Advertise on podcast: Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

Don’t feel like you’re earning what you’re worth? Consider this: When you outproduce what you earn, it creates friction. It creates a bit of tension. And in most well-run businesses, the organization says, “this person needs to be compensated more.” If that’s not happening in the organization you’re with, if you are outproducing what you’re earning, it means that there are plenty of opportunities for you somewhere else that will actually recognize and appreciate that value and reward you accordingly. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be asking the question, are you earning what you’re worth? Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David, it’s great to be with you again. And as I was thinking about this question, I realize I’m not sure I know what I’m worth. I know some people who say, my time is worth this much money. If I’m not making it, I have to change something or do something. I’m not there yet. I’m just not. David: Yeah. I think you’re not alone. I think there are a lot of people who struggle with this. The real challenge comes in the last half of the question. You know what you’re worth because you can’t answer the question until you determine that part of it. Are you earning it? Well, I don’t know. I have to know what I’m worth. Or I have to decide what I’m worth, choose what I’m worth. Choose what I think I’m worth. I’ve said this to a number of people over the years. The reason that I ended up getting into business myself is that I couldn’t find anyone else who was willing to pay me what I thought I was worth. Right? You work in different jobs and say, okay, I feel like I’m worth more than this. Well, when you start your own business, you earn what you’re worth. Because if you’re not producing anything, you’re not earning anything. And if you start earning, then whatever you’re producing justifies it. And so essentially you’re earning what you’re worth. But even with all that, those of us in sales or those of us who own businesses, may still feel like the work we’re doing is costing us too much in terms of time and energy and effort and not producing what we’re looking for in terms of financial results. That’s why I ask the question. Jay: Yeah. I think it is so important that there’s other ways to be paid for your worth. You know, if you’re in a place where you get job recognition, where they listen to your ideas, where you can climb up the ladder, for a lot of people that’s worth more than the bottom line paycheck. Now, if they’re not getting enough to pay their bills, then obviously cash is king. But all the surveys I’ve seen say that people would take less money if they felt like they could get rewarded in other ways. Now, when you’re working for yourself, that equation changes completely. David: Yeah. And I mean, a lot of times people start their own business. They do their own thing because they figure it’s going to give them all sorts of time freedom and things that they don’t have in a regular job. And very often they find out it’s exactly the opposite. I think it was Michael Gerber, the author of the EMyth who talked about the fact that there are a lot of people who work for other companies and they say to themselves, “okay, this guy’s a jerk. I’m going to start my own business.” And they stop working for a jerk and they start working for a maniac… themselves. And when I heard that line I’m like, “that is so true.” So often we will do things in our own businesses that we would probably never do for another employer. We wouldn’t put in the amount of hours, thought, and all that sort of thing. Now, there are employees who do that. There are employees who are really focused on that and who really give their all to a job. But when you are an entrepreneur, particularly if you’re a solo entrepreneur, when you’re doing your own thing, you’re the business. And so the things that you do have to count, they have to matter. And the actions we take have to generate. enough of a result that we’re able to get the kind of money that we need to make just to maintain the business, let alone earn a good living. Jay: Yeah. And don’t you think we kind of romanticize what it is to be an entrepreneur? To be a small business person? You know, we picture all the good. , you know, all the freedom that we’re going to have and everything else. And sometimes what we did is we gave ourself twice the work and half the pay. And so, it becomes hard when you think, what your worth? But you just can’t figure out how to get there. David: Yeah, exactly. And it is very romantic in the early stages. You have this idea of what it’s likely to be like. But that is often very different from how it actually works out. So whether someone is an employee or an employer, the idea of earning what you’re worth starts with identifying, okay, well, what am I worth or what would I like to be worth in terms of dollars, in terms of time freedom, in terms of relationship freedom, all that sort of thing. Because it all plays into it. If you are a people person and you like interacting with other people, and suddenly you’re forced to work by yourself from home, that’s going to be an issue for you. So for some people, currency is interacting with others. And so we have to think in terms of what’s important to me as far as my work life is concerned? Does it involve interacting with a lot of other people? Does it involve learning things? Because there are some people who are real learners and they like to constantly be learning new things and testing new things and applying new things. And for them that can really get them fired up and that can be a form of currency as well –learning new things, growing within a job, growing in terms of responsibility. Because all of that is designed to increase your worth to the business, but really, ultimately to the market, which is the most important thing. If you’re able to increase your value to the market, the people who buy from your company, then your value goes up. And sometimes we try to increase our value to an employer, and maybe the employer just has a certain view that’s not going to line up with that. So I feel like whenever we focus on trying to increase our value to the marketplace, we’re likely to create better results. Jay: Hmm. I think that’s an excellent point. I think also if you can really establish what your time is worth, if you can come up with an equation, then you can start knowing when and how you should delegate, right? Because if you are doing things that are not worth your time, then you’re wasting time. You know, we talk about time capital, right? And we talk about delegation a lot on this podcast. But if you think your time is worth $150 an hour and you’re doing something that you could pay somebody $18 an hour, well, then you’re not going to make what you think you need to make. And so you’ve got to figure out those equations. And sometimes it takes time to do that. David: Yeah, exactly. And it’s also important to think in terms of what is it that’s holding you back? We need to focus on what is the bottleneck that is keeping us from earning the amount of money we want to earn or whatever it is that we want to earn as a result of the work that we’re doing. And just as in manufacturing, in the book The Goal by Eli Goldratt. He talked about the idea that there’s usually one primary bottleneck in a manufacturing organization. It’s easy to visualize, because if there’s one machine in the middle of a company and that’s designed to churn out the product and that machine is broken, you’ll have people on the front end of the machine who are trying to load it up and they can’t do it. You’ll have people on the back end of the machine who can’t unload it. And shipping people who can’t ship it, and salespeople who can’t sell it, because they can’t produce it because of that one thing. When you are in sales yourself or when you own a business yourself, it’s not always easy to see the one thing that’s keeping it from happening. Particularly when you’re in sales. Because we think of sales as reaching out to people, talking to people, having conversations, closing sales, delivering product, that sort of thing. But within the sales process itself, there are various stages. Is the bottleneck in the prospecting that I’m doing? Am I reaching out to the wrong people? Am I attracting the wrong people in the marketing that I’m doing? Are my conversations not going the direction they need to go? Am I not being persuasive enough? Not responding to questions and concerns? Am I not addressing complaints? There are a lot of different areas there, and just one of them can be the same bottleneck as the bottleneck in the manufacturing facility. If you’ve got one particular thing that is slowing you down, the most important thing you can do is to identify that one thing. Because everything else you do around that is not going to produce the result. All the potential that you have for growing is behind that rock, essentially. If you’re going down the street and you come to a place where the road is completely blocked off, there’s a gigantic boulder and there’s no other way to get there, you got to figure out, “how am I going to get around this boulder?” Same thing in sales. We have to. What is it that is keeping us from earning what we feel we are worth? Now, sometimes it could be we just think we’re worth more than other people think we’re worth, at which point we either need to start our own business or we need to prove it. We need to generate results that are far more in excess of what we’re being paid to demonstrate that we’re worth it. And when you start to do that, when you take responsibility, it’s a whole lot e

Very often, inferior competitors play the price card: Jay: I get that question. “Well, I talk to your competitor and they’re less expensive than you are.” Now I have to find a way to let them know, yeah, we are more expensive, but there’s a reason. It’s because we’re very good at what we do. We have certain guarantees that they don’t, or whatever it is. David: Yeah. A pack of cigarettes is cheaper too, but that can also kill you. No, that would not be a good answer. But sometimes it’s what we feel like saying… David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host, Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of losing business to inferior competitors. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: It’s good to be here, David. This is one of the most frustrating things for me when I know that I have a better product. I have better customer service. I know this because I’ve heard complaints about my competitor. But you lose it to them for whatever reason. Well, that can really ruin your day , and it can also affect your business. David: It really can. Just this idea and even the words “inferior competitors” makes you think. Probably anyone in business who has competitors that you’ve run into has had this experience. And you’re like, I can’t believe they went with that person instead of us. You know that what you have is so much better and offers so much more. You know it will transform the person in positive ways so much more than if they go the other way. And yet they go in that direction. It can be extremely frustrating. So when we think about how to avoid losing business to inferior competitors, there are a number of different things that we can do. But I think it starts with recognizing, first of all, that they’re out there. That there are a number of people out there who are not as good as we are. Then it’s about how can I communicate that to my prospects without sounding bitter or frustrated? That can be a challenge sometimes. Jay: Yeah, I agree. I have people regularly ask me, what’s the difference between you and your competitor? And I find that you have to be very careful with this question. And the tactic that I’ve chosen is to say, here’s the value that we can bring you. Here’s what I know we can do. I try and steer it back or say, “I haven’t worked with them directly. “But let me tell you this is where we shine.” I know we’re going to bring you success in this way.” Because it’s always been weird to me that somebody would believe what I say about my competitor. I’m the worst person to ask. It’s like in politics when somebody runs an attack ad. Why would you believe the guy, you know what I mean? It ‘s the worst person to ask, but we put so much faith and trust in it. David: Right. One of the things that we do when people ask us is to say, “listen, anything I say is obviously going to be biased. Why don’t I fill you in on some of what our customers have said about that topic? Then we have videos, audios, and written testimonials of customers who worked with us. We’ll point them to that. And allow them to hear what other people just like them are saying about the products and services we offer. Sometimes there are situations where a customer will talk about a bad experience they had with one of our inferior competitors and the reason they came to us. So sometimes we’ll share those stories as well. Say, well, listen, I can’t tell you this personally. I’ve never personally dealt with this other company. But you know, we’ve had a number of customers who were dealing with them in the past, and here are the reasons they gave for switching over to us. They said that they found that we do this better and this better and this better. I don’t know if you’ve ever had any experience with that company. But if you have, you might have noticed those things as well. But either way, I can tell you that these are the things where we’re going to be very likely to provide you with better service in those areas. Jay: Yeah, that’s great. And I don’t want to skip over what you said about having customer reviews and testimonials available. That’s got to be an important part of your sales process because, you know, I have people ask me all the time, well, can I talk to somebody who’s worked with you? And in my particular line of work, my customers don’t want to receive calls every day to give references to people. But if you have a system, you know, if you use an online customer service rating system, or if you have, as you said, recorded video testimonials, that’s all very important. But you have to make a concerted effort and have a system to get those and a place to post those. David: Yeah. One of the places where we got a lot of them was at trade shows. We would be at trade shows and people would come up to the booth and they would start telling us a story. Oh, I love your program. I was able to bring in three new accounts as a result of this. And we’d say, wait, wait, hang on a second. Would you do me a favor? Stand over here. We’d put them in front of our booth where our logo