GROW 2020 Interview: Cindy Ashton

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Cindy is CEO of Minerva Enterprises, LLC, an elite level presentation strategist, professional speaker, singer and award winning TV show, host of Cindy Uncorked on E360 TV. With 20 years of experience, she's an authority on presentation skills, speaking voice, body language, content delivery and leadership experience. She's going to bring so much to the Grow Retreat and whether you're networking in a sales conversation, pitching the media or onstage or speaking to your team, how you present yourself will make or break the sale. Isn't that the truth? So even the most confident person can lose a sale by unconscious habits. Little things we don't know that we're doing. And that's what Cindy is going to be helping us with during the Grow Retreat.

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This accidental job I had has turned out to be a life passion. There's nothing like helping other people to get their voices heard on stages across the world or be able to sell better and be able to service somebody in a better way.

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The whole trend for years has been telling your story but people should be telling their story after they've gone through it and come out the other side. So many speakers choose speaking topics based on the trauma they've been through, that they think they're over, but they're really using it for therapy and to save other people and it's not coming from the right space. And then they wonder why they're broke, why people say, "Oh, you are so inspirational, but no, I'm not buying from you." If you look at the whole of that person, they have so many layers of genius and goodness to give to the world that's so much bigger than their story.

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People either come across as overly aggressive or overly insecure. So there's a few things Cindy always teaches business owners and one of those things, the first thing, is that we need to learn to take time every day to breathe and ground. And that sounds really strange, but when you're present in your body, then you can hear and listen to others. Because one of the things that's really interesting, and we're going to do Improv at the Grow Retreat because it's not just fun, but when you do comedy Improv, you can tell who's losing sales and why they're losing sales, because you can watch the interactions of how they're listening, how they're responding. For example, if we do the storytelling one, you can always see the people who are thinking ahead when they're listening to the other about what the response is and they are actually stopping listening to others.

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We need to learn to take time every day to breathe and ground.

At the Grow Retreat we're going to be doing some really fun posture exercises. We're going to be up and moving, releasing all the habitual tension that we all live with. 73% of Americans live with chronic stress. 70% have had some kind of a traumatic event in their life and 50% of Americans live with a chronic illness. All these things actually affect how you come across. So when we have a lot of stress that we're holding in our body, it actually changes our speaking voice and our posture and our body language and our energy. And those are the things that are the subtle pieces that will make or break the sale and make or break if you could command $5,000 or $10,000 for your services.

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The power is in your voice. Let your voice be heard. The world needs you. This isn't about self aggrandizement. This isn't about building a six or seven or eight figure business. This is about giving the world your gifts in a way that they want what you have. It's a powerful, powerful tool. To join Cindy, Anna and Stephanie at The Grow Retreat simply go to www.thegrowretreat.com and apply to attend.

GROW 2020 Interview: Mike Michalowicz

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We're so excited to have Mike Michalowicz back with us on Black Belt Selling. Mike is the only speaker from GROW 2019 that we have invited back to the stage in 2020. Mike has been an entrepreneur his entire adult life. He had some great successes early on, but it also set him up for his greatest failure.

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I wiped myself out financially just out of pure arrogance, tons of ignorance. And it turned into the darkest period of my life. I lost my home, my possessions. I did not lose my family and that's the only thing I had left and was devastated and gone. Went through two years of depression actually.

That period of time set Mike up on a mission, a life's purpose, to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. The day you start your business, the world thinks you're wildly successful. You're a millionaire. You sit at the beach drinking margaritas. The reality is we're not making money. We're working ridiculous hours. We're under constant stress. In this gap is what he calls entrepreneur poverty and living it. His life's mission is to now fix that, to resolve that.

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I committed to just being this arm of the shoulder guy because even though it may be similar concepts to someone else, if it's relatable, it becomes much more actionable I feel.

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At this Grow Retreat, Mike will be talking about Pumpkin Plan, his recent book. It is a methodology to grow your business healthily and organically. That's the part many people miss. We want to grow our business, but we think that it requires investment that we have to run those Facebook ads, that there's certain processes we have to do, that sales is an extraordinary effort and what he found, ironically or interestingly, is that there's a faction of pumpkin farmers, these colossal pumpkin farmers that grow these massive gourds and they follow a simple modification to the established process.

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They change things by about 5% and the pumpkin responds with organic explosive growth. There's a parallel that in our business it's actually a small element, made of 5% change, that position our business to catch this wave of momentum and grow on its own. So at the Grow Retreat we are going to go through this process. It's about five major steps we're going to discuss that will, if you follow it, and it's easy to follow, it's only a small change. You follow it, you will see healthy, organic, explosive growth of your business. This is what Mike has done in his own businesses.

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I've had a blessing now of growing multiple businesses, and doing it again and I run and own a few multimillion dollar companies now. And we've always used this process as the foundation for healthy, organic growth. And I know it works because I live it.

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Most businesses will find that they have multiple negative customers or bad customers, customers that have a negative effect on their income. Think about how many customers you have that are distracting, difficult to deal with, manage. For many businesses it's one, two, maybe even a handful of customers. How many customers do you have that are extraordinary, pay you top dollar, are dying to do business with you, are extremely loyal to you. Probably less than the bad customers.

That's the normal kind of breakdown. There's a handful of these sub customers and there's maybe one great one. Well the Pumpkin Plan, the realization was that this is the normal makeup of businesses and the process to attract bad customers is just as simple as it is to attract great customers.

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So we changed this process. Something we do subconsciously that attracts bad customers, we revert and redirect to great customers.

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Can you imagine your favorite best customer ever? If you had two copies of them or four or five or 10 I bet you'd have major impact in your business. If GE gets 10 clones of its best customer, GE more than doubles its revenue for the year. It's extraordinary growth for any size business, small businesses, the same thing. So at the Grow Retreat we're going to go through the process of cloning your best customers. Interestingly, it's something that subconsciously we'll often do with our bad customers. We're going to stop doing it there. We're going to redirect it and get more great customers and drive that revenue and profitability.
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We're in business for two reasons. One is for financial freedom. Another one is that you do a vocation that brings you joy and happiness. The majority of our waking hours are spent working. So if it brings us joy and financial freedom, we've won. Sadly, most businesses don't achieve financial freedom and people are stressed out beyond belief. So we're going to address those two elements. We're going to maximize your profit and revenue, and as importantly, if not even a little bit more importantly, we're gonna maximize your joy factor, the people you love to work with. So you love going to work.

Mike is currently writing another book. Listen to the podcast, come to the Grow Retreat and learn more at mikemotorbike.com

GROW 2020 Interview: Dana Pharant

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Our very special guest today is Dana Pharant. Dana combines her 20 plus years experience in the wellness and stress management field along with building a seven figure business. She is the leading authority at teaching her audiences, health habits, mindset strategies and authentic presence so they can tap into their inner power to be top performers in their field. She's also a two times best-selling author.

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Dana's brand is "brilliance with a dash of cray cray".

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Dana has been transitioning into coaching with helping people throughout the years but just hadn't been charging for it as coaching on its own. When she hit a really big roadblock in 2012, she went through a massive restructuring with her seven figure business and they had to lay everybody off. It went down to just her and she really took it right back to the bare bones and built it back up again so that she could sell it. That restructuring was critical for her to be able to take stock and see what actually went wrong? Beyond the tactical things, what actually went wrong? And this is where she really just started to look at the fact that while she had great customer service and clients coming in from referrals, there were still some pieces of leadership. She had all of these strong leadership skills in her personal life, she was a dominatrix in her personal life and had all of her strength there. So this is the crazy. She wasn't bringing that into her business. And when she started to pull that in, when she did the restructuring, that's when she was able to do a massive turnaround and really see how these skills, the mindset and the energy of the dominatrix are so vital for anyone in business.

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"What's the root cause? I don't care about dealing with symptoms. I want to get down to what is the core issue, what is the core problem? What's really causing the problems so that we can fix it on a permanent level."

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How do you handle difficult conversations?

