will build more trust.
The great thing about helping is that it’s actually not very difficult to do…once you clearly understand what your customer actually wants help with.
In this case, you know that your customer needs 50 new sales reps.
If you were smart, you would have also asked them if they thought finding 50 sales reps was going to be hard to do. If they said no, then they likely won’t really value any help you might offer.
However, if they said yes, you have a terrific opportunity to build trust by offering help.
What kind of help can you offer if you are a CRM sales rep? Plenty.
For example, you could:
Offer to connect them with another of your customers that has already built a very large sales team so that they could learn what has worked for them and what mistakes to avoid.
Interview a number of HR professionals that have proven expertise at hiring sales reps and then provide them with a recording of your interview or an article that summarizes your findings (or you could just point them to content created by others that provides similar insights)
Send them links to helpful content (blog posts, eBooks, webinars, books, etc…). The content needn’t be created by your company. It need only be helpful.
As you are sending your customer this information, it would also be a good idea to continue to talk with them to learn whether or not the information you are sending is actually helping. If so, how? If not, what could you be doing better?
If you needed to hire 50 sales reps, do you think you might value receiving help like this? Do you think that you might see the person who provided the help in a more positive light?
You bet you would.
Step 3: Be Reliable
When you go away on vacation and need someone to look after your pets, who do you call? Do you call your friend Dave, who sometimes forgets to call you back or make good on his promises? Probably not.
Instead, you call Kate because you know you can absolutely count on Kate not to drop the ball.
Being reliable (doing what you say, when you say you are going to) is a major part of building trust with people.
When you are in meetings with your customers, take notes. They will notice it. If you don’t, they will notice that, too.
When you say you are going to send a link to an article this afternoon, do it. Sure, you could send it tomorrow, but that isn’t what you said you were going to do…and not keeping your word, even on something that is seemingly trivial, will erode trust.
Remember, reliable people are trustworthy people.
Step 4: Be Personable and Connect Emotionally
Not every person in the world is going to become your new BFF; however, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t strive to make personal connections with your customers.
To do this, don’t start asking them a bunch of questions about their family on your first encounter…unless, of course, they start asking you questions about yours.
Instead, at the appropriate time, volunteer some information about your family. Maybe your daughter just got her first tooth (mine just did), or maybe your wife loves to rock climb and had recently shared some wonderful photos with you.
By offering up your personal stories first, you are opening the door for them to do the same, and if they do, you then have their permission to ask more about their life outside of work…and when you start to connect on non-business issues like family, you build more trust and rapport.
Remember, we are more likely to trust people we feel a connection with.
These days, having your own blog is dead simple, and you can be up and running in 10 minutes or less. Once you have a blog, start writing.
Kiana’s first plane ride!
Why write, you ask? Simple, it allows you to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry by demonstrating your expertise on topics that your customers are interested in.
Why do you think so many people think being an author is such a big deal?
When you write well, and people like what you’ve written, they will also develop an affinity for you.
If you want to be a trusted advisor, you must continually be on the lookout for ways to help your clients and the best way to learn about new things is to write about them.
Additionally, if you give them access to parts of your personal life by sharing personal stories and photos in your writing, you will also be giving your readers even more ways to feel an emotional connection with you.
For example, if you are reading this post and you’ve never met me, what do you think so far? If you’ve read this far, chances are you’ve enjoyed my post.
Chances are also pretty good that you might like to read a few more. Heck, maybe you’d even like to watch one of my videos.
Remember, writing is an excellent way to demonstrate your expertise on a topic, which builds credibility and trust.
Step 6: Build Long Term Relationships
You cannot become the trusted advisor over night. It will probably take months or even years.
One article, or one conversation is not going to be enough.
Building trust requires you to take consistent action over the long term.
Let’s Recap
Trusted advisors are the people whom the C-suite wants to talk to, and as a result, trusted advisors are continually exceeding their quotas. They get more referrals, manage the best accounts, win the most awards, get the best job offers, and keep their customers for the long haul.
If you want to become one of the elite salespeople in your organization, decide today to do what it takes to become your client’s trusted advisor.
Hey, thanks for the info. Now what?
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https://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/keyboard_help.jpg518690Trent Dyrsmidhttps://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bright-Ideas-logo-1030x255.pngTrent Dyrsmid2014-10-29 09:33:222018-08-01 18:42:21Selling Strategy: How to Become a Trusted Advisor to the C Suite
Having a website that consistently generate leads for you is critical.
So is having a deliberate sales process that ensures you don’t blow it with any of the qualified leads your inbound marketing campaign has generated for you.
As the host of a popular podcast, I have had the opportunity to interview hundreds of other CEOs, and, much to my surprise, not very many of them reported having a really well-defined sales process in place.
Perhaps this was because many of them run smaller (under $10M in rev) companies, or perhaps it’s because they just haven’t thought about it.
In today’s post, I’m going to share with you the third installment in our 3-step sales process: how to deliver a strategy presentation (and avoid writing proposals).
https://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/third-call.jpg205366Trent Dyrsmidhttps://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bright-Ideas-logo-1030x255.pngTrent Dyrsmid2014-09-26 06:00:232018-08-01 18:42:41The Third Call: The Right Way to Deliver a Strategy Presentation
Are you looking for ways to generate more leads? Are you trying to decide if you should allocate more resources to inbound marketing instead of the more traditional outbound marketing that has served you well over the years?
In the last week, as the host of my podcast, I have had the good fortune to interview two ultra successful CEOs. One relies 100% on inbound marketing, and the other, thus far, has relied 100% on outbound marketing.
In today’s post, I’m going to share with you what I believe are the pros and cons of each approach, as well as a hybrid approach that I’ve created.
Inbound or Outbound: That is the Question
As the founder of Groove, I’m always thinking about how to generate more of the right leads for my company.
As a content marketer, I know from personal experience that getting website traffic and leads is pretty easy to do once you understand the process. With that said, I’ll be the first to admit that this approach, while very effective in the long term, doesn’t generally deliver immediate results.
As a veteran sales guy, I know from personal experience that prospecting can deliver meaningful results in a fairly short period of time. Although, I must also admit that thanks to the fact that most people don’t answer their phones any more (they let the call go to voicemail) prospecting in the modern era is a lot harder than it was when I first got started in sales back in 1990.
So which is a better use of time? One-on-one prospecting, or content creation?
It’s not just inbound vs outbound – it’s both.
The Case for Inbound
Last week, I interviewed the CEO of a very successful agency and within two years of launching their blog, traffic has risen to about 35,000 visitors a month. With this amount of traffic, the volume of leads is substantial enough that his sales team can afford to be really choosy about who they invest the time to actually speak to.
To achieve this result, in year one, he published about 560 blog posts. If you figure that each post cost about $200-$300 to produce & promote, that means his cost for content & promotion in year one would have been roughly $112,000 to $168,000.
His firm generated $1.2M in its first year, so it would appear that this was a good investment.
What isn’t immediately obvious to someone not yet familiar with the benefits of content marketing is this: by creating such a large volume of content, he has turned his website into a very valuable asset.
Relative to his competition, his website is now become an incredibly valuable library of helpful information, and Google is rewarding him accordingly. At the time that I interviewed him, approximately 45% of his traffic comes directly from search engines.
With so many posts now published, not only will the traffic keep on flowing (even if he stopped or slowed production of new content), but his competitors will have to work extra hard and create a huge amount of their own content to ever outrank his site.
As you can see, when it comes to digital marketing, content has become an incredibly valuable asset.
Remember what I said earlier though…success wasn’t instant. Creating all this content and building his website into the incredibly valuable asset that it is today took time.