is, and say, “I just want to shoot a quick video. Just tell your story to my camera. Okay?” “Start out with your name, your company name, and what happened. Okay. Ready? Go!” And then they would say their name and their company name and they’d say what happened. And they’d just rattle off these beautiful testimonials that were straight from the heart. They weren’t scripted, there were no bullet points. They were just saying what they came up to us to say. And then we put those on our website. We have a page on our website. We call it The Wall of Fame, and that’s for people who have had successful experiences with our program and wanted to share those experiences. It’s at TopSecrets.com/results if you’d like to see our Wall of Fame page. And so a lot of times now when we have new customers, we’ll say to them, Hey, take a look at this page. I would love for you to be our next testimonial on the Wall of Fame. And now they can just shoot them from their own homes on their own iPhones and that sort of thing and send it in like that. But a lot of times, when you deliver what you promise to people, they’re more than happy to do that sort of thing if you just ask them. Now, some people are a little shy, they’re a little more hesitant to do that. But in those cases, even if they send you an email and maybe a publicity photo that they might have on their website, you can use the photo next to the quotes of what they said. You can pull out a headline of something they said that was particularly important. Put that at the top in bigger letters as a headline. So they see the headline, they see the person’s face. And then they see the description of exactly what they said. It just adds credibility. And it also gives them a chance to promote themselves and their brand because it would have their logo or their company name on it as well. So it’s really a win for everyone as long as what you’re doing actually delivers the results you’re promising. Jay: Yeah, I think that’s brilliant. And I think the other part of that is if you can have a system that encourages people who’ve had a good experience to refer their associates, other companies, people they’re working with to you. This can either be done as you know, on your website, you can have 10% off if you refer a friend, or it could be part of your phone call process. Hey, just, is there anybody else you can think of that would benefit from our services? Because more than anything else, more than anything that I see online, if I hear a referral from somebody who has said I’ve used them, there’s nothing more powerful in business, to me, and the way I look at who I’m going to choose to do business with. David: Exactly. And as you pointed out earlier, it’s not like you’re going to be giving out phone numbers of all your best clients and having them annoy them at work because that’s the quickest way to annoy your best clients. I’ve had situations where people ask me that question and I said, well, we don’t give out our customer’s contact information, but take a look at our Wall of Fame and if you have any questions, let me know. And they’ll look at it and they’ll see page after page and video after video of people telling their own words and their own stories. They’ll say, well, you know, I’d really like to talk to somebody. And I’ll say, well, you know what? I’m not going to give out that information because it’s more important for me to protect my customers than it is to bring in a new one who’s still skeptical after seeing all that stuff. But I’ve also had people who have actually dug up the information. They go to the Wall of Fame, they find the person’s name, they look them up, and they call them and they talk to them. So since it’s rare that that happens, sometimes the people on the Wall of Fame will call and say, Hey, I got a call from somebody. I’m like, well, listen, I didn’t give out your number. They must have checked you out. And at that point, you know, they’re fine with it. They’re not upset about it. But people can be funny with that, you know, it’s like, no, I must speak to the person. But I’ve got to tell you, the times that’s happened, most of the time those people are just using it as an excuse and they don’t end up becoming customers anyway, or they don’t end up becoming good customers, the ones who actually insist on doing that. If they can’t extrapolate after seeing testimonial, after testimonial, after testimonial, then they’re probably not a good fit to begin with. Jay: Yeah. And I think having the testimonials, I love the idea of the Wall of Fame, can be really helpful if you’re more expensive than your competitors. Because you know, you may be on the prem

If you’re still feeling overwhelmed, it’s often just a good idea to take a moment and consider: What exactly is it that I’m struggling with at the moment? What are the specific things that make me feel overwhelmed? Then, what’s the one thing I really need to be doing right now and what’s the next step I can take toward making that happen? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be continuing our discussion on how to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. It’s good to be back and I’m really glad we’re following up on this topic because after we recorded the last podcast, we kind of sat around and continued the discussion and thought, we need to share this with everybody as well. Before we were talking about self-awareness. But it really occurs to me that who you surround yourself with, especially on those days when you’re feeling overwhelmed, that’s going to be really important. David: Absolutely. And as you said, we started talking about it after the last podcast and the conversation got so good, I’m like, “we need to hit record and just keep going on this topic.” Because you raised a great point, particularly related to who we’re surrounding ourselves with. And very often when we are in that negative state that we had talked about in the previous episode, where we bring the wrong “us” to work, or the wrong us shows up to work, you know, the unmotivated, unfocused version of ourselves show up. When we do that, we limit the kind of people that we’re even going to be able to interact with. Because most other motivated, focused people don’t really want to be around that version of us. And so the more we bring that version of ourselves to work, the less likely we are going to be to get in front of other people who are going to help pull us out of whatever it is that we are stuck into. Jay: Yeah, and I think the exception to that, and I’ve experienced this, is if you have people who know you well enough and you’ve built trust with them and they are able to tell you and point out, you know, is everything okay? Because you kind of feel like you’re off your game a little bit today. You know, if you surround yourself with yes men, then you’re not going to get that. And if you surround yourself with people who are negative all the time, then they’re going to be bringing you down even on the good days. So being able to assess your team and hire appropriately is so critical, and I don’t think people really think about it in those terms. David: I agree completely. I also think that when people tend to give into those emotions, when they give into the overwhelm and they just basically withdraw and say, “no, I can’t do it, I’m out.” At that point, what are they leaving to themselves? I mean, they’re really leaving the opposite. And there are people who will unintentionally feed into that. If you say, ” I’m just overwhelmed. I don’t feel like doing this.” They’ll say, “well, that’s okay,” you know, “Hey, you don’t have to do it.” And maybe that’s true, and if it’s something that’s not good for you, you definitely shouldn’t do it. But if it’s something that you were committed to, that you really wanted to be able to accomplish, and you’re having an off day and you make a decision like that, in a lot of cases, there’s no going back on that. Jay: Yeah, you’re exactly right. And so in that point you need somebody to say, “look, this is really important. We plan this out. You got this.” You know, this is really important because if we can close this sale, then it’s going to propel us forward. If you can surround yourself, at least have one person on your team like that, what a game changer. But I think when we’re interviewing people, we’re thinking more about will they be able to accomplish a specific task, more than we’re saying, will they fit into our culture and will they be somebody who brings me down or brings me up and helps move the whole team forward? David: Yeah, and even in our personal lives, there are times and there are people in our personal lives where we may not be able to share exactly what we’re going through or what we’re dealing with. I mean, there are people who, if you tell them about something that’s bothering you , they’re either going to then tell you about 10 other things that they’re dealing with that are a lot worse, or they’re going to tell you that why what you’re dealing with isn’t that bad. Or they’re going to tell you that because of what you’re suffering with, now it’s going to make it worse for them because now they’re going to be worried about you. Right? There are all kinds of things that can happen in that regard. So your point about at least having one person, you can go to, to be able to say, “Hey, listen, this is what I’m struggling with. What do you recommend,” is going to be really helpful. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And it reminds me, I don’t know if you remember the old Saturday Night Live skits, Doug and Debbie Downer, who were at work and everything they did, they would just find a way to make it worse. I’ve worked with Doug and Debbie Downer and it becomes very hard to maintain momentum when you have those people. It’s a fine balance. You want somebody who can see the other side and give constructive criticism or somebody who’s just always negative. and I think that as an owner or a manager, you have to be able to identify how that person is affecting the team. And let that person know. And if you can coach them through it, great. If not, they just may not be a good fit. David: Absolutely. So looking around and deciding, okay, who am I interacting with? Who should I be interacting with? Who could I be interacting with to be able to help me out of whatever issues I’m dealing with in terms of feeling overwhelmed? That’s a big one. Another one that you raised in our time between the podcast was the idea of utilizing delegation. So let’s dig into that a bit. Jay: Yeah. Also so important, especially if you’re starting out. We’ve talked in the past about doing the things that are most important that only you can do. But if you are on your own, you know, or if it’s you and your wife or you know, starting out. You have to do everything. But it’s not true in today’s world anymore. It is so easy to hire a part-time virtual assistant. There are websites like Upwork or Fiverr that I’ve used many times now because I realize doing this one task is something that I shouldn’t be doing, because there’s so many other things that are more important for me to do. And so, I think people often think, well I don’t have money to hire a full-time or part-time employee. Well, you don’t have to in today’s world, and I love that. David: Yeah, that’s exactly right. You really can find most of the skills that you need in a way that is affordable and temporary. I know for decades, a lot of the people that I worked with in the promotional products industry really struggled with the idea of being able to get additional help. Where can I find somebody to help with sending out invoices and that type of thing? Because 20 years ago it meant you had to hire someone and have them sitting there in a chair in your office doing the work. Well, that is now no longer the case at all. It is so easy to delegate work to temporaries or virtual assistants who can do it from wherever they are, as time allows, and you get the benefit of being able to just utilize whatever time they have to do it without having to pay them to be there for 40 hours a week, to do what might just be a five or 10 hour a week job. Jay: Yeah, such a great point. But the other part of it is that’s their skill set. That’s what they do every day, right? So if you’re doing it, it’s probably not your skill set. It’s something that you have to do, you don’t want to do. When you hand it over to a professional, like in promotional products, maybe somebody will ask you for logo design or creative layout or something like that. If you’re not a graphic designer or even if you are, I’ve had stuff produced on Fiverr that it’s amazing. Because there are so many talented people there. So you can improve your product and get things off of your plate at the same time. David: Yeah. In the early days of my promotional products business, I invested in a program called Corel Draw, which of course allowed you to do graphic designs. I had no talent for doing graphic design, but I had Corell draw. And I made the mistake of thinking that if I had a tool that would allow me to create art, that I should actually create art, which was not the truth at all. It’s like saying, “here’s a bunch of paintbrushes, go paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,” right? Just because you have the tools doesn’t mean you have the skill. And so I learned fairly early on after that experience that it would make a whole lot more sense for me to pay someone to recreate a logo than for me to try to do it pixel by pixel, not being an artist, not being good at it. Because I could spend six hours on a job that would take somebody who knew how to do it, 15 minutes. And I did that very often in my business and I’d never go back to that again. Jay: No, and you don’t have to, and the product is going to be better. So finding those little ways to offload things that you shouldn’t be doing. I always feel like your goal should be doing the things that only you can do. And then if you can delegate the rest to other people, you’re going to have fewer of those days when you’re overwhelmed. But then, probably the subject of another podcast. How do you then keep that team moving forward? How do you delegate and follow up? Because if you do that wrong, if you micromanage, things like that, then yo