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The handling of difficult conversations is something that all of us have to do in our businesses, in our day-to-day life. And you know, whether you handle it well or you don't can be a real turning point of the success of your business. So day to day when you're dealing with your employees, the people who are on your team, that ability to have the conversation that most needs to be had and handle it in a way that both of you come away feeling empowered, feeling lifted up is a way to actually propel your business forward. And same thing with having difficult conversations with suppliers or, maybe the haters who are coming out and saying nasty things. We have to handle situations all the time. So getting to this place where we can handle them with some grace and some ease is vital.

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That piece of, "well I don't want them to think badly of me. I want to be nice. I want everybody to like me". These are all pervasive patterns that get in our head, but that actually prevent our business from moving forward. So when we change the mindset, when we change what's actually going on behind the scenes, then you can come to that conversation in a way that it's just factual.

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I have to pave the way. I have to be a trailblazer.

What Dana sees for a lot of people is they get caught up on the money aspect of something. We don't want to say anything because then it's going to cost money or whatever and we get caught up on that and or, we don't want to cut them off of income and it becomes about making the money the priority as opposed to being able to pull back and see the bigger picture as it is. What if you firing that employee or firing that supplier is the gift that they need to be able to move in the direction that they most need to move in? What is the gift that you need to step into that place of holding your power the way you need to hold it. It's this bigger picture where no matter what happens in our lives, it is for the greater good. It is moving everyone. Even if it feels awful in the moment, it still is moving you forward.

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Join us for the Grow Retreat in January

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One of the things Dana really wants to drive home at Immersion 2020 is this piece of how do we get into the state that we need to in order to be able to have these difficult conversations? She is going to pull in different tools to really lock it in. How do you get out of your monkey mind? How do you drop into this place of knowing that it's in their best interest and your best interests? Even though it feels awkward, even though it feels uncomfortable? She has lots of fun tools and techniques that she's going to dive into to make it easier to have these conversations that really need to be had. This as a huge piece that will propel a business forward if you are willing to have the conversations that you most need to have. Have them now and not 10 years from now or not waiting until the whole thing falls apart.

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danapharant.com

GROW 2020 Interview: Jesse Cole

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This episode we are joined by Jesse Cole, founder of “Fans First Entertainment” and owner of the Savannah Bananas baseball team. The Savannah Bananas have been awarded “Organization of the year”, Jesse’s been awarded “Entrepreneur of the year”, “Business of the year” and they won the “CPL Championship” in their first year. He’s also been featured on the “INC 5000” list as one of the fastest growing companies in America.

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“Loving your customers more than your product and loving your employees more than your customers”

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We all go through businesses, challenges, and adversity, even if Jesse always wears a yellow tuxedo, he started like everybody else, but he realized “normal” didn’t work too well for him. Conformity doesn’t work, if you do things like everyone else you’ll get the same results and for the most part the result are not good.

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We always look at what our competitors are doing and have the same results. In the case of baseball, it’s become too long, too slow, too boring for a lot of people and the numbers are down, you have to be different like the Savannah Bananas.

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When Jesse arrived in Savannah there had already been 90 years of professional baseball, and they did exactly what everyone does, social media marketing, e-newsletters, radio, and they sold one ticket in the first two months, so they decided to name the team “The Savannah Bananas”, only then did people start noticing.

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At first, people hated them, they were hearing remarks like “the owner should be thrown out of town” or “you guys are an embarrassment to this city”, but they were noticed. Once they got that attention people started noticing that they had a senior citizen dance team called “The banana nanas”. But it wasn’t until they went to the first game that everything really changed because they saw that this wasn’t your typical baseball game. That’s when people started talking.

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“Don’t be afraid to get people’s attention”

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Once you create raving fans, they’re doing the marketing for you. During the first year they did tons of marketing, and now they spend zero dollars on traditional marketing. Currently they have a wait list for tickets because they put all the emphasis on the experience.

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Thru the years, there were lots of ideas that did not work out, but whatever is normal, do the exact opposite, having that mentality was a big game changer, they started thinking in those things that created experiences which people talked about. Three words that changed everything “You wouldn’t believe”. Those are three words that can change the whole customer experience. That has been built into the entire business.

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So, what are your “You wouldn’t believe” statements?

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Those three words have been game changers and Jesse puts them in everything he does.

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The priority in Jesse’s business is simplicity in who they are and what they stand for, the name of their company is “Fans first entertainment”, their mission is “Fans first, entertain always”, and the question that’s always asked is “Who are your biggest fans?”. If you have a business that’s going to be enduring then your biggest fans are your own people, you put them first, you care for them, you give them the experience.

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What can you focus on that you can control?

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When it comes to the baseball team, Jesse and his team do not focus on the game because they can’t control it, but they do focus on the transitions, in between every inning, what’s happening?, who’s dancing?, are they giving something away in the middle of the game? They get the whole stadium dancing, they have the players deliver roses to little girls in the crowd, those situations can be controlled by them. They focus on the fun, the culture and the experience.

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“In a noisy world in order to make an impact you have to be remembered, what are you doing to make an impact?”

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Is it customers first? Is it employees first?

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Love your customers more than you love your product but love your employees more than you love your customers.

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Don’t be afraid to say “Love”, it’s OK to say it, it’s OK to say that to people. Do you care about them as a person first? Or do you care for them as an employee and what they can do for you?

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Find Your Yellow Tux

Objection handling – Episode 2

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Agreeing does two things, it does something for you and something for your client. Often times when you speak to sales reps, you throw out an objection and they instantly go into attack mode, but imagine you’re trying to fight someone at the bar, and then they walk up and give you a hug, it disarms you and you start relaxing. So if you know that the automatic response to an objection is to say something like “That’s really smart of you” or “I completely understand where you get that”, you’re going to help them relax, agree with them.

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This is Black Belt selling, and as a Black Belt master, you tend to see things differently, here’s the thing about agreement that tie into the whole idea of the martial arts, one of the keys in martial arts is: You don’t engage in battle. Instead you flow with the energy. If this person were an enemy, we’d be throwing them off using their own energy and power. The whole idea is to work with the energy, not against it. Working against the energy creates negative energy, more pain. In this case it’s going to help people relax. It’s going to make people feel like they’re not the enemy, they are there to solve a problem. Keeping that in mind is going to be extremely important as we move thru this process.

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We have to understand more about the objection. Often times the objection that is raised is not the true reason for them not moving forward. Sometimes the prospect doesn’t really know what the real issue is. It can be that it’s too expensive, or this, or that, so then we can start figuring out what the real objection is. This is when you start to talk through it, you start asking questions, like asking them to tell you a little bit about what it is that’s triggering them to think that it’s making it expensive for them. Can the client tell us if they’ve ever spent that kind of money on a product or service? Comments like “I’ve never spent $3,000 dollars on a mattress”, “that’s too much money for that kind of product”, you can be empathic and respond something like “hey, I totally get it” and ask questions “how much have you spent before?”.

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While the client has maybe spent $600 dollars on their last purchase maybe the sale has been done wrong and you shouldn’t have tried to sell a $3,000 dollar product. Ask how the client decided to spend $600 dollars, or how they decided what mattress was best for them, once it’s been worked out, look for information about what they like about the product they chose and how it’s worked out for them.

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If the client responds that the product has some disadvantages and they reveal information, continue to go with the flow of the conversation. There, you might find what the real objection is, it might be money, it might be that they just don’t think they should spend so much money on a mattress. Maybe at that point you can walk them through that their logic is incorrect, they’ve only ever spent money on cheap beds, and you can show them that.

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An important aspect is to make sure that the questions you’re asking are leading questions, not manipulative questions. Never ask questions that show them how dumb they are, you have to ask questions that help them. Let the client share and follow the conversation as it goes, and then once you know you’re leading with the right objection, you’ve listed out and helped them see that they should be spending more than $600 dollars next time, but still $3,000 is a lot.

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At this point you know what mattress they need, now it’s your turn to tell them a story, and you can say something similar to “I get it, it is a lot of money. I had a client last month who came in and it was a very similar situation…”, you have to make sure you detail out the emotional experience of the person before they made the purchase.