Earlier today I interviewed the CEO of a 3 year old venture-backed startup. Three years ago, the company was considered a failed investment by the VC and the new CEO was brought in to right the ship.
Last year they did $10M and in the first quarter of this year, they did $3M.
How did they get these results? Did content play a role?
Content didn’t play a role at all. In fact, they don’t even have a blog.
Instead, they have relied on a traditional outbound approach and employ a sales team.
With purely outbound marketing, you rely entirely on your sales team.
In the interview, I didn’t ask the cost of the sales team; however, some simple math tells me that it’s probably a lot more expensive for them to generate leads from outbound than it is for the other company that is using the inbound approach.
Here’s what I did learn. To do outbound, each sales rep they hire must already have an established book of business (warm contacts).
Reps that have this aren’t cheap.
Then, for the cold outreach they do (their warm contacts alone aren’t enough), each sales rep relies heavily on LinkedIn to painstakingly research each and every prospect. Once this research has been completed, the outreach begins with up to as many as 10 cold emails per contact. Each email has just 2 sentences in it has only one purpose: to get a face-to-face meeting.
Meetings generally last 15 to 20 minutes plus the time & expense to physically travel back and forth. On average, the sales cycle is 2 to 3 months.
Thanks to a very compelling product, they are closing about 50% of qualified leads. Perhaps this is one of the reasons they can afford the expensive sales reps.
Given their huge increase in revenue, this approach is definitely working for them; however there are three major drawbacks that I see:
Their cost per lead has got to be extremely high. If you take a sales reps salary and divide by the number of leads they can potentially generate using this approach, it’s got to be expensive on a per lead basis
This approach is 100% reliant on highly skilled sales reps and these folks are hard to come by
Unlike the agency I wrote about earlier, because they don’t produce any content at all, they aren’t turning their website into a sustainable competitive asset that will generate leads on autopilot
My Hybrid Approach
In my case, I want a way to generate highly qualified leadsfast and I want to turn my website into a valuable asset that will generate leads on autopilot.
The problem is that my company is not venture-backed, and therefore, I cannot afford a team of writers and a team of sales reps. It’s just not feasible at this point in time.
So, what am I to do? How can I generate highly targeted and highly qualified leads in the short term, without taking away from content production?
For me, the solution is my podcast.
A podcast is an incredible inbound/outbound tool.
By using my podcast as a way to get my foot in the door, I’ve been able to repeatedly establish relationships at the CEO level and since making Groove my focus just 30 days ago, we’ve thus far landed two clients and have a few more conversations now in the works. (The CEO of the venture backed firm is now talking to us about our services as a result of being on the show)
When you use a podcast to get your foot in the door, you are not seen as a salesperson. Instead, you are seen as a journalist.
Rarely, does a CEO turn down the opportunity for exposure, so my ‘close rate’ on invitations to my podcast is quite high.
When you consider how many cold emails it would take for me to get an hour long conversation with a CEO of my choosing, the ROI of the podcaster approach is off the charts.
But there’s more…
Not only does my podcast get me in the door, but it also accomplishes the following additional benefits:
My CEO guest is grateful for my having given them the opportunity for increased exposure
I am seen as an expert (by asking them smart questions)
I get an hour of their time without having to travel
I am able to simultaneously create very high quality content that I can use in a variety of ways
Conclusion
By putting my journalist hat on and using my podcast as a way to get the ear of the CEO, I’m saving a massive amount of time that would have otherwise been wasted sending out hundreds of cold emails. I’m also creating very high quality content that I’ll be able to publish & re-purpose to my hearts content.
Unlike relying purely on content marketing alone, by getting super-specific about the type of company I want to interview (ventured-backed, growing fast, not yet blogging), I can easily generate very high quality leads in a very short period of time.
Want me to help you launch your own podcast? Feel free to contact us directly. If you found this post helpful, please share it on your social networks.
Hey, thanks for the info. Now what?
If you need any help with content creation, we have tons of free resources to get you over the hump. Please subscribe to this blog to ensure that you never miss an article.
If you really enjoyed this post, please help us to spread the word by clicking one of the social media sharing buttons.
Thanks so much!
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https://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Create-Content-or-Prospect-via-LinkedIn-Which-is-a-Better-Use-of-Time_0.jpg300690Trent Dyrsmidhttps://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bright-Ideas-logo-1030x255.pngTrent Dyrsmid2014-05-01 06:00:322018-08-01 18:42:52Create Content or Prospect via LinkedIn: Which is a Better Use of Time?
No matter what business you’re in, you never stop selling. Whether it’s to clients, businesses, your superiors or your peers, having the skills to convey the quality of your product is a necessity. Ian Altman has a formula and has been successfully demonstrating that formula to eager businesses and organizations. Whether it’s identifying potential pitfalls, making the most out of a smaller target number, or developing a quality pitch, Ian shares his ideas and strategies on how you can use the skills he has honed and developed. Best of all? His approach works.
Even on Bright Ideas, it’s not everyday you get an opportunity to hear from a best selling author. Listen now and you’ll hear Ian and I talk about:
(03:40) Introductions
(07:20) Ian gives us insight into how executives make purchase decisions
(09:00) I ask Ian if his advice about executives applies to website sales copy
(16:00) Ian discusses how to sell more by talking to fewer people
(20:30) Ian explains the difference between his two books
(23:15) Ian introduces the idea of “Adversarial Traps” faced by buyers and sellers
(27:00) How to use the “Entice, Disarm and Discover” approach to get in the door
(33:40) The right way to ask clients for referrals
(36:45) The best way to identify your ideal tribe using the Elevator Rant approach
(40:00) How to use the “Issue, Impact, Importance” approach to which client problems are the biggest ones and how to determine if the client will pay to solve them
The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.
It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.
Ian Altman is the CEO of Grow My Revenue, LLC. CEOs and executives call on Ianas a trusted advisor and speaker on sales and business development. Ian’s methods have helped businesses double their revenue growth rate without adding salespeople.
Ian is the author of Upside Down Selling, an Amazon #1 Best Seller. He coauthored his upcoming book, Same Side Selling, with Jack Quarles of Buying Excellence.
Are you ready to start Same Side Selling? Request a FREE preview chapter from Ian’s book Same Side Selling at http://www.samesideselling.com
https://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ian.jpg7202200Trent Dyrsmidhttps://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bright-Ideas-logo-1030x255.pngTrent Dyrsmid2014-02-03 06:00:012020-09-11 03:29:56Ian Altman on How to Make More Sales by Talking to Fewer People
It’s such a pleasure to me to have a chance to talk with a well-known entrepreneur like Yanik Silver.
Yanik has been selling since he was a teenager – his father enlisted him early on to help sell medical devices. That was some time ago, and since then Yanik has taken eight different products to the million dollar sales mark. And he’s not stopping any time soon. These days, in addition to running his business, he hosts a popular annual conference, runs an exclusive business mastermind group, and pals around with Richard Branson.
Listen now and you’ll hear Yanik and I talk about:
(01:45) Introductions
(03:25) How the Maverick organization started
(07:40) Long form sales letters and long form copy
(10:50) How Yanik sold his first information products
(12:00) How Yanik would recommend selling information products today
(16:00) Why Yanik’s life is better at 40
(20:00) Things Yanik learned from Sir Richard Branson
(23:00) Yanik’s advice for people who haven’t yet started a business
(29:00) The 10th Annual Underground Event
(35:30) Yanik turns the tables and interviews me
(36:50) How Yanik got his first bit of revenue
(Yanik is just one of the many thought leaders we’ve had on the Bright Ideas podcast. Check out some others here.)