To stop feeling overwhelmed at work and get more done, consider which version of you is showing up. Some days the you that shows up is the focused, motivated, energized, action-taking you. And some days the you that shows up is the unfocused, unmotivated, lethargic, non-action-taking you. When we recognize this in advance, we can do a couple of things. One is to say, “okay, I don’t really like the me that showed up today. Can I get myself in gear? Take some sort of action? Can I get myself motivated? Or will I at least take the next step?” Will I take one small step in the direction of accomplishing what I’ve told myself and others that I intend to do? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of how to avoid getting overwhelmed. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. It’s great to be here, and this is such an important topic, especially for the entrepreneur. There are so many different things going on. And oftentimes you have to be the front office, the back office, you have to fulfill the orders. I mean, there are just so many things, and keeping track of it can be very difficult. David: It can. Before we even really dive in too much, I just want to point out, first of all, we are not experts in the mental health field at all, right? So if you’re struggling with actual mental health issues, this is not the podcast to listen to. But if you’re in sales, marketing or business ownership, dealing with the day-to-day and occasionally feeling overwhelmed, that’s what we’ll be talking about. If you’re feeling a little overwhelmed or stressed in business, that will be the discussion at hand today. As you were saying, Jay, most of us have this situation at one point or another when you’re in business, particularly when you’re in sales. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed on some days. It’s like, “I don’t feel like making the calls,” or “I’m struggling with this or that.” And just that thought alone can stop some people in their tracks and cause them to not move forward. Jay: Yeah. I think first of all, it’s important to tell people it’s okay to feel overwhelmed. I mean, that’s the reality for most people. But if that feeling becomes a stress paralysis, like I’ve experienced, like there are so many things going on. I don’t know which one I should be focusing on, so I end up doing less instead of more. That can really be damaging to your business. David: It absolutely is. I find that in a lot of cases, the things that cause us to feel overwhelmed are when we focus on all the different things that we have to do or all the different things that have to be done. It’s the fact there are too many things coming at us at once. Sometimes it’s the habit of looking at everything, as opposed to looking at the one thing or the next thing that I can do, which would allow us to move forward. I’m sure that sounds very simplistic, and to some degree it is. But when we’re struggling with that, a lot of it really becomes about our focus. How tightly can we narrow our focus so we can actually concentrate on doing just one thing? What’s the one, tiny, next thing I can do to move forward so I don’t just give up? Jay: Yeah, and a lot of people I think, sometimes want to give up. But I think it’s really important to do some work in advance here. If you don’t have a list or a plan that talks about all of those things that need to be done and maybe prioritize them. If you don’t have that done, then it’s going to be very hard, like you said, to say, what is the one thing I should be doing right now? Because you haven’t taken the time to plan ahead and even know, so, then it becomes “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” right? And sometimes that squeaky wheel is just the last thing that you should be doing. David: Yeah, that is exactly true, and it happens to probably all of us at one point or another where there are a lot of things to do, and as you said, whatever is making the most noise, whatever is rattling our cage at the moment gets done when in actuality, that might be something that either shouldn’t be done at all, or it should be something that should be prioritized or de-prioritized to move down farther on the list. I think it’s also important to understand that all of us have good days and bad days. And whenever we make life-altering decisions on bad days, it’s usually not a good outcome. So part of it also is just recognizing when we’re having the kind of days where we are feeling overwhelmed when we’re feeling like things are too much, and then maybe just sort of holding off on making big important decisions until we feel like we’re in better control of our thoughts and our direction and our focus. Jay: So I think what you’re really talking about, this pre-planning and being aware of how you feel, it’s self-awareness. I think that may be one of the hardest skills to master is understanding at all times how you feel and are you prepared to do something. Often, even that bad day, as you said, is going to send us in a certain direction and the next day we’re going to regret it. That’s what we’re trying to avoid. Right? David: Yeah, because what also happens is that a lot of times when we give into these feelings, if I’m feeling overwhelmed and I say, okay, well I’m just not going to do that. I’m going to bail out on this and I’m going to bail out on that. Right? What we’re doing essentially is we are programming ourselves to be able to do less, to be able to perform less, to be able to tolerate less. And each time we do that, it can really become a downward spiral because now instead of saying, okay, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, but what’s the one thing I can do? What’s the one action I can take on this particular project to keep this important thing moving forward? If we just give up on that or any other project that is important to us, we are training ourselves to do that going forward. Because the more we get used to and the more we create a habit of bailing out on things that make us feel a little uncomfortable, the less likely we are going to be able to do anything like that going forward, which is absolutely harmful if the goal is personal and professional growth. Jay: Yeah, such a great point. And for me, one of the tricks I learned, and I learned it from my mom, is sometimes when you feel like you can’t do anything or you’re stressed, just do something very small. I remember when she was really stressed about something and instead of sitting there and just stewing in it, she’s like, I’m going to vacuum. You know? And to me, getting the vacuuming done provided a sense of forward movement and the feeling of productivity will often feed more productivity. But sitting there doing nothing that’s just going to feed doing nothing. David: Yeah. And a lot of that I think is about getting out of your head and getting into your body, right? Getting into any kind of movement, taking action is almost always better than just, you used the word stewing, you know, stewing in your own brain and churning stuff over and over again, that’s only going to make you less efficient, less effective, less productive. And we need to avoid that at all costs. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. In fact, one of the things that I did, because I realized that I suffer from this kind of stress paralysis, is I made a list of little things that I could do. Because I realized my mood, as you said, really determines what I want to do. So sometimes blocking out your schedule is very important, and I think it depends on your personality, whether or not that works for you. But for me, I found, well, I’m going to make a list of things that I can work on and my mood kind of dictates the thing that I’m going to focus on in that minute. Now I have the type of work where I can do that, other people don’t. But that has been very helpful to me so that I can just get that moment of productivity in. And then I feel good about myself and now I can go on to other things. David: Yeah, and I think the whole idea of taking action based on our feelings, that by itself is a privilege that not everybody has. Like you were talking about, if you have a particular job and you are required to do things, then you may not feel like it, you may not be in a great mood, you may feel unmotivated, you may feel overwhelmed, but in order to keep that job, you have to continue to take action and move forward. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing for people who even aren’t in a situation like that. Those of us who do have a little more control over our schedules should probably not use that ability to take our own power away from us by giving in, by yielding to whatever negative feeling or whatever negative temptation it is that we have, whether it’s the temptation to give up or give in, or eat an entire chocolate cake or whatever your temptation is. Now we’re veering into other territory, but I think that sometimes people look at overwhelm in business as being separate or different than any other type of either not wanting to do something or wanting to do something. But ultimately it boils down to, you know, what are you committed to? What have you said you are going to do? What are you planning to do? And if you are continuing to take action on that stuff, then you’re honoring your own stated goals. And when you stop taking action on your own stated goals because you feel, whatever, overwhelmed or tired or exhausted, or whatever the words are, you just continue to disempower yourself. Jay: Yeah, disempower. That’s a great word for it. What comes to mind for me when I’m in these modes is sometimes I tell myself, “fake it until you make it.” You know, just like you said, because if I’ve got something scheduled and I don’t feel up to it, but I’ve

When you need to get prospects to respond, it’s time to fix your follow-up strategy. Think in terms of what gets your attention, what gets you to respond? What makes you want to respond when someone else is reaching out to you? That can also be a great indicator of what you may want to be saying to the other person to try to get a response from them. Now, they might not respond to exactly the same things that you respond to. But it’s possible they will, and it’s not a bad place to start… David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarlane and I will be discussing why people don’t respond. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you so much David. This is something that frustrates me in the process when I’ve made a good faith effort, I’m expecting a response and I get crickets and it, you know, it’s one of the hardest things to deal with in sales because you got to constantly be remotivation yourself and when you’re not getting a response back, it’s hard to stay motivated. David: It is. And it’s hard to not take it personally sometimes. Even though it’s very rarely personal. It’s hardly ever personal. It’s almost never personal, but it’s still hard to get past that when it’s happening. Jay: Yeah, I I totally agree with you. And again, I think you just kind of have to have that framework that you know it’s going to happen. It’s not personal and you just got to get through those. But I also think that you have to ask yourself some questions and reassess what is our communication system? I’ve found that there are people who will respond via text, but they’re never going to respond via email or they will pick up their phone or they’ll never pick up their phone. So you’re kind of learning, and I keep track of these notes as I’m trying to reach out to people. And if I can get somebody via text, that’s the way I’m going. I just will stop sending that person emails. So, I think learning along the way about each person and their preferred mode of contact is very important. David: Yeah, that is a huge one. such a great point. And I know we’ve talked about this in previous podcasts. We normally talk about it in terms of marketing and sales, but it applies just as much to telephone calls because they’re marketing, they’re sales as well. But we’ve talked in the past about the MVPs of Marketing. What is the marketing message we want to communicate? Which combination of marketing vehicles are we going to use to communicate the message? And who are the people or prospects that we need to reach? And when people are not responding? Well, the P part of it is covered. The people that we’re talking to, the person who’s not responding, that’s the person that we’re talking about. So if they’re not responding, it is either the person themselves, they’re just not going to do it. But if they are still potentially going to be engaged with us, then the reason they’re not responding is usually either the message or the vehicle, like you pointed out. They’re not going to respond to an email, but they very likely will respond to a text. Cool. That’s easy. Okay. Now we’ll communicate via text. They won’t pick up the phone, they won’t return voicemails, but they will respond to text. Great. Once you get something like that nailed down, you’re back in the saddle again. as the old song went. But a lot of times people don’t even think of that because your preferred method of communication might be different than mine. And if mine is to pick up the phone and call you again and again and again and again, which it is not. But if it were, and if your method of communication is text, then you’re not going to respond to me. You’re probably going to get annoyed at what I’m doing and I’m going to be annoyed at the fact that you’re not responding to me. And it’s a simple disconnect that can actually be addressed very quickly. But if somebody is not responding to any of the different methods of communication that you’ve tried, and today there are a lot. If they don’t respond to you on the phone, you can send them a text, you can send them an email, you can message them on social media. You can send them something in the mail. There are lots of different things that you can do. If they’re not responding to any of it, then it’s very likely either the message that you’re communicating to them where they just want to have nothing to do with you, they don’t want to communicate with you at all, or it’s the person themselves, they’re just not going to do it. And for me, it’s very helpful to try to break those things down and when people don’t respond, it’s very discourteous in my opinion. That’s a nice word that I’m using there. It’s very discourteous, and so I try to communicate that to people in as nice a way as I can. Not to say, “Hey, you’re being rude,” but sometimes if I don’t get a response to something, I’ll reply back and I’ll say, Hey, listen, I haven’t heard back from you on this. Please let me know what you’re thinking either way. I would appreciate the courtesy of a reply. And very often just those words, “I would appreciate the courtesy of a reply,” will get some sort of response. Because what it’s saying is you’re not being courteous. But it’s not actually saying that. And so a lot of times people can read that and they can say, “oh yeah, I should reply to this because it isn’t courteous.” But you’re not accusing them. Jay: Yeah. David: So things like that where you can, and I’m not