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You have to elicit the pain, if you don’t touch on it, you won’t touch the reason that’s holding them back, they’re not going to see that you care, and you have to use the story to present the opportunity that they’re missing if they don’t move forward. Storytelling is an important part of educating, and you should use what the client has been talking about to educate them using their very own words as to what’s really important to them.

Objection Handling - Episode 1

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This is the first of a four part series of a key aspect in the sales process known as “Answering Objections”. With this series we’re going to help you move thru objections to get to a “Yes” more often than you currently are.

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Objections stop way too many sales that are in the making, a lot of agreements and negotiation. Sales are all about communication, however this particular topic seems to stump a lot of people. Even if you’re familiar with the entire sales process and you do everything flawlessly, you’re still going to get objections, you’ll still be getting people that for whatever reason will present some form of challenge in that sense, and it’s not that people don’t want to work with you, it could be something on the part of the client, it could be that they’re not hearing what you’re saying, they could even be asking questions about something you’ve already answered.

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As Brian Tracy said, you need to treat objections as requests for more information. How does that change your view in this regard? Considering that, when there’s an objection, clients are bringing forward concerns. People are asking for information to help them towards the best decision for them, they want to make sure we’re taking care of them. They need more information to know that this is truly the best option. How many times have you made a purchase decision and ended up regretting it because it limited you from being able to do something else? We’ve all had those experiences. The question is, how do I make sure this is the best decision for me?

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What’s good about objections is that they actually point you towards the information that they need most to be able to make the decision, most people see objections as a problem but they really are a blessing. Jeb Blount from Sales Gravy has a very good definition for objections, he says it is an explicit expression by a buyer that a barrier exists between the current situation and what needs to be satisfied before buying from you. Beyond that, it’s an indication and here’s where people miss it, we’ve all missed it at some point.

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An objection can also be an indication that a buyer is engaged. If people don’t ask me enough questions, I don’t think they’re interested, if they make questions it’s because they want more information so they want to buy from you, but they have to be able to tell themselves there’s a good reason for it. Objections are very powerful and they’re very important in the sales process, we have to develop the right thinking about them in order to properly leverage them in order to best serve our customers.

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A lot of times people get combative because when someone is objecting you they’re putting you on the defence. If you think back to how our brains are programmed, we still have a lot of programming in our brains for early cave man days and our brains do not like the concept of conflict. We must recognize that fear is a natural response, there’s nothing inherently wrong, it does not make you a bad salesperson. Just recognize that fear is a natural response, the brain is saying that there’s something important to overcome now, but we have to keep in mind we don’t have a lot of time left.

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Always keep in mind the buyer’s perspective, he or she is getting ready to make a commitment with money, so actually the more questions they ask, the better you have to educate and engage with them to help them see the befit that they will gain by working with you. What we have to do is we have to work to lower those barriers, but them at ease, realize that we’re not the adversary. Objections tend to bring the adversary out in both sides. But we are there to help them, not to steal from them, not to harm them. It is important that we recognize they are fearful, we’re also fearful, but we’re prepared to deal with the situation.

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Just calm down, objections are great. You just have to remember to think of it from that perspective, and that’s the biggest key objection handling to remember. The first step in the objection handling process is agree with the customer.

Working on your business versus working in your business

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Who owns the business

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As a business owner you face a huge challenge that you'll run into... wearing all the hats in the business. It’s hard to remember that you also wear the hat called “business owner”. Your job is to own and cultivate that business just like you would a child. Businesses are a lot like children and if you don’t work on raising your child, they can end up on the streets. If you aren’t working on your sales, you aren’t working on improving your process, you’re letting the business run you, not you run your business. Whether you’re a business owner trying to get out from under your business, or you’re a sales person that wants to spend more time with your family and less time making sales calls.

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The things that end up getting pushed to the side is tracking your sales numbers, reviewing your numbers, understanding what they mean and figuring our what the new sales are and what is a new lead generation method while also figuring out what I could be implementing that’s going to make my life easier. We know that most businesses don’t make it past the tree year mark, and one of the reasons might be because business owners are very optimistic. This idea that “it’s going to work out”, and as they go on, they start with “this is the base year”, then the second year they don’t get the growth they expected, so by the third year they have less time, less money and more debt.

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That’s when a business owner usually shuts down his/her business, because three years in they realize they actually don’t have a business. This happens because they don’t prioritize within their business. It is definitely a matter of setting priorities, like Jon Pyron said, set five goals and then five action steps and then schedule them. That’s been something very helpful for us along the way. One thing that also needs to be understood is that your business is not your life. We value ourselves based on the business. When we’re at that three year mark, when we’re at that point that the debt has overwhelmed us, we’re thinking about bankruptcy or we’re thinking about shutting the business down.

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Why scale down?

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We have to find ways to scale down what is being done. We have to find things that other people can do for you. Paying somebody $10 an hour to do your filing for you when you could be going out and spending that same hour and getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in, where is your time really being spent? You have to be intentional about creating these systems. One of the big issues that a lot of people run into is that they don’t make time to work on the business from the get-go.

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The first step to follow is to schedule time. I think that an hour a day needs to be devoted to business on your business. When you only invest 15 minutes you’re just getting started. If you’re going to just spend 15 minutes a day on working on your business, it’s not really going to make any difference. However, we have people out there and we have a lot of business owners who are not spending any time working on their business, you have to start somewhere.

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What you should do as you’re working is that you begin by distinguishing tasks that would be better suited for someone with a lower skill level. Case in point, I run a Twitter chat named USA Biz Party. I love interacting with my guests, but what I don’t like doing is sending out emails. What I do in this case is delegate it to someone else. For this, you can create a simple instructional video where you can explain all this and that you can easily send out.

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The reason I share this is because what you need to do is as your working through your day you need to decide what you’d like to get off your plate so that you can do the more revenue producing activities and then the next time you do it and make a not to yourself that you’re going to create a process in which you can teach someone else. You spend about 30 minutes creating a system that you can also duplicate.

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Accelerate your business

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As a business owner you have the advantage that you can take certain things off your plate, this can hyper accelerate your business. This can help you invest that time in other things that can help grow your business. For example, wrapping up work early and going to a conference. Working Monday thru Thursday and learning something new every Friday, new implementations, etc.

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Think back, was your life easier or harder when you were a kid? It was easier, right? You think back and you might think “I wish I could go back to one of my biggest problems was whether or not I could have pudding for dinner”. Life gets harder the more you move forward. If you can’t make time to work on your business now, you’re not going to suddenly be a master of time management if you don’t make it happen now.

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We make time for what matters to us. So if you’re not making time to work on your business, how much could your business actually mean to you?

Eukairia

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Eukairia is the Greek noun for the fitting time or the perfect opportunity. It’s often used in reference to the harvest. You’re looking for that perfect opportunity to harvest, so take it and start applying it. Every single business exists because of a Eukairia moment, it exists because of some point and time, because someone looked around and said “there is an intersection between what the market needs, my skillset and my passion. They meet here and I’m going to make a business, grow a business out of this”.

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What makes the difference in a lot of businesses is the additional Eukairia moments they find along the way, that moment in which you have a “eureka” moment of “Oh my gosh! This is what I need to do next”.

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What can be the tiny adjustment that can actually really take my business thru the stratosphere?

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There comes a moment when you hit that opportune time for your customer when you’re there at the right moment, at the right time and you have the solution they’re looking for.

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Sometimes it just takes a tiny tweak, as you advance the small things are what give you the big results. It’s the small refinements that we make that have the most impact, it’s the fine tune things that make the biggest difference.

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Eukairia is the culmination of work, practice and mastery in your business, if today doesn’t seem like that Eukairia moment, don’t sweat it, just keep doing what you’re doing and as long as it’s getting the results you’re looking for that fitting opportunity will come.