The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.
It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.
Yanik Silver has successfully bootstrapped 8 different product and service ideas hitting the million-dollar sales mark from scratch without funding, taking on debt or even having a real business plan.
His story and businesses have been featured in Fox Business News, TIME.com, USA Today, SmartMoney.com, MSN Money, Conde Naste’s Portfolio.com, Entrepreneur.com, WIRED magazine, WORTH.com, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and many others.
Yanik is the author of several best-selling entrepreneurial books and tools including Instant Sales Letters®, “34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs” and “Maverick Startup”. He is the founder of the Underground Online Seminar®, 3% Forward and Maverick1000, a private group of game-changing entrepreneurs, out to change the way business is played.
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https://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Yanik.jpg7202200Trent Dyrsmidhttps://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bright-Ideas-logo-1030x255.pngTrent Dyrsmid2014-01-27 06:00:002020-09-11 03:42:49Digital Marketing Strategy: Yanik Silver on How to Build a Successful Online Business
I love content marketing and marketing automation and have created a lot of content here on my blog to share what I have learned. I have even written a book about it.
When done correctly, content marketing and marketing automation are extremely effective at capturing leads and nurturing them towards the point where a lead becomes a customer. With that said, if your business requires more than “add to cart” to make a sale, content marketing alone is not going to increase your revenue.
You still need to know how to actually talk to your prospect and ask them to buy.
The one thing that I haven’t written a single post about is how to sell; which, given that I have 20+ years of B2B selling experience, is pretty hilarious.
Today, that changes. As wonderful as content marketing is, it doesn’t land clients. Talking to people is what does that.
The headline I wrote is kind of a joke. The truth is that I don’t have some magic potion to persuade anyone to do anything they don’t want to do.
Noticed that I italicized that last bit, did you?
When I talk to a lead, I do have a very specific framework for the discussion because within 90 minutes of saying hello for the very first time, my goal is to close the sale and get paid.
I don’t want to write proposals and I don’t want to make follow up calls.
Experience has taught me one simple concept: qualified leads, if given answers to their questions, are generally ready to make a purchase decision in a very short period of time.
Virtually every time I have reached the end of my first sales call and not got a yes, I don’t end up getting the yes, no matter how many follow up calls that I make (note: throughout my career I’ve sold primarily to small business and there is almost never a committee involved in the buying process).
The Framework for Success
So….what does this framework look like? Good question.
It’s not complicated, but it is highly effective. Out of the last 4 times I’ve used it, 3 have said yes, and one is still thinking about it. I’ll bet he doesn’t buy from me.
Before I get into the details of the framework, I want to stress something incredibly important.
During a sales interview (what some would call a “sales call”), I almost never make a statement. Instead, virtually everything that comes out of my mouth is a question. Only when I get to the end of the conversation, assuming I have built a high level of trust, do I dare to make a statement or two.
Why is that? Simple. If I say something to you, you can (and will) doubt it. But, if you say it, it has to be true. Right?
Ok, so, with that said…let’s dive into the frame work.
Phase 1 – Setting up the Call
In the first part of the call, I want to accomplish a few things:
demonstrate to them that I’m not like every other nitwit who just starts verbally puking all over the place
let them know what to expect (so they will let their guard down and relax)
get a feel for their needs/wants/desires and motivation to change
Here’s what I generally say…
“Mr X, thanks for getting on the call with me today. What I’d like to do, if it’s ok with you, is begin by asking you enough questions to help me understand what you are trying to accomplish, why it is important, and why you might want to change what you are doing now. Once I have gained a better understanding of your current situation, I’m going to introduce you to a framework for growing a business, and if you agree that this framework applies to your business, we’re going to use it to guide the remainder of our discussion today. Does that sound ok to you?”
By setting expectations and giving them an idea of what is going to happen next, I have helped my prospect to:
relax (I’m not going to push anything on them)
be open to my questions and understand why I’m asking them
be curious about how I can help them
Before we move onto phase 2, I want to remind you of one thing: I can start a call like this because the prospect has contacted me to ask for the call. That’s where the content marketing part really pays off. If I didn’t do all the content marketing, they wouldn’t have ever found me in the first place!
As a side note, if you’d like to learn more about the approach that I’m describing, I highly recommend a book called Upside Down Selling by Ian Altman.
Phase 2 – Ask Why They Took the Call
Once I have set the stage for where I plan to take the conversation, the next thing that I want to get a feel for is how motivated someone is to solve their problems. To accomplish this, I usually ask, “Why did you book this call with me today?” and then I follow that one up with “What are you hoping to get out of today’s call?”
Based upon the answers to these questions, I generally have a pretty good feel for what their agenda is, as well as how motivated they are to make a change. If I feel the motivation is low, I will most likely ask more probing questions until I find what their hot button is (a hot button is the pain they are trying to solve).
Phase 3 – Conduct a Self Assessment
Now that I know what they want and how motivated they are, I need to gain a deeper understanding of how they feel about their business now. This is where I use my Lifecycle Self Assessment tool.
As all my meetings are done online (why drive to go see someone when you can do a face to face meeting online?), I direct them to the web page above and ask them if they are at all familiar with the concept. Most have heard of it because they have usually consumed a fair amount of my content (see…there’s that content marketing stuff helping out again).
I then take a few minutes to walk them through the seven steps shown on the image above and ask them if they feel that this is a suitable framework for growing their business. Thus far, no one has ever said no.
When you go to the Lifecycle Self Assessment page, you’ll notice that I have a form under the image with a rating scale of 1 to 10 beside each of the seven steps. The goal here is to get my prospect to rate themselves on each of the seven steps. Each time I do this, plenty of discussion ensues, and, most often, their self assessment results in fairly low scores for the first three steps.
Can you image what would happen if, instead of asking them what their score was, I told them what I thought their score was, based upon looking at their website? It would probably be a short call…and they would very likely try to defend their sub-standard marketing.
The reason the self assessment works so well is because they are the ones doing the rating.
That isn’t the only reason it works so well though. The other reason this approach is so effective is that it affords me the opportunity to ask a lot of questions, and the more intelligent questions I ask, the more likely they are to continue to trust that I know what I’m doing.
Smart people don’t generally ask dumb questions, right? (oh, look… I just asked you a question instead of making a statement)
What Do You Want to Do Next?
Once we’ve completed the self assessment, we are normally 20 to 40 minutes into the sales interview and, by way of my questions, I have had numerous opportunities to display my “marketing smarts” to my prospective client.
The other thing that has been happening is that my prospect’s apprehension has largely been replaced with a desire to improve upon the areas where they scored themselves poorly.
At this point, I will usually say something like this, “Now that we have identified the areas of most need and I’ve given you a few examples of how I and past guests on my show have addresses these challenges in our businesses, we need to come up with a game plan to solve these challenges for you, right?”
They say yes.
“Ok, well, what would you like to do next?”
These 9 words, if used at the right time in a sales interview (trust has been built, needs have been identified, motivation is present) are incredibly powerful because it puts the onus on my prospect to give me an answer that will help them to move forward.
No one ever gets to this point in the call and says, “I want to think about it“. While I suppose they could say that at this point, I have never had anyone do it.
Their response almost always is to ask me what the first step of working together is.
When they do that, they have made an emotional decision to work with me. Now we just need to create the logic to support the emotional decision.
Earlier in this post, I made this statement: qualified leads, if given answers to their questions, are generally ready to make a purchase decision in a very short period of time.