suggesting you just jump right into that, “Hey, you’re being rude.” I’m not suggesting any sort of attack like that. But just pointing out to them that if you’re a professional, you want to be treated like a professional. If I’m going to treat you like a professional, I’d appreciate if you would treat me like a professional. And again, you’re not saying this, you’re not lecturing, but you’re just sort of building in the subtext that if we’re going to work together, let’s work together. If we’re not going to work together, let’s not work together. But let’s just be upfront about it because our time is valuable. Jay: Yeah. And I think that’s more for people. That’s not really a cold calling technique, right? That’s David: No. Jay: After you’ve had some initial conversation, you’ve talked about maybe moving forward, and then suddenly they’re ghosting you. Right? Which is the term that everybody uses now, right? And you’re like, you know, I thought we were moving forward and now, nothing. I’m not getting anything from you. I think that’s when you can send a message like that. Because they’ve occupied your time. Right. And you only have a certain amount of time. Time capital, right? David: Right. Jay: And so, if they’ve taken up that time with you and expressed an interest, and now they’re ghosting you, it isn’t courteous. Because they’re not recognizing or respecting the amount of work and effort that you’ve put into them. So finding ways to communicate that, and I think you have, is a very important part of the process. But I’ll be honest, it’s one that makes me nervous. So… David: Sure, absolutely. And as we talked about at the beginning of this podcast, there may be a lot of reasons they’re not responding. And a lot of it is not personal. They could be very busy, they could be very distracted. It’s possible that they’re rude or obnoxious, but usually it’s not that if you’ve already had some sort of relationship with them. If you’ve had a conversation with them that was meaningful and went somewhere and seemed like you’re on the same page, then it’s usually not that. But they could be very busy or distracted or focused on other things or working under a time deadline. But that’s all about them. So if we sort of go back to what we were talking about in our previous podcast about taking ownership of our results, then we say, okay, well what can we do about it? If we need to get a call back, if we want to get a call back and they’re not responding, can I look at some of these other marketing vehicles? Can I look at the texts? Can I look at the email and see if I can get a response back like that? What can we do? Because, once again, if we just say, “well, they’re ghosting me,” we’re not taking action on our part to correct the situation. Jay: Yeah. Yeah. And one of the other things that I’ve done is oftentimes we’re trying to get through the gatekeeper, you know, because so many people have that gatekeeper. But oftentimes you could go back to the gatekeeper. You’ve gotten through, you’ve spoken to the principal, the one who writes the checks. Now he’s not responding. Sometimes going back to that gatekeeper and saying, Hey I know he is really busy. Do you think you can get me back on his schedule? David: Mm-hmm. Jay: And that’s a way for him to reserve out time for you. He doesn’t even know it’s happening right? But suddenly you appear on the schedule and you’re calling and he’s actually had that time blocked out by the gatekeeper. So that’s one tactic I’ve used in the past. David: It’s a great one. It really is. And also in terms of the messaging, if you think in terms of what gets your attention, what gets you to respond, what makes you want to respond when someone else is reaching out to you, that can also be a great indicator of what you may want to be saying to the other person to try to get a response from them. Now, they might not respond to exactly the same things that you respond to. But it’s possible they will, and it’s not a bad place to start. Another thing that I think it’s important to consider is that there are some cases where the person that you talked to, just doesn’t believe you, They don’t believe you

I’ve seen situations like that where people are making excuses instead of sales. Somebody planned to sell something and was talking about it for a long time. But all the dominoes had to be lined up just right before they’d flick it. Flick one of them and get it going. And ultimately, nothing happened. Sometimes we have a great idea, but then it’s like, “oh, it seems like too much work” or “I don’t want to do it,” or “I’m scared,” or whatever the deal is. And unfortunately, you’re building bridges to nowhere when you do that. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing making excuses instead of sales. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. Such a pleasure to be here. And I’m excited about this topic. And I’m just going to be brutally honest upfront. I’m guilty of this very thing. As I’ve been involved in sales and sometimes numbers would drop, and the first thing I’m saying is, “well, it’s this,” or, “well, it’s that.” And the truth is it, might be. And so I think it’s important to always go back and reassess what you are doing and have you changed something or has something changed in your system? David: Yeah, it’s very easy to do. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Because whoever really wants to say ” it’s my fault?” And yet, our behavior is one of the only things that we really, truly have control over to the extent that we can get control over it, right? We can’t control a lot of outside factors, but we can largely control what we do and what we promise to do, and then try to connect the dots between those two things. Jay: Yeah. I remember I was in a training and they pointed out that so often when a mistake happens or say sales have a problem, we’re looking for the person to blame. And so often it’s not a person, it’s a system. It’s something that needs to be tweaked. But it’s so easy to just pick somebody and say, you know, “you’re the problem, you solve it.” Maybe you’re the frontline salesperson, and so you need to fix it or there are going to be consequences. And oftentimes I think that’s the wrong approach. David: Yeah, I agree. And I think the reason that this topic even came up is I had an experience, fairly recently, where I was just sort of blindsided by someone’s ability to blame every single outside factor rather than just the fact that they essentially weren’t selling. And this is common in a lot of different businesses. It’s common in a lot of different sales industries. A lot of times, “well, it’s the leads.” And if you ever saw Glengarry Glen Ross, “it’s the leads.” And I remember when I was first watching that movie, I was like, oh, that’s brutal. You know, it’s probably not the leads. And then you find out, in that particular movie, yeah, it was the leads, because they were giving them bad leads. That’s really the exception, rather than the rule though. It’s the leads, it’s the market, it’s the product, it’s the supply chain. There have been a lot of really, potentially very good excuses, a lot of different things that people can blame for their lack of producing, but none of that empowers the salesperson. None of it empowers the person who is making those excuses to actually address the issues that potentially need to be addressed. In other words, if there’s a problem with the leads, what can that person do to track down better leads? If it’s the market, are there other markets they can approach? Or are there segments of the market that they could and should be approaching? If it’s the product, are they representing the right product? Is there another product they should be selling? So for every excuse, there is normally something that the salesperson can do to address some aspect of the problem that they’re citing as being the real issue. Jay: Yeah, I think it’s so important what you’re talking about. Because I’ve been in a situation recently where we did a Google ad campaign and man, the leads were just coming in. But then we looked at our close rate, and it was just miserable. And so we had to assess, is this the type of lead we want? Because we’re spinning our wheels here. And so we had to change keywords and go through a lot of thought processes and reassess. Because in that case, it was the leads. But I also think it’s important, especially in sales, to constantly be reassessing your own performance and what you’re going through. because we fall into traps, right? And also it’s hard, the grind can be hard. And so things that you know you should be doing, you’re not this time because it’s just hard. So checking every box, every single time can be monotonous. So I think a lot of times the breakdown can just be with us. David: It can be. And it can be our failure to look at the other options that are available to us. It can be our failure to look at the issues that we’re blaming to say, “how could we potentially improve that?” And sometimes it’s not the actual situation that we think it is. In the example that you gave, you were able to determine that this group of leads worked and this group of leads didn’t. And if you got the same process, then you can say all right, we want more of the kind of leads that are going to work. Another option there would be to say, okay, is there something we can do to change the procedure on this particular group of leads to make it match? But that doesn’t always work. Sometimes it is the leads, just like in Glengarry Glen Ross. Sometimes it actually is the leads. But that doesn’t alleviate the responsibility of the salesperson to try to identify what we can do to deal with whatever situation we’re faced with. Because the problem is that if we don’t do that, we are really disempowering ourselves, and we’re training ourselves to blame outside factors that are beyond our control, which means we can never be in control. Whenever we do that, anytime we outsource responsibility somewhere else, anytime we outsource the blame to something else, then we’re completely disempowering ourselves. Jay: Yeah. I love that. That’s such a good point. Outsourcing the blame is not going to solve any problems. You know, it’s been kind of a running theme through all the podcasts that we do, that you should always be reassessing, you should always be looking at the numbers. We’ve talked about key performance indicators and saying, you know, we normally always have a good January. Now we’re not, what is going on? Is it seasonal? Is it the economy? Because we can be affected by so many things outside of our control, but if we’re not reassessing those and we can’t go back and look at where we were before, we might not even know we need to change. And then we’re outsourcing excuses as well. David: Yeah, I think there’s also a tendency for some people to think in terms of blame instead of responsibility. My thinking is it’s better if we can choose responsibility instead of blame. Choose responsibility over blame. That means you know, I’m not asking anybody to blame themselves. I’m not saying blame yourself for poor sales. What I’m saying is “what aspects of that can you take responsibility for?” Can you take the responsibility of saying, “okay, if I need better leads, I either need to dig them up myself, or I need to go to the person who provides the leads and convince that person that we need something different?” Look at whatever sliver of action you can take, whatever little thing you can do to advance the cause, because otherwise you’re just playing the victim and that never helps anyone, particularly in sales. Jay: Yeah, exactly. You know, another example… we were just recently excited. Somebody approached us, “Hey, we have this great new way to generate leads for you. It’s going to involve webinars and all of these things.” And again, it generated a decent amount of leads, but we couldn’t close any of them. And it was interesting because it felt like they were the right kind of leads. They were asking the right kind of questions. So we really spent a lot of time saying, is it us? Is it this particular client? And ultimately, we stopped using that service just because, for whatever reason, whatever it was doing, just not the ideal customer. But if we would’ve just said, oh, it’s not working, I would still today be thinking to myself, maybe we should have stuck with that longer. So try things and then tweak ’em as you go to make sure that if you’re going to not use them anymore, you’ve really done your due diligence. Otherwise, you might be chasing away good leads. David: Yeah. And I think listening skills are critical in that regard. When you’re talking to a different group of people, a different group of people that came in from a particular lead source that you’ve never done before, and you find that they’re not closing, what are they saying that is different than the other people that you normally talk to? What questions are they asking? What questions are they not asking? What questions are they not responding well to? Because a lot of times, if you get a list of people that just don’t have any money to spend, and you find that that’s a recurring motif in that particular lead source, then it’s pretty easy to understand. Okay, it’s going to be difficult to convert. But the challenge there is that there are a lot of people who have money, who pretend not to when they’re in a conversation with a salesperson. And so just because somebody says they don’t have money, very often that just means I don’t have money for you for what you’re proposing right now, because I still don’t get it. I don’t believe it. I don’t see the ROI. If you can show them the ROI, they can come up with the funds. And so that’s part of the challenge as w