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The thing to understand about Eukairia, whether it’s about your business or your sales, you have to realize you have to put in the work ahead of time in order to be ready at that moment because what if the farmer doesn’t plant the seed?, what if he doesn’t irrigate the crop?, their Eukairia will never be there because there’s preparation that goes into that fitting opportunity.

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So many sales get lost because you talked thru the moment of close or get lost because you closed to early and that person did not have the information to know what questions to ask you, and you have to get the training and the experience to learn what the best moment to harvest the crop is.

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What can you be doing to prepare for your Eukairia?

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There’s two pieces to this, there’s the learning side and the actual doing. One of the big keys is to have a guide, a mentor, have someone to go to, someone to look up to. Having a mentor makes a huge difference, even if it’s someone you don’t talk to.

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Another key aspect is having systems. There are four stages, there’s the “doing” stage, the “deciding” stage, the “delegating” stage and the “designing” stage.

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If you don’t have those processes in place and you have a tremendous opportunity and you can’t take advantage of it, it’s because you simply don’t have the infrastructure to service your clients the way you want.

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One of the perks of taking time to figure out your stories in advance is that it allows you to focus on the sales process, if you’re trying to remember what to say then you’re not really focused on the client, you’re not focused on closing the deal and that’s huge. Having those systems for your business and your sales allows you to then focus on somebody else and on the things that will create that exponential growth in your business and that is vastly understated and massively important.

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Make sure that you work every day for that Eukairia moment, they exist all over the place, there will always be that perfect opportunity to take advantage of, and the beautiful thing is that the more you look for these, the more you’ll be able to differentiate between the perfect opportunity and the opportunity, because there is a difference, not every opportunity that comes your way is a perfect opportunity and not every opportunity needs to be jumped at because they sometimes pull you away from the larger goal, but be watching out for them, otherwise you won’t see them.

Why is video a shifting marketing trend?

For the longest time in order to run a successful business you needed a product, a business way to deliver and you needed an ad. Video has been very effective for marketing for a long time, one of the reason why it’s such a powerful medium is because we are still very visual and it allows us to really connect. The audience that we pick up thru video is much more committed than the ones that you’re going to get thru social media, they get to know you personally, so I think that’s why we’re all looking for that personal connection, that’s why video is so important.

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If you’re not getting into the video marketing game you are going to stay behind or become obsolete, people are not even going to know you because video is so accessible and you don’t have to be perfect. The best way to put yourself out there is thru video, use it to tell stories. It’s all about innovation but what we tend to do is say “That worked for me before, so why shouldn’t it work for me now?”. You can’t rely on what’s worked in the past, if it’s effective then that’s fine but you can’t continue using what’s worked in the past and call it good and expect it to take you into the future.

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The people who see you in video are the ones that become the biggest fans, it almost gives you a celebrity status. People can connect with you in a more intimate manner, they’re really getting to see you the way you are.

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Consider that 93% of our communication is non-verbal and you’re trying to rely on blog posts and maybe radio ads, by not connecting thru video you’re really missing out on the chance to connect with you on a personal level, it makes sales so much easier if they feel like they’ve personally connected with you and that’s the key.

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We work very hard on this podcast not to be very promotion driven because we want to provide lots of value, we also want to find the problems and challenges so we can address them so that this podcast and video can be valuable to you.

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Video is the premiere way to get people to interact with you, to get people to really going to begin to trust you because they’re going to see you and they can also interact with you, it’s not a live stream but people can comment. With videos you have to be smart about the order of your content and they have to be fairly concise because if it’s not you can lose audience. It takes some planning to prepare what you’re going to say.

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There was one video we had that had 71 downloads in 24 hours, it took time to prepare but those 71 downloads now created 71 times more reach, you might think it’s time consuming because you need to be out there talking to people, well you are! You’re talking to the people you’re trying to reach, look into the camera and talk to the person who you want to talk to like this wonderful business person that’s listening right now and is now saying “I never realized how important video was”, don’t leave it for “later”, block it into your week, make it an important part of your marketing strategy.

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Plan your video recording and create an outline to avoid rambling too much, when live streaming became popular a few years back people would just start talking on video without person and being a busy person I’d stop watching, and if the people you’re reaching are busy people you have to honor their time, their commitment and their attention, and you want to provide value.

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Are blogging and video incompatible? Will video replace blogging?

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They are different, there’s a time and place for reading as well as for watching a video. There are videos that are also accompanied by a transcript or an article version of it. The video becomes a good starting point for getting content out as well as for graphics, blogs and all the other pieces, so it all comes together and it creates more leverage and more action.

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We’re not growing out of the need for paper or reading, I have the paper, the Kindle and the audio versions of the book because they all serve different purposes. We still need to have a mixture of media.

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From a strategic point of view we need to realize that while video is very important and it’s a key way to connect and engage with your ideal client you need to be involved with other forms of media, things like blogging or a book. Your ideal client isn’t only video oriented.

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Video is a key part of your marketing strategy but it is not the only thing you have to do for marketing. It’s very valuable and it has to be a piece of a very solid marketing campaign to help take it to the next level.

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BlackBelt Selling Podcast Facebook Group

What are the most powerful things we can help people with when it comes to growing their business?

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How do you get more bank for your buck. How do you get more done in the same number of hours in a day and how do you extend your reach.

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What are some ways that people can leverage?

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Leverage is like having a stick wanting to move a giant boulder. Depending on where I put this fulcrum will determine on how easily the giant boulder can be moved. However, you have to step on the stick and that’s what people forget. You have to put the work in to keep the leverage moving once it’s been set up.

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The POI concept (People Of Influence)

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This is a massive point of leverage, the key here is there has to be a reason for them to want to work with you.

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Find joint venture partners, these are people that can extend your reach. People that you are complimentary to. I currently work with someone who does hotels, I have no interest in hotels for several reasons, however some of his clients are looking for apartments and I work in the housing business. He is all over the country, so I’ve extended my reach beyond a small market that only has so much power in it. There is a key to a POI, it can be just about anybody, but a lot of us fall short in that we really don’t know who we really want to reach.

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Keep in mind that when you’re talking to an influencer you’re talking to somebody who has worked hard to get to where they are, be very respectful of that, that is one of the big keys, and also make it worth their time. POI’s are people that not only can help me, but I want to be able to help them. And in this particular case, this gentleman is interested in attending the retreat. He was very intrigued with the idea and he’s excited about learning more.

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They key to everything in sales is that you have to build relationships.

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You have to build a team.

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Only in the last year have we been able to really leverage on each other (Anna and Stephanie) making it the most effective year extending each other’s reach. We’re beginning to understand what our limits and strengths are.

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The concept of building a team is very overlooked in creating leverage. It is important to go far with people because this year I (Stephanie) reached a point where I could not do it all alone. The point is, you can start building a team now, or you have the option of waiting until you’re flat on your back, trying to figure out what you’re going to do to get your business moving again because you have worn your body out, broken your body down and you literally cannot do it anymore. Two options, take your pick.

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I (Anna) enjoy social media, I’m a big Twitter chat person, I enjoy them very much, but for a lot of the tweeting that I do I actually have a team that does that tweeting for me. The things that I am not that involved in they can do for me, they know me well enough that they can now speak in my voice. I know sometimes money is tight, but you’ve got to look at it by letting somebody else help you, even if it’s just maybe four hours a week, you have a lot of power in those four hours a week.

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How to leverage your time using software.

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One piece of software we’ve been using a lot lately is a program called “Loom”, it helps record screen activity, I use it to record what I need to let the team know. When I hit “Stop” it generates a link and I send it to the team, easy as that. It’s a great way of doing something once and then reproduce it.

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Meetingbird is another great piece of software you can use, especially when you’re trying to setup appointments with people, because you can give them a variety of times to choose from, or whatever works or doesn’t work.

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If you’re not using a CRM you really need to go out there and get one, there are more than a few out there, I use HubSpot, which has a capacity of generating very detailed reporting which can make it a bit intimidating and annoying for people. There are other options like “Less Annoying CRM”, which is for smaller groups of people.