A big part of being qualified is being able to afford what I’m offering. Rookie salespeople leave the price to the very end because they feel that they need to sell hard prior to announcing the price.
This is the wrong approach.
Instead of waiting to the end, once I have established that they have a need and are motivated, I will, at the earliest opportunity, let them know what working with me usually costs. By getting the price out in the open early on, you are removing it from being a possible objection later on.
So, with that said, here’s how I usually wind up the call…
When they tell me what they want to do next, I respond by telling them what phase one normally includes and ask them if they are ready to proceed. If they say yes, I send them a payment link and they pay by credit card.
It’s just that simple and, as I mentioned before, 3 of my last 4 presentations have ended this way.
If this sounds too easy to you, remember a few things about how my business works:
I produce a lot of content to position myself as an expert
People find me because we are good at promoting our content
They read or watch a lot of my stuff before they call me
They already know they have a need and have probably completed 60% or more of the buyer’s journey before we speak
When we do speak, I follow a proven framework (proven over my 20+ years of selling) to move them from “interested” to “ready to proceed”
Making a sale is the natural conclusion of a meaningful discussion with a qualified prospect. If they aren’t qualified, my chance of closing the sale are somewhere near zero.
No matter what business you’re in, you never stop selling. Whether it’s to clients, businesses, your superiors or your peers, having the skills to convey the quality of your product is a necessity. Ian Altman has a formula and has been successfully demonstrating that formula to eager businesses and organizations. Whether it’s identifying potential pitfalls, making the most out of a smaller target number, or developing a quality pitch, Ian shares his ideas and strategies on how you can use the skills he has honed and developed. Best of all? His approach works.
Even on Bright Ideas, it’s not everyday you get an opportunity to hear from a best selling author. Listen now and you’ll hear Ian and I talk about:
(03:40) Introductions
(07:20) Ian gives us insight into how executives make purchase decisions
(09:00) I ask Ian if his advice about executives applies to website sales copy
(16:00) Ian discusses how to sell more by talking to fewer people
(20:30) Ian explains the difference between his two books
(23:15) Ian introduces the idea of “Adversarial Traps” faced by buyers and sellers
(27:00) How to use the “Entice, Disarm and Discover” approach to get in the door
(33:40) The right way to ask clients for referrals
(36:45) The best way to identify your ideal tribe using the Elevator Rant approach
(40:00) How to use the “Issue, Impact, Importance” approach to which client problems are the biggest ones and how to determine if the client will pay to solve them
The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.
It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.
Ian Altman is the CEO of Grow My Revenue, LLC. CEOs and executives call on Ianas a trusted advisor and speaker on sales and business development. Ian’s methods have helped businesses double their revenue growth rate without adding salespeople.
Ian is the author of Upside Down Selling, an Amazon #1 Best Seller. He coauthored his upcoming book, Same Side Selling, with Jack Quarles of Buying Excellence.
Are you ready to start Same Side Selling? Request a FREE preview chapter from Ian’s book Same Side Selling at http://www.samesideselling.com
https://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ian.jpg7202200Trent Dyrsmidhttps://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bright-Ideas-logo-1030x255.pngTrent Dyrsmid2013-12-19 06:00:362020-09-11 03:35:35Ian Altman on How to Make More Sales by Talking to Fewer People
Do you think you could start with nothing and build a 7 figure local marketing agency in your first year? If you follow Graig Presti’s advice, you sure can.
Do you think you could start with nothing and build a 7 figure local marketing agency in your first year? If you follow Graig Presti’s advice, you sure can.
Graig Presti started his local marketing consulting business and did something different than most: he chose to offer his services only to dentists…and by doing so, he grew top line revenue to 7 figures in year one…and has increased it to $3.5 Million in year 3. When you consider that most local marketing consultants really struggle to attract clients, Graig’s accomplishments are nothing short of amazing.
In this interview, you’ll hear Graig and I talk about:
(2:17) Introductions
(3:47) The results he’s getting (automating all sales)
(7:47) Why he picked dentists
(12:17) How he generates leads, and his sales funnel
(14:47) How he builds a list; using sponsored email, direct mail, LinkedIn, and JV partners
(17:47) The lead magnet he uses: Google Review Cheat Sheets
(19:27) How leads are nurtured
(22:17) How he’s using webinars
(30:57) How he converts webinar attendees to customers
(32:37) An overview of his product offerings
(41:17) The downside of continuity
(43:37) Where his customers are located
(45:17) How he leverages the telephone
(52:17) How to get others to send email sponsoring you
(57:17) How he’s using direct mail
(58:17) How he uses postcards with personalized landing pages
(1:04:17) How he’s running ads on LinkedIn
(1:08:17) How long it took him to get his ad spend back
(1:11:57) How long it took him to get his first client
Graig gets great results using simple text like this.
There’s nothing complex about this formula.
More About This Episode
The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.
It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.
Listen Now
Leave some feedback:
What should I talk about next? Please let me know on Facebook or in the comments below.
She goes, “What I don’t understand is, I’m having trouble getting to four
sales a month for a $300 product for an auto dealer.”
Trent: Yeah.
Graig: She tells me — this is the kicker, Trent — she tells me that, in
the Chicago area, they just hired three more sales reps to do what she’s
doing, just dial. I’m like, “Okay, here’s a very philosophical difference
between businesses. There’s a difference between a sales-driven culture and
a marketing-driven culture. Very distinct things, very distinct things.”
A sales-driven culture like that company, they’re using their sales force
like lead gen. They’re saying, “We’re paying this person $15 an hour. We
want them to dial so they can get working leads and that’s just how it is.”
That’s the sales-driven culture. “And hopefully we get lucky and they pop a
sale.”
As opposed to a marketing-driven culture like what we have in my business,
where we wouldn’t even pick up the phone unless the prospect raised their
hands because what they want is what we are giving away, so therefore,
we’re not wasting man-hours, marketing material, energy, money on people
and things. They’re wasting it.
Trent: Plus, no one likes making those calls and nobody likes getting those
calls.
Graig: No. No, and you want to know the funny part about you saying that is
she told me, “I called on a guy who I got him on the phone, I actually got
through the gatekeeper and I got him on the phone” — because, remember,
these are big businesses, they’ve got a gatekeeper, meaning they’ve got
multiple receptionists — so she got the guy on the phone and she says, “I
want to get you on one of our webinars,” and he goes, “Ugh, seriously?
Another webinar? I’ve had five phone calls today of people asking me to get
on webinars, demos, more demos.”
I’m like, “Well, you’d better hope you’ve got a hearty appetite because
you’re going to get 100 more of those every, single time you call because
that’s exactly what’s going to happen.” You just look at that compared to
what we talked about today where people are only getting on my webinars
when they either pay my company, like fork over $100 or $300 or whatever,
or they’ve raised their hand and said, “Hey, I love what you’re saying. I
would like to learn more.” No problem, but you have to get on this webinar
first. They’re going to sign up for the webinar and not complain.
Trent: Can you give the URL of one of your landing pages? I’d love to look
at it.
Graig: Let me check and give you a good one here. Let me pull one up. Ask
me another question and I’ll pull one up.
Trent: All right. Well, now I’ve got to think of another question to ask.
Oh, yeah, while you’re pulling up, let’s talk about your podcast because I
know that you’ve got one.
Graig: Yeah.
Trent: How’s that working out for you?
Graig: It’s good, it’s good. Okay, here, I found one for you.
Trent: Okay.
Graig: Go to localsearchfordentists.com/googlereviews.
Trent: All one word, no hyphens or anything like that?
Graig: Yeah, all one word.