When dealing with indecisive prospects, we each have to recognize our own tolerance for pain. How long am I willing to chase? How long am I willing to wait? What am I willing to sacrifice in terms of my own time and my own self-esteem? Right? And it’s different at different stages of life. I spent so much time in the past just trying to accommodate people who, ultimately, it wouldn’t have made sense to accommodate in the first place. And so for me, I recognize that it’s not always a good idea to just do that. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing indecisive prospects. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. Thank you so much. This is the bane of the existence of so many salespeople. You think you have somebody, they see the benefits, but they just can’t seem to make up their mind. And you know that you can help them. You know that if they would just do this, they would be on their way to a better place. But you just can’t get ’em over that finish line. It’s so frustrating. David: Yeah, Jay, you know, I was really struggling to decide if we should do a podcast on this topic. It was weighing on me and I’m thinking, should we do it? Should we not do it? And I went back and forth and I spent eight months, and then I decided, yeah, maybe we’ll do it. No. That approach it’s brutal and we’ve all dealt with it. The term wishy-washy comes to mind where they just can’t or won’t make a decision and it’s frustrating. But it’s also kind of unnecessary. Because when you’re dealing with someone who really is just not able to make a decision, it’s almost a disqualifier for me. And it very often becomes a disqualifier for me. Because if we’ve laid out our best-case scenario for why it makes sense to move forward with something we’re doing or not to move forward with something that we’re doing. If we do that and they still sort of go back and forth and they don’t know why or they can’t put their finger on it, then they’re probably not a good prospect. Because the problem with indecisive prospects is they go on to become indecisive clients. That means every time you want to sell something to them, they’re going to have to think about it or go away and meditate on it or whatever it is they’re going to have to do. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking for everybody. They’re not getting the result of whatever it is that they were thinking about buying from you. You’re spending a lot of time chasing them. They spend a lot of time either being chased or avoiding being chased or dodging you. So for me, it can become a disqualifier pretty quickly. Jay: Yeah, and I think you’ve actually kind of zeroed in on a larger recognition. Are we thinking about what type of customer this is going to be while we’re talking about them initially? Because it may not just be that they’re indecisive. We may through the conversation find out this client is going to be very hard to work with. They have a bazillion questions, or they seem so demanding or whatever. I think that kind of pre-assessment in the process can be very important. I also think with indecisive people, you know, you have to have your steps. Have I gone through every step of the process? Have I tried every skillset that I have in the book? If they’re still waffling back and forth, then you’re exactly right. Is this somebody that I want to be working with on a daily basis? Is it worth my time? And I think the answer is probably no. David: Yeah. Listen to what people tell you. If you’re having an interaction with someone who’s considering working with you, pay attention to what they say. If their story changes dramatically from day to day, that is a huge red flag. I had a situation recently where someone talked about how determined they were to grow their business. They wanted to get it to a certain point as quickly as possible, and the reasons that they were doing it were all very noble. They wanted to do it for their family and they wanted to reach this particular level of sales, and they wanted to do it sooner rather than later. And then two days later they decided they weren’t going to do it because they needed to do something with their house first. They needed to, you know, fix up their house before they could focus on this. And it’s like, okay, well that’s perfectly fine. Right? Everybody gets to choose their own priorities. And the person said, Hey, I’m not saying we’re not going to work together. I’m just saying that, you know, not right now. And my response was, well, you know, listen, as of the other day, your focus was on growing your business, doing very specific things to achieve a very specific result to benefit very specific people. And now your priority is to do something completely different. I understand you’re saying that we could work together in the future, but based on what you’re telling me, I’m not your guy. You know, I can’t help someone whose priorities change from day-to-day, minute to minute, second to second. I can’t help someone like that because if today you move toward Goal A and tomorrow you move toward Goal Z and those goals lie in completely opposite directions, I can’t do it. You know? No one can do it because you can’t operate in multiple directions at the same time. And so I think some of indecisiveness comes from people not being extremely clear on where they want to go in the first place. Or not committing to where they say they want to go in the first place. So for me, when people commit to going in a certain direction, I know I can help them get there faster. I know I can help them get farther in that destination. But when they’re all over the place, wow, it’s a lose-lose. Jay: Yeah. what’s so frustrating about that is in the moment when they focus, they’re in, right? They’re going to buy your product. And then the next time you talk to them, it’s as if none of that ever happened. They completely changed their mind and you’re like, wait a minute. You know, we had this figured out. We had put together a plan, and now they’re on a different planet. Man, that can be a frustrating process. So if you can identify that type of behavior earlier on, then you can move on to other people. I do think that you still want to maintain some type of contact with that person through a drip campaign or something, because eventually they may want to come back to you. But when they do, hopefully they’re ready then. David: Yeah. And I would say earlier in my career, that would be the kind of thing that I would probably continue to chase out. But again, I think you get to a certain point and you recognize certain behaviors. And for me, with what I do, we have to have congruity in our communications. We have to have congruity in our actions. So when I noticed that that’s the case, it says to me, this is not a good fit. I’m not going to be able to help a person like that. If they want to come back later and say, Hey, now I’m really focused on it, and if it makes sense, I’d be happy to do that. But for me, I’m not chasing that out and I’m not saying other people shouldn’t, I’m just saying that’s the way that I’m approaching it now, because there are so many people who get it, who are focused, who are able to maintain their focus. And those are my peeps. You know, those are the people that I’m looking to work with. And it is a relatively small subset of the population. And so when you have somebody that you think is like that, and then they may or may not turn out to be that way, you have to make those decisions according to your own guidelines and according to who you think you can help and who you think you can’t. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. And it depends on the type of business whether or not you can do this, but I’ve seen where people have steps that identify if the customer is serious. So we’ve had an initial call and I’ve said, okay, I’m going to send something over for you to look at. And then you call ’em up and you’re like, have you looked at that? And they’re like, well, no, I haven’t. Okay, they’re not progressing to step two. So I’m not going to try and progress them to step three yet, because they’re not showing that they’re moving in my direction. Not every business has clear steps like that. But if you can identify, you know, okay, in our sales process, I’ve requested information from the client so that I can get them a quote, for example. Well, if I’m having to beat myself up every day to get that information, that’s a very quick indicator that this is probably somebody that you’re not going to be able to get over the finish line right now. And so I love it if you can identify individual places where you can say, ah, it’s time to move on. David: Yeah. I also think that as a salesperson, we each have to recognize our own tolerance for pain. You know, how long am I willing to chase? How long am I willing to wait? How much am I willing to sacrifice in terms of my own time and my own self-esteem? Right? And it’s different at different stages of life. I’m feeling like some of the things I’m saying on the podcast today are dating me in terms of the way that I do things now versus the way that I used to do things. But I spent so much time in the past just trying to accommodate people who, ultimately, it wouldn’t have made sense to accommodate in the first place. And so for me, I’ve recognized that it’s not always a good idea to just do that. You know, we don’t want to wait forever. We want to be able to have respect for their time and for our time and just ask ourselves, do these people even do what they say they’re going to do? If they say they’re going to respond back, do they respond back? Are they communicative? Because if you can’t communicate with your people, as we had dis

When I say your competition isn’t that good, that most of your competition is average, what I mean is that a lot of them are not taking the time to learn the things that will allow them to do things better. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I say, your competition isn’t that good. Right, Jay? Jay: Yeah, absolutely. Do you even know who your competition is? Do you know what they offer? Do you know what people think of them compared to you? Maybe you don’t even know if your competition is that good. David: Exactly. And I hear, so many times, when I’m talking to salespeople, the idea that, there’s a lot of competition. Competition is very difficult. There’s a lot of online competition. There’s a lot of local competition. There’s a lot of price-cutting competition. There are all these different variations on competition. And that’s all true. But a lot of them really, honestly, just aren’t that good. And if you recognize right up front that most businesses are average, right? There’s an average in every business, in every industry, there’s an average. And some people are better than average. Some people are worse than average. There are a lot of average. So if you’re competing with the average or the less than average, then you should be able to do pretty well. If you’re a conscientious individual, if you’re reasonably good at what you do, if you study and practice your profession and you get reasonably good at it, you’ll be able to outperform a lot of them because to the extent that there are really exceptional competitors in your market, there are a lot less of those than there are the ones on the other side. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve always believed this, you know, you can get caught up in the muck. When I was in radio, I worked for a radio station that had a built in listenership because it was so ingrained in the community. And what that did is it made it so they didn’t have to work hard to get sales or to get numbers. Now you would think, oh man, that’s an amazing place to be. But what happened is, they started to get complacent, right? Everything was so easy, and then all of a sudden ratings started to shift and suddenly they realized, we don’t know how to sell. Because we’re so used to sitting at a desk and the phone is ringing. And we’re just taking orders. So you’re not a salesperson, you’re taking orders, right? And their competitors started to eat them alive because their competitors had to sell all the time, and they were very good at it. So sometimes you’re successful just in spite of yourself. And that may be what your competitors are in, what state they’re in. David: It really could be as simple as that and as difficult as that, in either situation. But, you know, the idea that the competition is excellent, or the competition is terrible, or the competition is average. In a sense, none of it really matters. Because this is life. This is the world that we’re in. These are the cards we’ve been dealt, right? So our competition is there. We’re there. The question is, how are we going to make sure that we are outperforming our competition in all the key areas of customer contact? I mean, if you were to boil it down and say, okay, let’s say my competition is very good. Let’s say you completely disagree with the premise of this podcast, that your competition isn’t that good, or that it’s average or whatever you say. “No, I’ve got a lot of competition.” Okay, then that’s your question. How do you outperform your competition in all key areas of customer contact? Some people may say, “well, I don’t know. What are the key areas of customer contact?” And if you’re asking yourself that kind of question, that indicates that there’s work to be done in your organization. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And do you even know how the competition functions to be able to compare yourself? I mean, that’s got to be at least half the battle, right? David: Yeah, that’s part of the battle. Maybe it’s a third of the battle. Jay: Okay. David: I was gonna say a quarter, maybe it’s a quarter to a third of the battle. And the only reason I say that is I don’t think we should spend a ton of time overanalyzing our average competitors. I mean, if there’s a really, really good one, yeah, you can take a look at what they’re doing. But ultimately, sure, we all want to outperform our competitors. But what do we really want? We want to get to the point where we’re so good at what we do that it’s no longer about outperforming our competitors. Now it’s a matter of outperforming our past best, right? What’s the best we were able to do? When you’re leading in a market, when you really are the market leader, you’re doing things right, you’re doing things well and efficiently, you’re already better than a lot of your average competitors, then the goal you want to reach for is how can I do what we do better in our own organization? Right? How can we initiate contact better? How can we leave messages better? How can we send emails that are more compelling? What are the very specific things, all these points of customer contact that could potentially change for the better to get me better results? Jay: Yeah, I love this idea that your true competition really is yourself, right? It’s kind of like golf or, you know, another single person sport where you’re, really competing against yourself. And, if you can identify constantly ways to get better and you’re not falling into that complacency, then you’re probably going to do better than most of your competitors. David: Yeah, exactly. Something else that I read recently, was talking about the idea that a lot of us want to try to beat our best month ever, our best year ever. We’re always looking to top that top line, which makes a lot of sense. But I read this in a book by Nic Peterson. He said that, ideally, our goal should be to beat our bottom. In other words, sales are going to go up and down, right? That’s going to happen over a period of time. Sales are going to go up and down. We’re going to have peaks and valleys, and hopefully it works on an upward trajectory, and as you’re doing that, if you can make sure that the floor is constantly rising ,then eventually you get to the point where your floor is higher than other people’s ceiling. And if you think about the idea of being better than your competitors, that’s really what you want. Cause if you have a great month this month, an exceptional month, then it’s like, okay, now the new month starts. Now you’re at zero again. You got to start from scratch. Right? But if you know that your first goal for that month is to make sure that you’re above your previous floor. Then it seems a lot more doable. It’s like, okay, we might not have another peak month this month, but if we can stay above our floor, then we will continue to grow and grow. Jay: Yeah, I really like that. I’m somebody who tends to look at records, right? Like we just finished a record month and I’m like on a high, right? Things are great, but you’re exactly right. I mean, next month beating that every single month, month after month. Is that realistic? I think you’re pointing out, no, it’s probably not, and it could be counterproductive. David: Yeah, it’s probably not realistic that each month is going to be higher than the last, and there are not going to be any that are lower. But I think it’s also realistic to say, okay, can I beat our worst month? Or a recent worst month? It’s like if you look at a stock chart and you see how there are these different… Jay: let’s call them peaks and valleys, ups and downs. David: Yeah, peaks and valleys. So if it’s bottoming out at a certain point, you want to say, okay, I want to get in higher than that. It’s a terrible explanation, but you kind of get the drift. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And again, we kind of always fall back to this, is what systems do you have to track these types of things? Do you understand the cause and effect? I mean, so often, yeah, you had a good sales month, or yeah, you increased the baseline, but do you know why you did that? Was it just the phone rang more? Or was it something tangible? Because if it’s not something tangible, how are you gonna repeat it? Was it more calls? Was it more advertising dollars? What was it that got you there? If you don’t know, then the business is driving you. You’re not driving the business. David: Exactly. And each of those things are some of these different areas of customer contact, right? Whether it’s the advertising, whether it’s the phone calls, whatever it is, when we’re looking at that, we’re saying, okay, where are these key points of contact and what can I do to make each of those better? Can I make the messaging better? Can I tweak the messaging? Can I reach a different or better group of people? All these different things. Can I reach them using different marketing vehicles? Can I reach them online? Can I reach them offline? Can I reach them on the phone, via text, via email? How can I reach them? And look at what you’re doing, look at what’s working well and what may be not working as well as it used to, and then say, okay, how could I tweak some of these things, the messaging, the combination of marketing vehicles we’re using, or the people we’re reaching, the MVPs, we’ve talked about that a lot in the past. Which of these can I adapt, can I fine tune, like tuning in an old fashioned radio where they used to have dials on them, right? That type of thing. So you’re able to dial it in clearly and make sure that you’re getting the right people, saying the right things, using the right combination of marketing vehicles. Jay: Yeah, we talked about this last time, avoiding assumptions, figuring out why you got

We get results from social media when we’re able to identify the result that we’re looking to get, and identify the messaging that we need to create to be able to get in front of these ideal prospects to have them raise their hands and express interest. When we do those things correctly, then you can get to the point where nearly everybody you talk to is actually qualified to do business with you. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss how to get results from social media. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. This is a big topic. Talk about opening a can of worms. It’s something everybody wants, and we talked, last podcast about learning online and what great resources there are. This is a place where there may be such an overload of information and different ideas that I don’t know if you’re going to find the answer online. I really don’t. David: You’ll find a lot of answers online. Yeah., Right? Whether or not it’s the answer you’re looking for, whether or not it’s the answer that solves your problem, that is the big question mark. But I feel like this topic is so important because everyone’s on social media. Everyone’s trying to figure out what to do and how to get results. And the reason that I believe the word results is so important is that it narrows your focus. It forces you to think in terms of, okay, what is the result I even want to get here? What am I trying to do? Because as we talked about in a previous podcast, you can go on social media and it’s nothing but distraction after distraction. And if you just turn it on and go in there without a really strong focus in terms of what you want to accomplish, what result you want to get, you’re not getting any sort of result, except you’re going to get pulled into other people’s experiences. So from my standpoint, the first thing we need to do is to identify what is the result that I would like to get from social media? And then you can look at how much time that I spend on there is actually allocated to getting that result. That’ll tell you a lot right off the bat. Jay: Yeah, and I think that there is a misguided focus that you need a large audience, right? Like if I can get up to 10, 000 followers or whatever, that’s not true. it could be better to have a thousand dedicated followers who are potential clients than having a hundred thousand people who may just clog up your pipeline and who really never are going to be your clients. David: Right. And if they’re not responding to what you do, if they’re not liking, if they’re not replying, then the algorithm says people aren’t interested in this. So you’re exactly right. If you just had the hundred people or so who are going to click today’s link on there. You’d be seeing everybody, everyone would be seeing your stuff. But of course it’s impossible to do that. So you’re exactly right. It’s about saying, all right, well, how can I get to more of the right kind of people who resonate with the material that I’m putting out? And I am not speaking as an authority on social media. Okay. I want to be really clear about this. I’m not coming to you and saying, oh yes, I’m the guy for social media. No, not saying that. However, what we have been able to do is to identify specific things that our clients have wanted to accomplish, and we’re very good at helping them accomplish it, once we decide exactly what those results are. Jay: Yeah, I’ll tell you where we’re at right now in our company. As you know, we offer Tax Services to a very specific group, so, I’ve told you in the past, we have spent two years identifying keywords for paid ads, and it’s been a constant process where we’re refining, I do the consultations, And so when I see that we’re getting consultations that are not in the strike zone, I go back to our keyword, you know, the person doing our Google ads, and we refine, and we refine, and refine. And I’ve told you, We’re to a place now, it’s kind of like our secret recipe, where we don’t get a consultation that is not in the strike zone anymore. We’ve been that focused. But it costs us a hundred dollars per consultation. That’s what we’re paying. And that’s a pretty steep fee. So obviously we’re like, okay, how do we get organic people to come to our website from social media, where they’ve seen something that we’re providing, and they’re clicking through and that doesn’t cost us anything, right? So that’s the goal, that’s the dream. But now we’re in another problem. We could probably get tons of people coming to our site. But now I don’t want everybody clicking on the schedule a consultation. Because I’d be back in that same problem. I’d be talking to a lot of people who I can’t help. So this is the dilemma. This is where we’re at in our company right now, moving to social media, but we have to be very strategic about how we do that. David: Yes. But you’re very clear on the results you’re looking for. Yes. You’re looking for a very specific type of client. You’re looking for a very specific criteria. And for you, you know that even though a hundred seems expensive, you know that it’s worth it because you know that each client is going to be worth quite a bit more than that. If the service that you were offering cost 50 dollars, you could not do what you’re doing. And that’s something else that I think is important for people to understand. Not every product, not every service is going to work in terms of social media advertising, no matter how great you get at it, because there’s always going to be competition for various keywords. There’s going to be a number of factors that go into it. So if you don’t have a product that justifies that kind of investment, if you’re selling a pack of gum at a time, right? When you go into a grocery store and you check out, there’s a pack of gum, they’re like, Oh, I’ll have a pack of gum. You take it as an impulse buy, right? That sort of thing. It’s very unlikely that you’re going to be able to run ads on social media and sell a pack of gum, right? I mean, just the shipping costs on it, it’s not going to work. There’s some things that don’t work. When you understand that, then you can recognize that if you want to sell something that doesn’t sell particularly well on social media, you need to find other ways to do that. And of course, that’s the subject of a totally different podcast. But when we think about the results that we’re looking to get. There are a number of different ones, right? The first one is, in your case, it’s about getting someone to have a conversation with, who is qualified. Getting a qualified person to raise their hands and express interest. And you’re talking about your secret recipe. And I’ve always maintained that any business that does not have some secret recipe in it, is not going to last very long. And I’ve had people argue with me about this a lot. It’s like what are you talking about? You know, we’ve got a commodity business, essentially, like if your business is a commodity, that’s going to be a reflection on your sales, right? If it’s just a total commodity, it is going to reflect in your numbers. There’s got to be something special, something different that you bring to the table, either in terms of the product or service that you’re offering, or in terms of the way that you sell it, right? Because if you’re selling a commodity, Then you need to be better at attracting the type of clients who want to buy that commodity. We do a lot of work in the promotional products industry, in the print industry, and a lot of people view that as a commodity. I sell print services. I’m an offset printer. Everybody sells offset printing. It’s like, that is correct. But what are the types of clients that you really want to bring in, right? Who are the kinds of clients who are going to spend the kind of money with you that you want to actually encourage, right? You don’t just want to take anyone with a pulse, anyone who can fog a mirror. You don’t want to just take anyone who comes through the door. When you’re building a business proactively, you’re deciding who you want to work with and who you want to choose to leave to your competitors. So again, I want to stay focused on our topic, which is social media. We need to recognize that there are specific results we want, and then once we’ve identified what those results are, we can start to figure out what the specific plan is for getting those things to happen. Jay: Yeah, and I’ll tell you, I don’t say this very often, but I really think this is a situation where you may be better off not trying to learn it yourself. You know, I’ve watched videos, I’ve taken online courses, and everybody’s like, even down to the thumbnail you put on your YouTube videos and the, you know, what do in the video where I’m pointing at the, you know, taking all these pictures, I’m, looking like surprise and look, this is amazing and the clickbaity titles and all of those things, but that’s always changing. That target is always moving, right? I’ve used something as simple as Fiverr, right? Where somebody who charges me 50 bucks a week, but this is what they do. I’ve gotten more results from that than I have ever gotten from trying to follow somebody on YouTube, and so I’ve just decided I’m not going to learn it. I’m paying somebody else to do it because I want to focus my time on what’s most important. And that’s what we’ve found. Again, I’m not saying everybody that’s the solution for you, but we have spent a lot of time in this arena, and that’s how we’ve gotten results. David: It makes perfect sense. I think it was Dean Graziosi, who I originally heard this from, he was talking about the fact that