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This is about helping you make more sales, it’s about you becoming more efficient so that you can choose your lifestyle, you’re not a slave to your business, and that’s what leverage is really about. All of this takes time, but the reason it’s beneficial is because the time spent on it is going to yield much bigger results.

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It takes EFFORT: Earned Freedom For Overcoming Real Tempests.

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When you put the effort in you earn the freedom to have the life you want for yourself. Is your life worth the effort it’ll take to make it great?

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“By yourself you can go fast, but with others you can go far”
- African proverb

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BlackBelt Selling Facebook Group

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Kate Frank is a book coach and ghost writer. Has written more than 1,100 pieces of content over the past 7 years.

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She’s contributed to five published books and dozens of articles in national magazines. What makes her different than most ghost writers is that most of them are looking to support themselves but she’s looking to make you profitable. She’s not just writing the book for you she’s helping you develop your marketing strategy to get that book sold.

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A common perception of books is that you get one to establish your expertise but not to expect any money from it. People have an expertise that they wish someone would’ve taught them, they wish the could’ve had the kind of book that would’ve had the information that they now know, so they want to write that book.

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They write it, then they figure out how they can sell the book and how they could monetize it, that’s getting the cart before the horse. Kate believes that creating revenue from a book is relatively easy to do, but you don’t figure it out after the book’s written, you figure it out before, and you write that book for revenue.

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There’s a whole process that Kate has to get the cart behind the horse where the marketing is the horse, this is what drives your profitability to know who you’re going to market it to, who your reader’s going to be, where they hang out and who will pay you, those are the kinds of things that you need to know in order to get the course that’s going to drive this revenue in front of the book.

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One is the focus on revenue and the other thing is writing a book the way the person talks. You write your book as if you’re turning a paper to your college professor, it’s not that interesting. When Kate works with somebody she get into their language, she knows how they talk, she leaves some of those fragmented sentences in there for this person, you could tell how passionate he was about something by how broken his sentences were.

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They’d talk in hypertext, they’d talk in a language that was a lot more emotional, and not as grammatically correct. So if they’re out there talking in front of people, when they get excited about something they’re talking in these broken sentences and their book is written in perfect prose, it doesn’t look real.

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For somebody who’s trying to make a living in sales it could not be anymore important that the language that you have when you’re face to face with a client, or on the phone with them, or on a video call, and the language that you have in your book is as close to the same language as you speak.

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Case studies

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One of the books that Kate has ghost written was for an owner of a multimillion dollar company in New York and it was only when they were half way thru the book when Kate found out that he was running for senator in a New England sate, that’s the reason why his book was different. He was basically talking about his belief system, it had as much profit potential than most. Kate had to convince him that she didn’t sanitize it, it was very important for her that if he was going to be up there trying to get into office he couldn’t have something different when he was in his book.

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Another case was a vice president in what was provably the largest insurance company, he had moved up the corporate ladder by having some principles that he had coached people with on one on one. He received a couple of promotions since the book came out, because he now has a book that talks about what he’s all about. Now he’s succeeded in the corporate world, he’s also speaking more often, he’s been given international opportunities to go out for the company and it’s been very good for his business.

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A third case was a kid that dropped out of high school, his language was very repetitive, very rough. He got into a real estate investing company and was doing very well making lots and lots of money. It was a real estate coaching company that had multi levels in it. By Kate getting his book into some legible order that still had his personality, you could tell that he wasn’t a college graduate because his language wasn’t that, but you could follow his thoughts better than what he wrote, now he’s able to use that to grow his multi-level business much faster. He’s seen as an expert, he’s invited to speak at a lot of speaking conferences, so it’s been very good for his business.

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If a book has been in the back of your head nagging at you, then there’s a good chance that you’ve already written content, if you haven’t perhaps you have recorded sales calls, or some other way in which you’re talking about your process.

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Kate Frank, Authority Redefined

Jeb Blount is a sales acceleration specialist, he is among the world's most respected thought leaders on prospecting, sales, leadership and customer experience.

Thru his global training organization Sales Gravy, Jeb advises the “Who’s who” of the world’s leading organizations and their executives on the impact of emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills on customer facing activities.

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There are not that many books out there on objections, there’s a lot of them out there on scripts, “if the buyer says this, then say this”, but there’s really nothing on the psychology of all the emotional aspect, then providing frameworks that are usable no matter what context you’re in or dealing with objections.

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A lot of the books that are out there are really dated. What Jeb’s found is that a lot of this is cheating, old school stuff from the past century that didn’t really work anyway but sounded very good so it’s more manipulative, tie down mechanisms, things like that vs. dealing with the way modern buyers go to market and the way great sales people have always dealt with objections. This isn’t new for people who are really good at the craft.

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There’s no new school or old school, there’s only “The school” for sales, and it’s how to deal with other human beings, the way that humans deal with other humans, the art of the relationship and the way the human brain works has been baked into us for 40,000 years when the modern brain emerged in human beings.

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The discipline of the “Ask”

It’s the most important in sales, asking is the beginning of receiving, you have to ask to get. The problem for most sales people is beating around the bush of asking, it happens all the time. The only way that you’re going to get what you want is to ask for what you want, that is a fact that won’t change. Asking is a pretty simple thing, you ask with confidence and allow the other person to answer you. Most sales people don’t ask with confidence, if they do ask they keep talking, and they end up talking themselves out of whatever they want.

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We’re asking for all kinds of things, we always think we’re asking for the sale, we are also asking for micro commitments along the way, we are asking for appointments, we’re asking for information, we are asking to level up to a decision-maker, we are asking all the time.

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And because emotions are contagious human beings can feel what other human beings are feeling. We are able to transmit our emotions to another person, this is the science of selling and over the past 30 years neuroscientists have been able to prove that emotions are contagious.

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The most powerful position for a sales person is the position of relaxed confidence, and by asking with confidence you can change everything. With every objection you have to be confident, begin with that process. Sales people deal with a lot of emotions, our destructive emotions in sales are what hold us back more than anything else out there.

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Part of what “Objections” does is that it shows you why you feel the way you do, why you lack the confidence, why you feel insecure or fearful, why that happens. The way you feel the moment you’re facing an objection is real, those emotions do happen to you, and if you have control over it you have to have a ledge or you have to become rejection proof so that you can handle that.

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The confidence paradox

There’s a paradox with confidence, that is when you feel confident you ask. Saying we don’t want to be too pushy, it’s at that inflection of asking for something, we are asking for someone to comply with the request or asking them to do business with us.

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The paradox with that is that if you try not to be pushy you create more resistance because that’s how human beings work. Showing insecurity makes people push back, they become more resistant. The key is what you say and how you say it, your tone of voice your body language, asking with confidence. If you learn appropriately how to ask in a different way the results are incredible. By transferring relaxed confidence to your buyer the probability that they’re going to comply with your request goes up exponentially.

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The moment we think about objections we have to break them apart into where the objection happens in the sales process, that begins with prospecting. Prospecting is essentially asking for time, and that’s the hardest thing in sales because nobody has any.

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There’s a few ways that you can become a rejection proof, one way is creating mechanisms to know how to deal with rejection. You also want to build the ability to rise above at the emotion, you choose your response, this is developing obstacle immunity. Put yourself in a situation where you have to be rejected, where you have to ask, do that over and over again so that if people say no, you know how to deal with that and when the time comes choose your response.

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Jeb Blount's Official Website

The psychology behind buying habits

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Darryl Lyons is a certified financial planner and behavioural financial advisor, who is considered to be an expert in the area of personal finance as well as authoring several books. His latest book, “18 to 80: A Simple and Practical Guide to Money and Retirement for All Ages”, his company, PAX Financial Group has made the Inc. 5000 fastest growing companies in the country. He’s an author, entrepreneur, community leader as well as a family man. He knows what it takes to plan for financial freedom, which is what his first book is about.

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In the book “18 to 80: A simple and practical guide to money and retirement for all ages”, and every single chapter of the book is an age, so if you go to 40 it explains what you need to be thinking about at age 40, then at 23 what you need to be thinking about, 50 and 70, and so on, it gives you a playbook and how to think about your money.