Trent: Okay. Folks, if you’re listening to this . . .
Graig: There’s going to be audio on that, by the way, if you want to shut
that off.
Trent: Yeah. For the folks that are listening to this while you’re driving,
don’t worry, I’ll put this in the show notes, this link, so you’ll be able
to get to it and at the end of this episodes I’ll give you the link to the
Bright Ideas, where on the blog you’ve got to go to get to this interview,
so fear not. Don’t be trying to take notes while you’re driving.
Graig: Yeah, that landing page I just gave you is really good for cold
traffic, meaning a lot of paid media and such. It’s pretty good.
Trent: Now, is this any particular plug-in that you used to make this
landing page or is this just somebody did HTML?
Graig: No, we made that one, we made that one. We made that one in-house.
Trent: Okay.
Graig: But I know this is a template of something. One of my buddies told
me, “Oh, yeah, that’s a whatever page,” and I went, “Well, I saw it, I
liked it, we just made it.”
Trent: Yeah. What’s the conversion rate on this page?
Graig: This one has a 50% opt-in on cold traffic.
Trent: Very nice. Okay.
Graig: I only use this one on — and when I say cold traffic, meaning not a
house list. I only use this one on paid media.
Trent: Okay, so you’re spending money on, say, LinkedIn ads, for example,
and you’re driving them to this page.
Graig: Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, that’s right.
Trent: All right, I want to go back, actually, to the top of the funnel
because I don’t know that I got enough detail. So, sponsored e-mail — we
didn’t dive into that all, so if it’s okay, I’d like to go back and just
talk a little bit more about that particular one and some of the others. So
if someone wants to market to dentists — like you’re doing — how do they
go about finding — first of all, explain what sponsored e-mail is. I’m
sure everyone gets it, but in case a few people don’t, explain what it is
and then explain how you find people to buy it from.
Graig: Right. Okay, so I’m going to be a little private on this answer,
okay, for an obvious reason because lead sources are like gold. That’s my
money, so I will tell you how to find them, essentially, but I will not
tell you where and who, okay?
Trent: Sure, all right.
Graig: So how about that?
Trent: That’s fine.
Graig: Sponsored e-mail blasts — and this is something no one does in any
sort of business, and not necessarily dentistry, and this is what I teach a
lot of the people that I coach on how to be local marketers is there are
people out there who have herds or subscription or magazine companies or
whatever it is, educational companies, that have e-mail lists of people
that open their crap and read it. They have maybe never thought that they
can monetize the e-mails that they send out.
Essentially what a sponsored e-mail blast is, let’s take eye doctors, for
example. Say you want to target LASIK surgeons with marketing consulting or
something like that. Let’s just take them for example. You can go and find
publications, whether it’s continuing education, Eye Doctor Magazine, any
sort of print, maybe there’s blogs, forums, where these guys and gals hang
out and get their information from. You can use this cool little thing
called Google to figure it out, where those things.
Some may have media kits where they do offer sponsored email blasts, you
just didn’t know about it. It’s, say, $1,000. Now, in exchange for that
$1,000, they will send pre-approved e-mail content out to their list from
you with basically an offer: “Here’s my free report, here’s my Google cheat
sheet.” Then you get to keep the leads, you pay them the $1,000. Done deal.
Now, here’s a cool way to do it, is sometimes these media companies never,
ever think to monetize their e-mail list like that. They sell print space,
they sell banner ads, but they never think that by clicking a button they
can make $1,000. And you’ll keep coming back for more if it works, so what
I tell my people is find a community of people in the niche that you want
to go after, find the key-holder to the e-mail list. If they don’t offer a
media kit or something like that, tell them you’ll pay them $1,000 to send
one e-mail out and if it goes well, you’ll give them $1,500 an e-mail and
buy four more of them. That is a way to get someone to mail for you
essentially, sponsor you in a way and I’ve done it a myriad of times
myself.
Sometimes they’ll say no. Sometimes they’ll say, “Oh, we don’t want to do
that.” Sometimes they’re just not into it but, honestly, I know some of the
biggest names in the business in certain niches who, from a publication
standpoint, from a media standpoint, love the e-mail sponsored blasts and
they’re open to doing it.
Trent: Okay, and where does that rank in-between, let’s say, direct mail —
which we’ll talk about next — LinkedIn — which we’ll talk a little bit
after that — and sponsored e-mail? Are they roughly equal? Is sponsored e-
mail the best one?
Graig: Sponsored e-mail is the fastest way to cash.
Trent: Okay.
Graig: That’s the fastest way to build your list. It’s the fastest way to
make money but the problem is it saturates quickly, so it comes down to
really knowing your numbers when it comes to that. In the beginning, you’re
going to be like, “Oh, this is amazing! I got 100 leads from one e-mail.”
Well, in three months, six months, that might be 30 people, that might be
Who knows? So you need to have back-up. So that leads my lead source is
the e-mail blast but I also do a lot of direct mail. I do a lot of cheap
postcards and then I’d say just after that LinkedIn and other paid traffic,
not just LinkedIn but other outside traffic.
Trent: Yeah. Let’s talk about direct mail.
Graig: Sure.
Trent: So are you doing only postcards or do you do three-dimensional?
Graig: No. For lead gen, yes, and the only reason I have is because I’ve
been able to make money doing it, so I just know if I send these postcards
out, I’m going to get traffic, I’m going to get opt-ins and then we’re just
going to push them through. So right now, I do do other direct mail but
mostly I’m using postcards to drive traffic.
The other thing that I’m doing that nobody does is I use postcards to drive
webinar sign-ups.
Trent: So the postcards are either sending to a landing page like the one
you shared with me, this Google Reviews one, yeah?
Graig: Yeah.
Trent: Or a webinar opt-in page.
Graig: Correct. I also use what’s called a PURL postcard. Do you know what
a PURL postcard is?
Trent: No, I don’t, I don’t.
Graig: You don’t? Okay.
Trent: No.
Graig: They’ve been around for a while and they’re pretty cool. So PURL
stands for “personalized URL”.
Trent: Oh, okay.
Graig: So what that basically does is you print a postcard and it’ll say,
“Hey, Trent, look at this cool new thing on how to get 10 to 15 more
clients a month without lifting a finger. I made this brand-new website
just for you. Check it out: abc.com/trent.”
You’re like, “Wow, this person like made their own individual website for
Cool.” So you go to the computer and you type in “abc.com/trent.” You
go the landing page, and it says at the top, “Hey, Trent, thanks for coming
to this webpage” and then inside the web form is pre-populated with your
name and e-mail already and you’re like, “Wow, this is super-customized.”
Conversions go up exponentially because of it because people actually think
you made a real, live individual website for them — but you didn’t. All
you did is all it is is a list uploaded to your server that talks to some
code and the code, when they type in their name, pops it into the fields
and you’re done, so it’s really one webpage with a list. That’s all it is.
Trent: Now, is there a service that you subscribe to get these PURL
postcards?
Graig: No, but there are and they all suck. So I’ve tried to do that before
where I thought I could crank them out quicker, and they’ve all been very,
very terrible, so what I decided to do is I just have a mailing company
that prints the postcards and then the developer uploads the list and then
I just go.
But here’s the good news: once the list is uploaded to your server, you can
just keep adding to it. It’s not like it has to be replaced. So once that
mailing list is uploaded, you could have 100,000 names on there and still
only mail to a 1,000 and it’ll still work.
Trent: So the URL on the postcard is abc.com/trent and it doesn’t matter if
you had 47 Trents on your list because they all come to the page that says,
“Hey, Trent,” because . . .