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When it comes to behavior, studies show that we have only 13% of results and the remaining 87% are based on decisions we make, they are things that we can control, we have to then consider why we are making bad decisions and how can I make that decision making, and there’s only so much we can blame others.

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Many of the decisions we make are based on a point of reference from our Facebook friends or Pinterest pictures, how much of that influences the way we buy things or where we go or what we eat, and the research is clear, it influences us much more than we would’ve ever given it credit.

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Every age has hope, you have to recreate the way of thinking and work through some of the challenges, and the book is written in a way in which you can open any page of the book and say, “I can do this”.

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The idea of budgeting is a bit overwhelming, especially at a young age, so at 18-19 years of age the book talks about creating a new habit, basically creating a pause in our purchasing, stopping and thinking “do I need it?”, “do I love it?”, “will it make me money if it’s a business decision?”. A lot of financial mistakes we make are not rational.

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Money behavioral mistakes

• Overconfidence: I’m sure I can pay it off.
• Emotional biases: I buy it because I grew up with it.
• Selective perception: I look for information that backs up my decision to purchase.
• The gender gap: Women are better investors than men.

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Your financial behavior really impacts your marital relationship, your friendship, finance is not a separate thing from who we are, it’s an integral thing to who we are. When start to come to grips with some of these things and begin to understand them and make the changes necessary you’re going to find more openness and honesty in your other relationships as well because our relationship with money is so foundational to who we are.

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The love of money is the root of all evil, not money itself, that’s important to differentiate, but we can’t ignore money, we have to recognize that historically humans and money, currency and transactions play an integral role, we have to be mature about having very difficult conversations, ignoring them is not the answer and then we have to take inventory of some of our behavior and biases.

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One of the filters we have to use when making a difficult decision can be “Did I ask a child, a friend and a Sage?”, the reason this question is important is because if you’re making a financial decision and you can articulate that decision to a child in a simple way, then you’ve grasped it pretty well, if you’ve asked a friend, someone who knows you, and then if you can ask a sage, somebody who’s wise, then collectively you should get an answer that’s more rational not emotional.

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One of the key elements of being a business owner that helps is beginning with the end mind. Many business owners have no idea on how to exit the business. Beginning with the “end in mind” means that you can start with something transferable, that may be changing the name.

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Creating a business that has accelerating positive net income for three years is much more attractive to an acquirer than a good name or a clean office, or a bunch of customers, it shows a trend and they'd want to jump on, they'd want to be able to take advantage of it.

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It all starts with an attitude beginning with the end in mind.

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paxfinancialgroup.com

A very special episode of Black Belt Selling brings us the best of five of our most exciting interviews.

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On this episode we talk to Ben Gay III who is a contemporary of Zig Ziglar and is a master of referrals, Mark Hunter a follow up artist, Art Sobczak talks to us about important tips on prospecting over the phone, Sonny Melendrez who speaks to us on how to adapt to a conversation, and last but not least, Tom Hopkins who shows us the importance of becoming a master asker.

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Referral master Ben Gay III did one cold call in his entire sales career, from there he went on and built a highly lucrative sales career thru referrals. He went to a Doug Edwards seminar and he said, "you should never leave an appointment without five referrals at least".

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He made one cold call, knocked on the door, made an appointment and came back the next day and he was scared to death, it’s the only one he ever made. But he made a sale and got five referrals.

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He got five referrals, went and called those people, from there he got ten referrals, from here he got three and from there he got six and so on, and then called on them and got their referrals. And referrals get easier in a circle of influence because once you’ve been referred around in the circle and you get referred to somebody they go “Oh yeah! I’ve heard of you”, versus when it might be a little colder the first time you got referred, or the first time they heard your name.

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He was in the industry for 40 years, he made one cold call his entire career that first night. Every call he made for 40 years thereafter, you could trace back through the family tree to that first time, and you could trace that back to Doug Edwards telling him “get five referrals”. And that’s how powerful it can be. And now with the internet and social media it keeps getting easier.

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Mark Hunter, apart from speaking about referrals, also gives us important insight on follow ups. Whatever you feel is the frequency you can follow up with somebody, you can double that. If I have a conversation with you, my objective coming out of that conversation is to have next step. My objective would be to have a time set up for the next conversation.

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The speed with which I call you back is going to depend upon the product or service you sell and who you’re selling to. For example, working with companies that sell industrial supplies to contractors Mark says “you can call that person back tomorrow” because they’re buying every day. If you are selling something that the person only buys once a month, I might call them back every three or four days.

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His philosophy is that he always waits either 4 to 6 days for the next communication. The reason he goes every 4 to 6 days is because it automatically flips to a different day of the week. So if there's a call every 4 days, he's going to call on Monday, then again on Friday, again the following Thursday, then the following Wednesday and then the following Tuesday.

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A lot of people say "I can’t call people on Monday’s or Friday’s"… why?... that’s a perception and belief that people have. That’s your own mental block. What you’re trying to do is to find an excuse so you don’t have to cold call. Just do it.

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Art Sobczak is a true master at phone calling. How do you help people feel good about the phone? We create resistance with our messages. We help by speaking about the mechanics, this being our messaging, what we’re saying and how we’re saying it, and most sales people use bad messaging, they use techniques that really insight resistance and cause resistance.

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A myth of sales, prospecting and using the phone is “you should love rejection” and you have to get used to it. Let’s completely remove the word "rejection" from our vocabulary because rejection is not the experience itself, the experience being getting “no”, we’re going to get “no’s” playing the game. If we get a “no” on the phone, we shouldn’t call it rejection.

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Let’s look at it differently, let’s look at it as it being something that didn’t work, let’s figure out what we can learn from that situation and then we can do something proactively to get a win on every call, maybe we can leave the door open, or maybe it can be a question we can ask every time, so at the end of the day saying “I got rejected 30 times”, we can say “I accomplished my primary 3 times and I planted a seed the rest of the time”, that's a pretty good day.

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Sonny Melendrez speaks to us about how the people who are top sellers in any company are the people who have relationships, they are not selling, they’re serving. They serve whoever they want to sell to, and if they have something that they really believe in, all of a sudden there’s a whole different relationship that’s going on there and that person, or company, can be a client for life. This thought is opposed to make a dollar now and go by the numbers.

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You have to think who it is you’re talking to, what it is you can do for them and how it is you can fit into their plan, and if you don’t fit, find or suggest somebody who can. It is important being present to the customer, being present to their needs, being present to the situation so that you can respond appropriately and build the right relationship to help people.

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We tend to memorize our pitch and then deliver it no matter who it is you’re talking to, so consequently it comes off as just that. If I were talking to you thru points I had written down you’d know it, but instead we’re having a conversation and that conversation is driven by that give and take, not unlike a tennis match, if you hit a ball on a certain side I have to go there, but If I stay in the same spot I’m never going to hit the ball.

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Tom Hopkins started in real estate, he was a sales failure and rose to become one of the best. The art of sales is to become a master asker not a talking teller. One of the biggest mistakes was that when he started the thought he had to be really talkative, then realizing that the art of sales is more questioning and listening than talking and telling.

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In the beginning he was trying to fill any void of silence with talk, he didn’t really master the art of asking questions. The most successful of his mentors said "stop talking and telling and start asking and listening". That’s when he said he was going to become a master asker. We, as sales people, talk too much and end up losing sales.

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If people would open their minds up to the fact that selling is not a pushy aggressive situation, it’s an artform that is very learnable if you are coachable. Find coaches that you relate to, you feel the way they come across with you and you take their ideas.

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Tom would listen to Doug Edwards’ records, hour after hour, take notes, write down his phraseology, and then it started to become him. That’s when you start growing, when you internalize what you learn from others and then it’s not them anymore it becomes you, and you become more effective at not only communicating, establishing rapport, helping bring down defence barriers and people that are afraid of being sold.

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Visit us at our Black Belt Selling Facebook group.

The author and entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz talks to us about how to prioritize profit in our business

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Mike Michalowicz is the entrepreneur behind three multimillion-dollar companies as well as the author of “Profit first”, “The Pumpkin Plan”, “Surge”, “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur”, and his newest book, “Clockwork”.

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Former small business journalist for the Wall Street Journal, Mike regularly travels the world as an entrepreneurial advocate.

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He launched three multimillion-dollar businesses before his 35th birthday. He was awarded the New Jersey SPA’s young entrepreneur of the year award when he was just 26. He sold his first company to private equity and his second firm to Fortune 500, among many other things.

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The basic principle of business is that profit comes last, according to the classic formula you have to have sales, you subtract your expenses and what’s left over is profit.

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According to studies, 83% of businesses are not profitable, they’re always surviving check by check. After looking at the formula, Mike noticed that it was flawed, because when profit comes last, we’re saying it’s insignificant. It’s like saying that if you had a health scare, you’d put your health last.

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The formula should be “sales minus profit equals expenses”

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Logically nothing has changed in the formula, but behaviourally there has been an extraordinary change.

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When money comes into your business, immediately take a predetermined percentage for profit, and whatever that percentage is, take the money out, put it into a separate account and store it away, ideally out of sight, out of mind. Then you run your business off the remainder.

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This will force you to run your business responsibly because you’ve taken your profit first. What you have left for your business is what you have to run your business. So now you know what to operate with, and as you always have, you’ll find a way to make it work. You never put that money back in the business because that’s an expense.

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The more time you have to do something, the longer it takes to complete. In business the exact same effect happens, the more your profit grows, the more your expenses grow. As a resource contracts in its availability, then we consume less because we have to, and we also become very innovative in its use.

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By Mike writing all those books, what he’s really doing is correcting something in himself, for example, he had no clue how to handle money, so he found and worked out something that worked naturally for who he is and not the traditional method.

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On the book “Toilet Paper Entrepreneur” Mike talks about how many start up entrepreneurs believe they need education, resources, contacts, money--all these different things to get this business off the ground. When doing his research, Mike found that the lack of money causes innovation, when you don’t have experience you become the industry rule breaker, which is the best person to be.

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“The pumpkin plan” tells us about how changing the plan when growing a colossal pumpkin by somewhat changing the process, the growth changes, and in business sometimes we change many things and the business remains the same, so he found that by fixing a few things can put the business in a position for colossal growth.

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On “Surge” he speaks about catching momentums of markets equated to surfers. You swim towards the wave, when you’re upon the wave it raises you for the ride. In business, we have to identify the next imminent wave, the next opportunity that’s shifting thru the market that’s very easy to spot when you focus on a niche, when you see the wave of the market you get on top of it and go for the ride, catching the momentum of the market.

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The book “Clockwork” is about designing a business to run itself. When owning a business, we compromise a lot of time, missing time with ourselves, with family, missing life. That’s why we need to find a way to design our business in a way that it can operate without us, thus giving us the freedom to do what we want in life.

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You can get Mike Michalowikz’s books at his website: mikemichalowicz.com

In this episode we talk to the LinkedIn Marketing specialist, AJ Wilcox

The founder of B2Linked.com, AJ Wilcox has managed hundreds of accounts and a combined 100 million dollars in adspend on LinkedIn. He has worked directly with several of the top 10 LinkedIn accounts.

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AJ Wilcox got recruited into a technology company in Utah to run all their digital marketing. On his first day he went out and presented his marketing plan, she said that it was great and to go ahead and execute it and let him know that they started a pilot using LinkedIn ads, and told him to see what he could do with it. Said yes, and then asked himself what he'd gotten himself into. He'd never heard of LinkedIn ads.

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Went into the platform, tried to figure things out, and within about two weeks one of the sales guys came up to him and said that they had no idea what he was doing but that they loved his leads, they were fighting over them, and to keep it up.

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Went into their CRM (Sales Force), looked at all the leads that this was dispositioning, and all of them that he was talking about were from LinkedIn. At that time, it was not the only channel he was running. Kept investing and growing in LinkedIn, until he grew to become the world's largest LinkedIn advertiser.

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What can you do on LinkedIn ads that you can’t do on other platforms?

• Specific targeting.
• You can reach specific people by their job titles, company sizes and industry among other things.

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Even though the clicks on LinkedIn are much more expensive than on other platforms, the leads are of much higher quality. It’s the same people are using both platforms, but on other platforms (like Facebook) it’s more difficult to find a professional person because it contains a lot of personal information and little to no business information.

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If you’re looking to reach a CEO that works for a company with more than 500 employees in the United States, you know that you’ll find specific targets that fit that criteria, and thus creating a high-quality lead. The approach on Facebook is very wide, therefore getting a lot of unqualified people.

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Websites are not enough anymore, now you need a website like you used to need a storefront, but now with social media you have to be engaged and you have to reach people through social media.

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Bring your AMO to social advertising (Audience, Message and Offer)

• Audience: Nailing down your targeting.
• Message: How are people actually seeing your add, imagery, video, what your add copy is like.
• Offer: What is it that you're offering to someone in order to get their attention.

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Who LinkedIn ads are for

If you don't fit in this category, then you should save your dollars. AJ has launched hundreds of accounts so that we can find out what works and what doesn't work.

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Three verticals that work really well:

1. High value B2B lead generation. To close deals that are worth $15,000 dollars or more to you over the lifetime of that deal.
2. White collar recruiting. If you're a technology company trying to fill in 30 or 40 new seats this year, then using LinkedIn ads is probably a really good thing to use.
3. Higher education. MBA programs, PhD programs trying to recruit students. LinkedIn has very good targeting in regard to education. What they study, what degree they have, what degree they don't have to be able to target.

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To keep up-to-date with our weekly podcasts at Black Belt Selling, join our Facebook Group. We interview business leaders and achievers - someone new every week!

This is a Podcast about Podcasting and we interview the best man to talk about it - Rob Greenlee

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In today's Black Belt Selling episode, it is a podcast about podcasting. We interview Rob Greenlee - Head of Partnerships at Voxnest. Voxnest provides podcasters with business solutions for their broadcasting needs. Whether you’re looking to distribute, monetize, analyze or manage your podcast’s administration, they have it all.

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Rob Greenlee is the former founder and lead host of WebTalk World Radio Show and Zune Insider podcast. He clearly knows a lot about Podcasting and has done for many years now. He also works for spreaker.com as Head of Podcast Content.

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Rob along with his company Voxnest help people to develop a career in Podcasting and they work with media companies to help develop their programs.

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Here are some notes we took during the podcast about podcasting interview but we encourage you to listen to the podcast itself so that you get all the information in its context.

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What is Podcasting?

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Episodic series of digital or audio files which a listener or user can download and listen to.

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Podcasting and its current state

• Half million of shows have been created globally in this medium; half of which is currently active today and produced by the United States in terms of global expansion, but also within Europe, Australia and other countries around the world.
• There is also a life in other countries in terms of Podcasting and more people are embracing this kind of medium and producing content for their local countries.
• Podcasting today is evolving and permeating to other media types.
• Podcasting is also produced in TV shows, stories in movies.

Before now, Podcasting had slightly less attention and was put in the backseat due to social media attention, but later on due to the violation of trust and experiences in privacy issues on social media, many are using Podcasting now because it is a safer medium and people are putting more energy into creating content via a podcast.

Now, there is a new evolution of listening experiences. Example: dash ports in cars for podcast listening, smart speakers etc.

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Advantages of Podcasting

• Podcasting platforms is a great way to meet a lot people and interview people from across the world and be part of one show.
• It’s a great contributor for advertising trends and is inexpensive.
• You can make money from Podcasting.
• Helps Hosts of the program make money from the show by endorsement and get paid (example: like radio Ad endorsement).
• Building relationships with people.