Graig: We usually do first name, last name.
Trent: Oh, you do? Okay, so everyone’s getting an individual page, so
you’ve got one landing page, your developer wrote a little bit of script,
queries the database, pulls the first name and populates it.
Graig: Yup.
Trent: And makes the URL the same thing.
Graig: Yup, and I would imagine if anyone listening is an InfusionSoft
user, if you go under the Community page, there will be people on there
that can build PURL pages for you.
Trent: Absolutely. What are you spending per-piece for one of these
postcards?
Graig: Oh, geez, I think it’s — what is postage? $0.45 right now or
something like that?
Trent: I have no idea, something like that.
Graig: I think postcards probably run me around $0.65 in total, so the
postage is more than the stuff on the card.
Trent: So it’s about a buck by the time you’re all done.
Graig: No, it’s less than a dollar. No, it’s $0.65 cents.
Trent: Oh, including the postage.
Graig: Like I just mailed a letter — I call it the “granny letter”, one
piece of paper, handwritten, everything for $0.85 cents apiece.
Trent: And is it actually handwritten? I used to hire people off
Craigslist.
Graig: Uh-huh, not fun. Handwritten.
Trent: I’d just hire people off Craigslist and they’d come over to my house
and pick all the things up and they’d go home and watch TV and write them
all.
Graig: Are you being serious?
Trent: Yeah.
Graig: Oh, dude, there are mailing houses that could do that for you for
$0.85 cents.
Trent: This was years ago before I knew about any of this stuff.
Graig: Oh, okay. No, you’d be surprised, you’d be surprised with that
stuff. It’s pretty reasonable. The reason I like the PURL postcard is
because it’s personalized so people really get engaged with it and it’s
really inexpensive.
Trent: Any chance you’d send me a screenshot of one of these postcards that
I could include in the post?
Graig: Yeah, I can do it but I’m going to blur stuff out.
Trent: That’s fine.
Graig: Okay.
Trent: Is the message on the postcard pretty much the same message as on
the landing page that it’s driving them to?
Graig: Pretty close because, obviously, from being of Direct Response 101,
you do need congruency.
Trent: Yeah.
Graig: But you still never want to get away from the fact that you need to
get the click. You need to get the click and you need to get the traffic,
so don’t be too revealing in your message upfront. Give them enough to not
satisfy their appetite so that when they get to the landing page, they’re
like, “Ah, makes sense but it didn’t say it all on the copy.” Because
that’s what a lot of people do, they forget that they need to get that
click, so they give away way too much on the front end when just give away
your stuff later because you don’t want to satisfy their appetite by just
writing a bunch of great copy and them being like, “Oh, that was pretty
good, thanks. Well, see you later.”
Trent: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Okay, and then let’s finish this off on
LinkedIn. Just talk very briefly about how you’re using LinkedIn.
Graig: Okay. Like no one else. Because everybody goes on there to solicit
and profile and go into groups and network and all that. Isn’t that what
most people use it for?
Trent: Probably, yeah.
Graig: Yeah, yeah, right. I don’t even go on there and do anything other
than run my ads. That’s it.
Trent: Okay.
Graig: Because one thing people need to understand about LinkedIn versus
Facebook — which I’m not saying don’t do Facebook, I’m saying do a lot of
things that make you money but let’s just talk about LinkedIn for a minute
— is it lets you specifically with, by the way, 100% accuracy, sort by
profession. So if you want to go after Fortune 500 CEOs, you can do that.
If you want to go after eye doctors, you can do that. Pinpoint that,
exactly that, so it really enables you to go by profession and that’s
really good for us sort of marketers and consultants because we really can
segment out the people that we want to go after.
I don’t use it for any of the social networking. I don’t network at all,
actually, and that’s not because I’m antisocial; that’s because I don’t
make money when I network and that’s actually good. We don’t use it for
that, we just use it for traffic, that’s it. Ads and traffic.
Trent: And ads are driving to like the Google Reviews landing page?
Graig: Yeah, sure, or various landing pages, yeah. Yeah.
Trent: In the ads, is it like Facebook, you can include a little image?
I’ve actually never advertised on LinkedIn yet.
Graig: Yeah, it’s actually the set-up for LinkedIn ads is simpler than
Facebook but it is an image and copy. They restrict you a little bit more
with the number of characters, but they also let you get away with a little
bit more than Facebook, so it’s kind of a give-and-take.
Trent: And what kind of images are you doing? Pretty girls with smiles?
Graig: Pretty girls, pretty girls.
Trent: Really? Seriously?
Graig: Oh, yeah, of course. That’s pretty much it. Pretty girls most of the
time.
Trent: And these pretty girls are dressed in business attire, I’m assuming?
Graig: No, sometimes bikinis.
Trent: You’re pulling my leg, right?
Graig: Nope.
Trent: And LinkedIn lets you do that?
Graig: Yup.
Trent: Because Facebook is ridiculously anal about that.
Graig: Yeah, they’re a little tougher. They’re loosening up a little bit
but, yeah, LinkedIn, they’ll let me — I’d probably embarrass you if you
saw some of the pictures I got away with on LinkedIn but they work, man.
But I’m going to say this, though, with a disclaimer, is the business that
I’m in happens to be very male-dominated. I think about 80% or higher are
males in dentistry. So, if you’re going after the holistic niche or, yeah,
females in it, still use pretty girls but don’t put them in bikinis. But I
still need to get people’s attention. I use pretty girls on all of my — I
even put them on my postcards.
Trent: Yeah, I still think you’re pulling my leg about the bikinis.
Graig: No, no, I’m not, I’m serious.
Trent: That’s awesome.
Graig: I’m not ashamed. I try to push it, because I know that if you’re
online and you’re looking at ads, you’re looking at thousands a day, so I
know that I’ve got to make that thing jump out at you.
Trent: Yup. I went to a workshop where the guy did a lot of paid ads.
Graig: Sure.
Trent: He even went so far — pretty girls were his images — that he would
split test how big their eyes were.
Graig: Oh, that’s funny.
Trent: He would split test which direction they were looking, whether it
was looking at the camera or away from the camera. It was insane, but this
guy’s running an eight- or nine-figure-a -year business. I can’t remember.
Graig: Yeah, no, I have friends like that, too, and they’ve tested cleavage
versus no cleavage, stuff like that, and cleavage got more clicks. That’s
very true but, to his defense, it probably depends on his market. Like I
said, mine happens to be a male-dominated industry where bikinis and
lingerie probably get clicks, but in other businesses it may not
essentially work.
Trent: So when you first started, you had to spend some money on LinkedIn
ads, sponsored e-mail, direct mail. How long did it take you to get that
money back?
Graig: Well, I ROI’ed out pretty quickly. I’d say it depends on the lead
source, though, but I didn’t do them all at one time. I had my lead sources
and I was like, “Okay, we’ll do this one, see how it goes.” This is
actually a good lesson. I don’t know the exact number of days, but I know
that I made money on it. Because here’s what a lot of people do when it
comes to marketing: they do a lead source campaign. In the lead source
campaign, they get a bunch of leads and they say, “Okay, well, we’ve got
100 leads, so I’m not going to do any more marketing until we make money
off that one campaign.”
Trent: They’re wrong.
Graig: They’re like, “Okay, so waiting, still waiting.” Whereas what if
that lead source just sucked? Or what if that lead source needed six months
to be nurtured before it converted? Maybe that’s just the way those people
are. So now you’ve done no marketing for six months because you’re still
“testing” this lead source, right? You’ve sat on your ass and made no
money, whereas when I did it — and I’m not saying this is the only way to
do it but it’s definitely a smarter way to do it — is I ran the campaign,
I got, say, 100 leads.