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Three Trends in Podcasting

• Dynamic Ads – preformed ads adapted by advertising agencies.
• Host Endorsement
• Crowdfunding  

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How to start a Podcast

• Set your goals and what your accomplishments will be by having a podcast.
• Know what you want to start doing and what you want to bring focus on.
• Know what show or ads you want to build. If it is selling, advertising, consultancy etc.
• Know your listeners.
• Know what the listener wants
• Build relationships with people

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To keep up-to-date with our weekly podcasts at Black Belt Selling, join our Facebook Group. We interview business leaders and achievers - someone new every week!

Organizational Tools for Booking Your Sales Calls

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In today's Black Belt Selling Podcast episode, we interview Zachary Sexton - Productivity and Automation Consultant. Zachary sourced and experimented with various automation and organizational tools out of necessity to make his own business run more smoothly and effortlessly and now he teaches others how to do the same.

When you want more clients but don't have the time to get them. He has developed systems and tools to help you automate client acquisition.

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Here are the organizational tools that are discussed during this Black Belt Selling Episode

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Trello

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Trello is a great and easy to use project manager, communication tool and delegation tool. It is free to sign up for Trello.

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Ask Siri

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You can ask Siri : "Siri remind me to follow up in a week" That is a super simple reminder tool. If you have an iPhone 6s or later, hold down the Home button, then say what you need. If you say, "Hey Siri" you can activate Siri without pressing the Home or Side button. You can even talk to Siri in your car!

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Boomerang

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Boomerang works with Outlook and Gmail. You can schedule emails to go out at a later date You can also configure it in such a way that you are notified if an email recipient has not read the email or clicked a link on the email. This will prompt you to follow up.

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People are usually organized enough to do their sales presentations but so many fall down with follow up. How can we improve in our follow up? Followup is the same as any other sorts of work. We just need to create a system that brings awareness to it Trello is a good reminder tool but it's manual and you have to remember to check.

Drip-freed helpful information or an entire course through a system like MailChimp. This is good for when people are not ready to talk to you, you can nurture them by engaging them with regular information.

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TextExpander

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TextExpander helps you to create email templates and keyboard shortcuts to send them out. TextExpander lets you instantly insert snippets of text from a repository of emails, boilerplate and other content, as you type – using a quick search or abbreviation.

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Setting up Meetings

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Easiest system is Calendly

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Utilize a scheduler. Put the link in the footer of your email, your bio of LinkedIn, the header of Twitter - everywhere you can. It's great to allow them to pick a time. They have the freedom and head space to book with you at a time that fits their calendar. Often when we ask for an appointment, people get defensive because they are so busy. Let them book with you rather than you book with them. With a scheduler, you can't double book yourself because it refreshes itself so often.

Some of the schedulers will automatically send your prospect reminder emails as the appointment approaches. This way, you don't have to worry about remembering to do it or spending time doing it. This feature makes meeting automation a great organizational tool.

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How to avoid booking appointments with people who you don't want an appointment with

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Before inviting people to book with you ask them a few questions. Some of the scheduling tools such as Calandly also allow you to ask questions at the point of booking, "TypeForm" is a good tool for this but there are many. Typeform is an online tool that specializes in online form building and online surveys. Its main software creates dynamic forms based on user needs

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Return on Investment in Time

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If you are small and rarely book appointments then a scheduler is hardly worth setting up. However, let's say you spend around an hour a week on admin booking appointments and issuing reminders. An automated system would save you a lot of time over time.

Test your systems regularly and make sure they are doing what you want them to do.

For more information, visit Zachary Sexton's site: automateyourbooking.com and sign up for the free 5 lesson course.

Life Skills for Success with Interviewee Stephen Warley

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In today's episode of Black Belt Selling, Stephanie Scheller interviews Stephen Warley - a self-employment and self-management coach on the topic of: Life Skills for Success in Business and Sales. Steven Warley's mission and that of his company "Life Skills That Matter" is:

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To relieve people of their work anxieties by empowering them to design their own work.

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During the interview he tells us:

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There is a much larger population of people who can work for themselves but they are limited by the belief that only special people who are born with these life skills can do it. However, life skills CAN be taught.

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He goes on to say:

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The best way to teach people about business and sales is to teach them about life skills for success first

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‍The most important life still is self-awareness. We need to track ourselves and learn from the data. We need to stop everything we do at least once a week for reflection and course correction.

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The Sales Process of the Top Performers

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1. They do their homework - Who am I trying to reach and why? How are they feeling? Where can I find this information? Who can I talk to? Understand their problem better than they can.

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2. They are constantly reaching out - This means different things to different people. What is your communication habits? Do you like to talk a lot, are you more of a listener? Are you online or offline?

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Learn how to design sales in a way that will work for you. You will have your own version of communicating with others and solving their problems even if you are an introvert, you can fashion how you are going to reach out to the world.

These are not "To Do" list items, these are habits we need to create.

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‍A 3 Step Formula

• See it
• Have the confidence to fix it
• Make it a habit

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Here are some more snippets from the interview in no particular order

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• The 20th Century selling method of  "selling ice to Eskimos" anymore - If it's not working, move on.
• Understand yourself and then create that alignment
• Sales is like dating - you can't date everybody, you have to find the people who "get you"
• Life skills are timeless
• Learn how to manage yourself and manage your relationships with other people
• EVERYBODY is in sales whether they know it or not. Every time you negotiate with someone - even if it is what restaurant to eat in - you're selling
• Are there a limited number of jobs in the world? You may think there is a limit. How many problems are there in the world? Most people would say an unlimited number of problems. If there are unlimited needs met then there are an unlimited number of jobs and opportunities out there
• The beginning of the sales process is more important than the end
• Sales come in the end because of work put in first.
• When sales are going well, that is the time to work harder
• When things are going well people will sense your confidence and enthusiasm
• When you are desperate for a sale, people sense that too no matter how hard you try to mask it
• They are buying you, your product and your enthusiasm for their mission
• If you are not enthusiastic about their mission they will smell it. Move one, find someone you are in alignment with

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We strongly urge you to listen to the whole business podcast. Stephen Warley has very important points that can help you improve your life skills for success. If you like what you hear, you should check out his website lifeskillsthatmatter.com

For more great business and selling tips and to interact with us, join our facebook group facebook.com/groups/blackbeltselling

For business coaching, book an appointment with Anna Scheller

Become a better salesperson by selling with emotional intelligence

In today's podcast, Anna and Stephanie Scheller discuss the topic of selling with emotional intelligence. Emotional selling will definitely get you more deals if you can improve this area of your selling skills.

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Emotional Selling is totally applicable to business to business sales

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There are 2 kinds of sales B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer). While it's immediately logical to assume that B2C emotional selling is useful, when it comes to B2B sales we tend to think that emotion is not relevant and that it's more about figures, profits and spreadsheets.

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48% of people in a B2B environment may want to buy but they are afraid of risk

74% will see the value but will not move forward because they are afraid

So there you have it - the feeling of fear is an emotion!

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Business Value vs Personal Value

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There are 2 kinds of value that people perceive - Business value and Personal value. Business value is more logical and rational. Personal value is more emotional. Our presentations will have twice as much impact on someone who perceives personal value even if this is in a B2B environment.

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When Money is the issue of the sale

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Once people perceive personal value, they are 68% more likely to purchase at a higher price because they see the value. It's the value they are looking for that counts and not the value that we think they need. When there is not the emotion or value then money becomes an issue and a talking point. If you tend to offer discounts a lot, this could be an indication that you need to be selling with emotional intelligence.

The key is to listen and to interpret not only the surface level stuff but connect on the subconscious level.

• If we are talking, we are not selling
• Only by listening can we find out what their needs are
• Don't get so caught up in your script that you fail to listen and respond accordingly
• Know the right time to close. Don't close before the relationship is ready
• Sales is a tough job, learn to connect emotionally with people to be more successful

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Hit that play button and listen to Anna and Stephanie on this week's Black Belt Selling Business Podcast as they discuss emotional intelligence in selling. For more great selling tips, join them n their Facebook Group. If you would like some 1 to 1 sales training then book a consultation with Anna.