I knew I had the leads. I knew that they were going to be in Infusionsoft.
I knew that I could market to them forever. I knew I was going to give them
good content. So what I did was I waited until some more cash came in, just
a little bit of cash, and then I did another lead source campaign and then
I stacked them like that. Now I have 300 leads that I’m able to monetize
versus a six-month gap of just marketing to one particular customer and I
was able to build my list, my herd, right, because I just need more people.
Sometimes it’s just pure numbers. Sometimes 100 people in your niche just
isn’t going to cut it to get a customer. Maybe you need 300 people to get a
customer. So a lot of people do that one-and-done marketing, that one-shot,
“Oh, I’m going to do one direct mail campaign,” “Oh, I’m going to do one
thing” — and then they sit and they wait. Sometimes you waiting may cost
you your business.
Trent: Yep, because cash flow is king.
Graig: Right, right. The thing is that, especially when you start a
business, you don’t really know the life cycle of your customer. You don’t
know it might take seven months to close someone, so you’ve kind of got to
get your marketing in order and just stagger it and go out six months and
then look at it and say, “Okay, on average it took us four months to get a
client. Now we know that,” as before you may not have known that.
Trent: How long did it take you to get your first client?
Graig: A week.
Trent: Yeah.
Graig: A week, but you know why was because I knew the basics of what it
was going to take to get a client. What I mean by that is in the first week
of being in business, I hosted a live teleseminar where I got 50 dentists
on and I sold my first product.
Trent: How’d you get those 50?
Graig: Various lead sources opting-in to a landing page. The life lesson
there is I didn’t focus on anything but just selling them on the one thing.
I needed eyeballs and I needed ears and I had a product. I just needed them
to listen to it and I put them on a telecall and I think I sold five in
that one night.
Trent: So the machine began.
Graig: Then the matrix started, that’s right.
Trent: Yeah.
Graig: But how many people do you know spend the first two weeks of
business making up a website and business cards and a logo?
Trent: Yeah.
Graig: I had an e-mail address. I didn’t even have a website and I made
thousands in a day.
Trent: I interviewed a guy by the name of Sam Ovens yesterday and he has a
marketing consulting business and he put up a one-page website. He didn’t
have a business card, he didn’t have a business plan, he didn’t know what
he was going to sell and he didn’t know who he was going to sell it to. He
just started to reach out to everyone he knew and he said, “Hey, I’m pretty
knowledgeable about online marketing and I’m looking for clients to help.”
Graig: Yep.
Trent: And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven clients later, he
started figuring out what they really wanted, who he should really be
selling to, and what he should really be selling and he figured out that
his sweet spot was selling to high-ticket B2B companies for the same
reasons that you explained at the very beginning of this interview, was
because their customer value was between $50,000 and $100,000.
Check this out — he would go to one of these companies and say, “I can
make your website produce more qualified leads for you.” “Okay.” And he
would tweak — so these people wouldn’t even have an opt-in form.
Graig: Right.
Trent: So he’d fix the headline, fix the sales copy, put on in opt-in form,
basic autoresponder, and charge $10,000.
Graig: Yup.
Trent: But these customers are like, “Well, if I could get one more
customer per year, that’s $50,000 and I only have to pay this guy $10,000.
Yeah, sign me up.”
Graig: I have a lot of friends that do exactly what he does and it’s very
true. It’s very true and that’s just the basics of it. I mean, Trent, I
still to this day, we’re talking three-and-a-half years later, I still
don’t have a business card.
Trent: If you’re not going networking, then what in the hell do you need
one for?
Graig: Oh, yeah, that’s a whole other hour podcast right there but, yeah,
no, and that’s exactly it and that’s the thing is a lot of people don’t
understand is I still do deals. So a lot of people associate networking
with deals, getting deals done. I still do deals all the time. It’s made me
a lot of money, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t do them where I go and I
peddle around my business card at stupid conferences.
What I did is I elevated myself to a certain stature that allowed people to
be attracted to me, not the other way around, so now all I have to do is
ask. So if I want one of my friends to send an e-mail out for me, they’re
my friends now because of the respect that they have for me, not because I
handed them and peddled them business cards at conferences and they just
say, “Yeah, I’ll send it out for you.” Because I’ve elevated that stature,
as opposed to saying, “Hey, call me, let’s get something together.”
Trent: And, folks in the audience, if you’re listening to this and going,
“Yeah, I’d like to elevate my stature,” I have three words for you: start a
podcast.
Graig: Start a podcast. That’s true. It’s very true. Write a book. Get
featured in press releases.
Trent: Blog.
Graig: Actually, you know what? Can I do a shameless plug and it’s not for
me, it’s for one of my friends who does a really good job with this, a
really good job?
Trent: Yeah. Please do.
Graig: If you want to be the authority in your particular arena or you just
want to be able to hang your hat on more notoriety — because nobody argues
with an expert, no one argues with Dr. Oz or Suze Orman about financial
stuff, even though they’re average in their profession. You would think
they’re phenomenal.
If you utilize my friend Brian Horn, he’s got a website, I think it’s
horndogsearch.com or something like that or beonpageone.com. You just
Google “Brian Horn SEO” and he will help you. He has done a phenomenal job
with helping his clients in all sorts of businesses from dentists to
Fortune 500 CEOs on how to get featured in local media, Wall Street
Journal, and syndicate you all over the dang place so, that way, you can
put all of those labels on your authority badge. You’re “as seen on CBS,
FOX News, CBS Sports,” whatever you’re in. He does a phenomenal job with it
and that’s an easy way to become an authority where you can garner more
respect from not only your peers, but your clients and customers and
prospects. So that’s a shameless plug for Brian but he’s good at it.
Trent: I was going to ask you about that because I noticed you had “ABC,
NBC, CBS, FOX, blah blah blah,” Brian Horn, did you work with him to be
able to do that?
Graig: I did and Brian’s a really good friend of mine. He’s in my
MasterMind group with me, and he’s phenomenal at it. He’s phenomenal at it.
Yeah, I was even in Newsweek Magazine as a featured person and, by the way,
guys, you can pay to be in all that stuff. It’s not special. I mean, it’s
special to the outside world, but it’s not that hard.
Trent: So you mentioned a word near and dear to my heart: MasterMind group.
For folks, if you’re listening, Bright Ideas is about to launch a
MasterMind group for people that want to learn how to build a local
marketing agency to serve dentists. Why, Graig, do you think MasterMind
groups are so valuable?
Graig: Well, I mean, it’s the whole adage of the power of the MasterMind. I
mean, the simplest way to explain it is many brains is better than one. So
you’re automatically multiplying what can be done in a room. For example,
if Trent and I sat down in a room together and I told him my biggest
problems and biggest ideas, he may just look at me and say, “Well, here’s
what I would do and what I’ve done.” But what if you had seven Trents in
that room? It’s the ultimate multiplier.
Anyone who’s not part of a MasterMind, you should just be in one. I don’t
care, be in at least just one. Most successful people are in more than one,
but be in just at least one and that’s really it because when I go to
MasterMind and I’m like, “Okay, here’s what I’m seeing,” not only can they
help me, but when I say, “I’m doing this that’s working,” I have 8 to 10
other eyeballs in the room helping me out with that, versus just one.
Versus just a coach. It’s not just a coach, it’s a room of experts.
Trent: What do you pay to be in yours?
Graig: The one that I’m in is actually sort of, it’s like Fight Club.
Trent: Yeah?
Graig: So we don’t even tell people where we meet. We call each other,
we’re the “SEO Mafia” is what we say, so I can’t tell you that or they’ll
kill me. They won’t kill me literally but we don’t talk about it. But in
all honesty, I think paying around anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000 a year
for a MasterMind is not a bad investment.
Trent: Yeah, because you’re around other people who can afford to pay
$20,000 to $25,000 a year.
Graig: Yeah, and the other thing is don’t just join a MasterMind group of
average people, right? You want to be in a room with seven- or eight-figure-
earners. So if you were to be in Joe Posh’s $25,000 group or something like
that, you know you’re going into that room and there’s going to be other
millionaires in that room. That’s a good place to be.
Trent: Yeah, absolutely.
Graig: It’s a real good place to be.
Trent: I guess I’d better raise the price of my MasterMind.
Graig: Double it, double it.
Trent: Actually, as of this recording, I have not decided yet how much I’m
going to charge. I’m off to Washington D.C. the tail-end of this week,
actually, to do a meeting which will be instrumental to my figuring out
what the pricing will be and what will be included.
Graig: Nice.
Trent: So details to come, folks.
Graig: Nice.
Trent: All right, Graig, let’s wrap this up. We’ve done a long one here,
but, man, this has been super-awesome and thank you for that.
Graig: Yeah, I know we went over but I think everybody’s going to get a
good idea of things. If people are looking to get more information like on
me and so on and so forth, not necessarily me itself but sort of how I look
at marketing, is if you go to 7figurelocalmarketer.com — that’s where
you’re going to be able to get my free report on how I’ve really built my
business. The dentist stuff is good to talk about but that’s where all your
people are going to want to go.
Trent: Okay, I’ll make sure that I link to that from the show notes, as
well.
Graig: Yeah, yeah. That’s where they’ll want to be.
Trent: And do you have an affiliate link for whatever that is?
Graig: I can set one up for you, Trent. That’s not a problem.
Trent: Okay, cool. All right, so unless there’s anything else, Graig, that
you want to add to this.
Graig: No, this was good, this was fun.
Trent: Yeah, thank you very much for making the time. I hope that people
who are listening to this were both educated and inspired by your story as
I was and thanks for being on the show.
Graig: No problem.
Trent: Okay, to get the show notes for today’s episode, go to
brightideas.co/70. And while you’re in front of your computer, I’d love it
if you would take a minute and go to brightideas.co/love. If you’ve enjoyed
this episode, there will be a pre-populated tweet that you can click and,
as well, there’s a link to the iTunes store where you can go and leave
feedback for the show and for this episode. If you would take a moment and
do that, it would make a huge difference because it helps the show to get
more awareness and more people can listen to it and we can help more
entrepreneurs to massively boost their business.
Thanks very much for tuning in. I’m your host, Trent Dyrsmid, and I look
forward to seeing you in the next episode. Take care, have a wonderful day.
Announcer: Thanks very much for listening to the Bright Ideas podcast.
Check us out on the web at brightideas.co.
About Graig Presti
Graig Presti, founder and CEO of LocalSearchForDentists.com, is a foremost advertising authority who operates with dental practices all around the planet, assisting them to leverage the internet so they can generate more telephone calls, reach more new patients, and bring in more revenue. His strategies begin to work immediately and continue to work month after month.
Presti specializes in helping dental practices dominate their nearby location by using confirmed regional Internet dental advertising strategies to help them dominate the top rated regional research engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.
Presti uses easy to understand stories to help his clients comprehend how they can improve their internet presence. He is a repeated featured speaker at dental conferences and other venues.
Presti has mastered the art of bringing a flood of new patients into dental offices, and has undoubtedly established himself as a top specialist in his field. His considerable accomplishments, and his industry contributions, led him to be showcased as a Newsweek Magazine Champion of Health, Wealth and Success.
https://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Graig.jpg7202200Trent Dyrsmidhttps://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bright-Ideas-logo-1030x255.pngTrent Dyrsmid2013-08-05 05:00:502020-09-10 02:01:40Digital Marketing Strategy: How Graig Presti Grew His Local Marketing Agency to 7 Figures In His First Year
If you sell, or plan to sell information products online, there are some things about online payment processing that you need to be aware of.
For example, did you know that the credit card companies consider information products to be high risk? Did you know that a merchant account provider can keep your money for as long as 18 months? If you were to lose your merchant account during a product launch, do you have a back up plan?
In this episode of the Bright Ideas podcast, my guest is Brad Weimert, founder of Easy Pay Direct, an online payment processing company focused on helping information marketers to keep their payments flowing.
When you listen to this interview, you are going to learn:
some of the most common problems that information marketers face when it comes to receiving online payments, and how to prevent them
what you can do to avoid having your merchant account shut down
if your merchant provider puts a reserve on your funds, what steps you can take to get the money released as soon as possible
why free trials for information products are becoming nearly impossible
the difference between shopping cart software, a payment processor and a merchant account
..And so much more!
More About This Episode
The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.
It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.
Listen Now
Leave some feedback:
What should I talk about next? Please let me know on Facebook or in the comments below.
Brad Weimert is founder of Easy Pay Direct, which he established in order to make easy to use, discounted merchant services available for retail and online merchants.
Are you looking for a more effective strategy for growth?
Would you like to hear from a guy who’s analyzed over 700 marketing services firms to figure out what works the best?
Of course you would, and today, that is exactly what I’ve got for you.
In this episode of the Bright Ideas podcast, I’m joined by David Baker of Recourses, Inc. David speaks 30+ times a year and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, and many more. He is also the author of Financial Management of a Marketing Firm.
Suffice to say, when it comes to running a marketing agency, David is without question one of the thought leaders in the space.
In this interview, you are going to hear David and I talk about:
The top 3 problems that people seek his help to solve
How to cause growth to occur at your firm (more prospecting isn’t the answer)
The major shift that has taken place in selling and how to adapt
The step that most principles neglect when pursuing growth
The #1 reason why, as firm grow, profit margins decrease and what to do to stop it
This was a fantastic interview, and I’m sure you are going to love it!
More About This Episode
The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.
It’s designed to help marketing agencies and small business owners discover which online marketing strategies are working most effectively today – all from the mouths of expert entrepreneurs who are already making it big.
Watch Now
Leave some feedback:
What should I talk about next? Please let me know on Facebook or in the comments below.
David is the leading management consultant to the creative services industry. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fast Company, Inc., Forbes, CBS Business Network, MarketingProfs, and Business Week. He has spoken at every major conference in the field and written for every major publication. He owned a marketing firm for 6 years, and has consulted with 650+ firms since March 1994.
https://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/David-Baker.jpg7202200Trent Dyrsmidhttps://brightideas.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bright-Ideas-logo-1030x255.pngTrent Dyrsmid2013-01-18 08:00:242020-09-01 05:38:23Digital Marketing Strategy: How to Ignite Growth in Your Agency with David Baker
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The C-suite is not looking to be sold on why your product or service is the best/cheapest/fastest, etc…
As a result, I spend the vast majority of my time asking questions that will help me to understand their problems and top priorities.
Let’s assume that in your first conversation with your customer, you learned that they had the following priorities and problems:
The Bright Ideas podcast is the podcast for business owners and marketers who want to discover how to use online marketing and sales automation tactics to massively grow their business.
David is the leading management consultant to the creative services industry. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fast Company, Inc., Forbes, CBS Business Network, MarketingProfs, and Business Week. He has spoken at every major conference in the field and written for every major publication. He owned a marketing firm for 6 years, and has consulted with 650+ firms since March 1994.