To improve business communication fast, consider this… If nothing that you convey in your communication, instills any sort of belief in the other person as to why they should take the action that you’re requesting, then it’s not at all likely they’re going to take that action. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the TBDs. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, it’s such a pleasure to be here with you again, David. We’re talking about communication here and I’ll be honest. Oftentimes we’ll discuss a podcast that we want to do, or you’ll send me the topics and I sit here and think, you know, I’ve never once thought about this type of thing. How to improve communication. I just kind of fall in the trap. You know, I talk to people, I send them emails. I’m guessing that that’s good communication, but I’ve not really thought about it, David. David: Yeah. I sort of introduced this topic backwards, I guess, at the top of this podcast. When I say we’re going to be talking about the TBDs, what we’re really talking about is improving our communication with the TBDs. And for those of you who are saying, “what are they talking about?” Allow me to elaborate. A lot of times when I’m working with clients, one of the things they’ll ask about is how to improve the results they’re getting with the communications they’re having with prospects. That could be anything from the messages they’re leaving on people’s voicemails. It could be not getting responses to emails. It could be the things they’re posting on social media, any form of outbound communication, whether it’s one-to-one or one-to-many. What you say in those communications is going to determine what happens. We touched on this a little bit in the previous episode. But if you want to really think about what is likely to get you the best results? I boil it down down for myself and my clients as what I refer to as the TBDs. Now, when people think of that abbreviation “to be determined,” that’s often what’s used there. That’s not what I’m thinking in terms of. When we want to communicate with other people and get a result, we should ask ourselves: “As a result of this communication, what do I want this person to think? What do I want them to believe, and what do I want them to do? Okay? If you structure your communication to address those three points, you’ll be far more likely to get the result you’re looking for. If I send somebody an email, and there’s nothing I want them to think, believe or do, there’s no reason to send that email. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: If I make a phone call, leave a voicemail message, or do anything to initiate contact with another human being, if there’s nothing in particular that I want them to think, believe, or do, then what’s the point of having the conversation? Now, if you’re calling a loved one, Okay. You know? Jay: Yeah. David: You want them to know that you love them. You want to know that they love you, all that sort of thing. But, in business in particular, in our communications, if we don’t have a reasonably good idea of what we want the other person to think, believe, or do, then there’s not a whole lot of reason to communicate. Jay: Yeah. That’s so powerful because how often or is the temptation I’m calling a client? Hey, just checking in, seeing how you’re doing give me a call back. It’s like, that’s the trap. I think so many of us fall into. I’m not thinking at that moment, what I want them to be thinking is, please call me back because you need me. But I sound kind of desperate and not like there’s a priority. There’s no urgency, there’s nothing really being conveyed. Right? David: Yes. And when we’re doing follow-up calls, when we’re doing check-in calls, and just even using those words in a voicemail message. There’s nothing really compelling for them to respond to there. Is there? Jay: Mm-hmm. David: If you’re saying to somebody, “Hey, I’m just checking in,” it’s like, “okay, well they’re just checking in. I’ve got nothing for ’em at this point. I guess I don’t need to respond to that.” But when you leave a message like that, We have things we want them to think, believe, and do. We want them to think, “oh, I’m going to get this message and I’m going to call this person back.” Ideally, we want them to believe that it would be in their best interest to pick up the phone and call us. We want them to do, we want them to pick up the phone and call us back, right? So it does kind of tie together, but when you’re conscious about it, It requires you to think differently and to speak differently and to approach the whole thing differently. If I want them to think that it’s important for them to call me back then saying, “Hey, I’m just calling to check in,” is probably not the best approach to take. And in most of our communications, it’s good to have some sort of call to action at the end of it. Give me a call back, drop me an email, send me a text, whatever it is, that’s the “do” portion of it, and that usually does come at the end. You want to have a very specific call to action at the end indicating what you would like or appreciate for them to do. Are they always going to do it? No, I leave messages for people who don’t call me back. Even people that I’ve known for a long time, who I’ve worked with and things like that. For whatever reason, that still happens. But if you are at least clear, on your end, about why you’re calling, what you’re looking to accomplish in that call and what you’d like them to do next, then at least you’ve got a shot. Jay: Yeah, and I think it’s probably a, discussion more for a future podcast, but things have changed dramatically over the last, say, 15 years. It used to be people expected a voice phone call. We get almost zero results now, in our business with the return voicemail. All of the results come through the return email or the return text. And now, I find it’s easier for people to get back to me because they respond right when they see that text. But it makes it harder to define, you’re not in person, they’re not hearing your voice, and so now making sure they’re going to think what you or believe it and do what you want them to do, you’ve got to be able to condense that down and share that message in a powerful way, in fewer words. So there’s some wordsmithing needs there that have to happen. David: Yes, and the belief portion of it, I think is pretty key. And it’s important to differentiate that from the think portion. And what I mean by that is if I want you to think that we should do business together, it needs to go deeper than that. You need to believe that it’s really in your best interest that we do business together, because if you just sort of think it, if it sort of flies by in your brain, then it can just as easily fly out. But if you’re able to instill some level of belief, even just a little, a little bit of a belief, which is more than a thought, it’s actually a strong consideration that this might be in my best interest, then you’ll be a lot more likely to get the return call, get the return communication, whatever it is. So it’s a small distinction on some levels, but it’s a really deep distinction on others. If nothing that you convey in your communication, instills any sort of belief in the other person as to why they should take the action that you’re requiring in the third step or requesting in the third step, then it’s not at all likely they’re going to take that action. Jay: Yeah, I imagine like for example, if you in promotional products are trying to get somebody to believe something, I would think what I want them to believe is that the longer they wait, not using your promotional products, the longer they’re not going to experience the benefit of the sales and the growth that those things can provide. If I can convey that, I’m guessing for you that would be a win. David: Yeah, that’s an excellent example of a belief system that we would like to be able to install in other people. That it is absolutely in their best interest to do it, and if they’re not doing it, that in some ways it could potentially be harming them. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: Particularly if those things are true. We’re not just looking to try to make things up to manipulate people into responding to us. If what we’re offering actually has value and has the ability to help the other person, and we don’t create that belief, we don’t convey that belief to them, then we are doing them more harm than we’re doing to ourselves. Because they don’t get the benefit of what it is that we could help them with. Jay: Yeah. And so being lackadaisical, that’s probably not going to help. Are there any tips or guidelines on how you can really identify that thing? Because I’m asking myself, “okay, what do I want my potential clients to believe?” I don’t know if I know the answer to that question. So spending some time on just that could be very valuable. David: Yeah, literally if you grab a sheet of paper and you write, “Think” at the top, “Believe” in the middle of the page, “Do” near the bottom, and then say, okay, what is it that I want to accomplish in my next communication? And when you’re reaching out to a lot of different people with a similar message, for a similar purpose, then this becomes that much more critical. Because every call that you make without doing this decreases the likelihood that you’re going to get the result you want, because you haven’t defined the result you want. I mean, yeah, you know that you want them to call you back, but you haven’t identified what you want them to think about that, what you want them to believe about that so that they will

Your process for goal achievement is key. Because you’re doing a lot behind the scenes before anyone even knows that you’re alive. So we’re essentially moving from being invisible and working hard behind the scenes — to ideally, at some point, bursting on the scene and being recognized as a force in your marketplace. But none of that happens by accident and it doesn’t just come from setting goals. It requires having those processes in place. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing your process for goal achievement. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, David. Thank you. It’s always a pleasure to be with you. I’m going to be brutally honest here. I’m really good at setting goals. But I’m not very good at mapping out how I’m going to accomplish those goals. I think it’s good that I’ve taken that first step. And I kind of have a mental idea, but I never really go back and say, “yeah, I accomplished that thing.” So I think I’m missing some of the motivation to set more goals. That’s one of the key things about goals. Once you’ve checked ’em off, you should feel good about yourself and then do more goals. And I don’t know if I ever reached that point. David: Interesting. And I think a lot of people feel the same way. I know I’ve certainly had that situation over the years and still do to some extent. We talked about goals several weeks ago. I really wanted to get to the idea that it’s great to have the goal. But it’s like looking at the top of a ladder and saying, okay, that’s where I want to go. Or it’s like looking at the sky, that’s where I want to go. But ultimately, the goal isn’t what’s going to get you there. The goal may motivate you, but the goal is not going to get you there. Ultimately, it’s the process that’s going to get you there. Assuming you have a process. So if the goal is to generate a certain amount of revenue in your business, or have a certain amount of money in your personal bank account, or start a business, whatever your goal is, the next step is to say, okay, what are the specific steps? What are the combinations of tasks and projects that are going to be necessary to help me achieve that goal? Because the tasks, the individual things I have to do, and the projects, essentially the things that are composed of a bunch of tasks, are what’s going to get us there. And the combination of these things is essentially the process. If my goal is to generate a certain amount of sales revenue, and I’m not there yet. I generally want to start with a process that says, Okay, let’s take a look at exactly how much your existing clients are worth to you. What did they spend with you last year? And then, do I think they’ll spend more, less, or about the same this year? And generally, you’ll have a reasonable idea of that. Whether it’s going to be about the same, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. You won’t know for sure, but it’s a great place to start. Then you say, “Okay, if I can count on my existing customers for this level of revenue, and I want to get to that level, how do I fill that gap? Because if this is the goal and this is where I am now, then we have to look at the process that will get us there. What’s the combination of tasks and projects that will allow us to reach that revenue goal? When we focus on that, everything we do during any given day now leads toward the goal. As opposed to just having scattered focus, just doing a bunch of different things. Just thinking about our goal, but not exactly sure how we’ll get there. But when you start to think of it in terms of tasks, projects, and ultimately your process, that’s what’s really going to make the biggest difference. Jay: Yeah, I think if you don’t do that, it can be really demotivating, right? I think I’ve told you in the past, when I was in the restaurant business just starting out, I would have an area manager come into the store and we would set goals, and the first one is always what you’re talking about. How are you going to increase sales? And he would just increase our sales on the goal by ten percent, right from the previous year and never tell me what I can do to, you know, I’m new, “okay, how am I going to do that? What are the steps?” And it was just this arbitrary number that he came up with and never trained me or told me how I could accomplish those things. So then the follow up is like, “oh, you didn’t achieve your goal.” And I’m like, “well, you never told me how to achieve my goal,” right? David: Yeah, the what is very often easy, it’s in the how that we get into all the details. And that’s what’s missing with a lot of people .And that’s why when we work with our clients in our Total Market Domination course, majority of it is the how, the specific steps that need to be taken in order to get to the desired goal. And when I say how, it doesn’t mean that you have to do it, either. It means somebody has to do it, right? So you can get into this idea of who versus how, which is a great book, by the way. Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy wrote a book called Who Not How. Excellent book. But that concept still requires somebody to know how to do the things. So either you’re going to find somebody who has that skill and you’re going to get them to take those actions, or you’re going to have to know what to do, either do it yourself or train someone else to do it so that those things can be done. And then when you start focusing on that sort of approach, that becomes your process. You say, “okay, when I take this action, then I am likely to get this result.” And then you look at those results and you gauge it based on what you’re expecting. And then you tweak and adapt it as you go. But ultimately it’s all about the process and whether the process is figuring out what to do or knowing what to do and then taking the action to do it, or whether the process is identifying the right people that you need to bring into your organization to help you with it, it ultimately all boils right back down to the process. Jay: Yeah, I think it’s so important to say it’s not all on you, right? Identify those things that you need to do and put the other things on other people’s shoulders so that you can focus. I also love how you pointed out that as you’re assessing your goals, if you’re not getting there, you need to tweak and change. I think sometimes we just say, Oh, that was it. Didn’t work. So I guess that that goal wasn’t right and so again, you’ve demotivated yourself instead of kind of reworking that goal. David: Yeah, and so often we don’t even realize how close we are to something until it actually happens. And it reminds me of that analogy about how an airplane is off course for 90 percent of the flight. And so the pilot’s job is to make constant little tweaks to get you back on track toward wherever it is that you’re going. So you take off, you’re headed in a direction, and then there’s a little bit of wind and it sends you one way and then they have to compensate for it. So most of the little steering we do, even when we’re driving a car, your hands are moving slightly back and forth. And the reason it’s doing that is because you’re slightly off course most of the time. When you use an analogy like that, and when you recognize that it’s exactly the same in life, it’s exactly the same in business, you’re going to be off course, most of the time. And so you have to just keep adapting and keep making these tweaks to make sure that you’re back on track and following the path that you’ve set, which, of course, in what we’re talking about today is your process, the tasks, the specific things that have to be done, the projects, the longer term things that require multiple actions and the ultimate process that you’re using to get there. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And I also think when you talk about, you know, find the who, I think that one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is they don’t, and I really struggle with this, they don’t share their process with other people. They don’t seek mentorship. And so they’re reinventing the wheel. You know, a lot of these things have been tried and tested and you can skip a lot of pain and a lot of hassle if your who includes somebody else, just another ear call you, right? You know, bend people’s ear and see what they think. And like I said, I really struggle with this. I do everything quietly. And if it doesn’t work, then I’ll go, okay, I should do something else. Cause I don’t want somebody else to know that I failed. David: And of course you haven’t failed until you’ve decided that you failed until you give up on it, right? Because a lot of times we can be trying the same thing and it’s not working. It’s not working. It’s not working. And you keep doing it. And then eventually it works. So it’s like, okay, but if you quit before then, you may consider it a failure, but it might not have failed as long as you keep going. It’s also interesting when you talk about the idea that people tend to keep to themselves and they don’t share stuff. That’s really where we came up with our brand, TopSecrets.com, is the idea that not so much that these things are impossible to find out. It’s just that they’re not often shared. A lot of sales and marketing training boils down to essentially fortune cookie kind of stuff. Be good to your clients and they’ll be good to you. People do business with those they know, like, and trust. And these platitudes are maybe a little helpful, but until you know how to put them into action, until you know the specifics of, “okay, what do I do with that information? How do I get people to know, like, and trust me” if that’s the goal? And they’re three

What does it mean to install a Market Domination Engine in your business? Is that a real thing? If so, what is it? What does it do? What does it consist of? And what does it allow you to do, that your competitors are likely to struggle with? Hi and welcome back, in today’s quick episode, we’ll talk about what it means to install a market domination engine in your business. But before we do, I want to address the elephant in the room. If even the idea of a “Market Domination Engine” sounds strange to you, or unrealistic, or if it sounds like a bunch of hype. It’s okay… Let’s start by defining what I mean by market domination. That doesn’t mean that everyone buys from you. It means that the people who could buy from you, know who you are, and know what you do, so they can make a thumbs up or thumbs down decision about whether or not they want to work with you. Think about Amazon. Everyone knows who they are. Some people love them, and some people don’t. It doesn’t matter. They dominate their market because the people who could buy from them know who they are, and know what they do, so they can make their own decision about whether or not they want to buy from them. And it’s exactly the same with you. The reason you likely struggle to get the clients you need is that they don’t know you’re alive. Or if they do know you’re alive, they don’t know exactly what you do, or why they should buy from you, or why you’re better than whoever they might be using now, or why you’re better than any or every other option available to them. Market Domination is about creating an environment in which your very best prospects know who you are and know what you do, so they can make a decision about whether or not they want to buy from you. But how do you create that environment? That’s where the market domination engine idea comes in. If that idea, the idea of a “Market Domination Engine” does sound strange, or unrealistic, or like a bunch of hype to you. it’s understandable. Becuase very few business owners have never seen a sales and marketing system that actually functions like an engine. They’re used to a patchwork of random activities. Doing some networking, waiting for referrals, making some phone calls, posting on social media, prospecting when they have the time, following up when they have the time (or when they remember they should have reached out to someone.) What is that? It’s not an engine. In an environment like that, the idea of a market domination engine sounds like fantasy or hype, because they’ve never seen their business run like an engine. That doesn’t mean it can’t. It just means it’s never been designed to run that way. The engine has not been installed. And by the engine, I mean the very specific components that create the consistent result they’re looking for. I’m going to keep this episode very short. Because this topic is likely to either make perfect sense to you, or it’s not going to make any sense at all. If you’ve ever gone from sales meeting to salesmeeting, from training to workshop, from podcast video to YouTube, from Facebook Group to Skool Community, from Google to AI, asking questions, taking notes, collecting ideas, gathering little bits and pieces here and there, and wondering how it all fits together… Then you may be ready to understand the value of installing a Market Domination engine in your business. It’s about replacing all the scattered bits and pieces you gather with proven systems and processes designed to get results. It’s about creating that environment where your ideal prospects know who you are and know what you do so well, that they can choose you over every other option. It’s about trading in your anonymity for recognition among the ideal clients you want to attract. Most business owners never experience what it feels like when everything is deliberately connected. When the hodgepodge makes way for clarity, and structure, and profit. Think about any system that works well. It’s made up of components, steps, and repeatable processes. So your outcomes are consistent. Your Market Domination Engine is exactly the same. So you can either convince yourself it doesn’t exist. OR you we can work together to install it in your business risk-free. That means if it doesn’t work for you. You get your money back and then some. If you’d like more details on that, go to TopSecrets.com/engine. That’s TopSecrets.com/engine. Once you see it in action, it stops feeling unrealistic and starts feeling obvious. Talk to you soon. Are You Ready to Install Your Own Market Domination Engine in Your Business? If so, click here. Or check out a few of the other ways we can help: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional product sales, learn how we can help. Ready to Grow & Scale Your Business Fast? If you’re an established distributor serious about growing your sales and profits now, check out this case study and schedule a call with our team. Need EQP/Preferential Pricing? If you’re an established distributor doing a decent volume of sales, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry.

If our storytelling allows us to build trust, build credibility, and build a bond in sales, then we’re telling the right stories. If it’s just designed to be manipulative, then save your breath. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the power of storytelling in sales. Jay, tell me a story. Jay: Listen, I am a storyteller. I love to tell stories and I like to build when I tell stories, right? This is something that I use on a regular basis when I’m talking to people. And it’s not just telling a story. I think it’s putting people in a story and what character are they in that story? And I think most people want to be the hero in their own story, right? David: They do. Which gets to the whole idea of the hero’s journey, for anyone who follows that sort of story arc. The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell. But it’s a book and it describes essentially the plot of most of the most popular movies of all time. Jay: Yeah, David: Right. Star Wars, Rocky, anything where you’ve got this person who is initially kind of beaten down and not winning. Then they come into contact with a mentor. They learn new things and have a confrontation and it might not go well. Then they learn some more things and then eventually they come out triumphant. There’s a whole arc. And you’re right, a lot of people want to be the hero, and the challenge as a salesperson is, in our storytelling, we can’t be the hero. Mm. Right. We need to make sure that the person we’re talking to is the hero and that we are the mentor or guide. We’re not Luke Skywalker. We have to be Yoda. We have to be the one who’s helping Luke to destroy the Death Star. Jay: Yeah. This is a really hard thing, I think for a lot of people. Because we want to go in and think we’re the hero, right? I’m coming into your business. I’m going to provide something that is going to save the day, and then I’m going to walk away and you’re going to praise me and you’re going to pay me. But that’s not what really is supposed to be happening, right? It’s that I have the tools and the resources that you need to be the hero. David: Yes, and it’s easy to forget that, particularly when we’re trying to read ourselves in as the hero to each story. But one of the things that I’ve noticed in sales is that many, if not most of the very best salespeople are also the best storytellers. You can say. “Hi, do you know what time it is?” And instead of getting the time, you will get a fantastic story that might weave the time into it. Jay: Mm. David: But you’re going off in all kinds of directions, and when they do it right, it’s captivating enough that you sit there and pay attention. Jay: Yeah. But you pointed out “when you do it right.” David: Yes. Jay: Right. so let’s talk about that a little bit. Let’s talk about your feedback on doing it right. David: Well, number one, as we already touched on, it can’t just be all about you. You can’t make the story about yourself. You need to make it about them, and a lot of that upfront comes from finding out about them, which means you’re asking more questions, then you’re answering, hopefully in the early stages. Jay: Yes David: Because customers always just want to know what it’s going to cost upfront, and you don’t generally want to lead off with that. So a lot of our storytelling will actually have to come from the conversations that ensue after we’ve gathered enough information. Jay: Yeah. David: To know what those stories need to be about. If we just go in and we meet somebody for the first time and we start telling them stories, that’s probably not ideal. We need to still initially do some sort of diagnostic upfront to find out what their interests are. Now, of course, a lot of salespeople, they do the whole thing about walking into the office, looking around, oh, I see a big buck hanging up there on the, Jay: mm-hmm. David: On the wall. The person’s a hunter. You start talking to them about hunting, that type of thing. And, it’s very obvious. It works in some situations to break the ice, so you can ask the person. Because the other thing about storytelling is it doesn’t just have to be you telling stories. If you can get the prospect to be telling stories to you, then they’ll be more likely to engage in a longer conversation because most people are more interested in hearing what they have to say versus what somebody else has to say. Jay: Yeah. David: So sometimes you can just let somebody talk for a long time and they feel like they had the best conversation, even though the salesman didn’t say anything at all. Jay: Yeah, I’ve had people like look at the pictures on the wall and stuff, and that can come off as so plastic and so fake. But I do think the most important thing is to get them talking. And the more talking they do and the less talking you do, the better off those things are. If you can get them to be the storyteller and then you can help them improve that story or tell them how that story’s going to get better, that’s the zone where you want to be. David: Yeah, exactly. And I think that a good sales process does that, in the sense that when you’re leading off with intelligent, probing questions that don’t come across as intrusive -it can’t be like you’re giving them the third degree. You got a light shining in their face. Jay: Yeah. David: And you’re trying to get information out of them. It can’t be anything like that. But if you’re asking intelligent, probing questions and you’re finding out about them, they’re going to open up more. And the more they talk, the better it is for you. Another thing that a lot of salespeople do is they mistakenly ask yes or no questions. They ask binary questions instead of open-ended questions. If you ask an open-ended question, they’re likely to talk more, which is going to allow the conversation to flow a lot more organically. They can tell stories. You can then potentially tell some sort of story about something that relates to something they said. Again, keeping it focused on them and what they need and what they’re looking to do. For salespeople, case studies, testimonials, things like that can be good stories as long as they’re not just being forced down people’s throats. If somebody’s talking about a promotion that they did or something that they did in the past that worked well, then you can acknowledge that. “Wow, that’s great. That sounds like that was really amazing. We had a similar situation with a client where this happened or that happened,” and then you can relate with that story. But that also brings up another thing. If somebody tells a story, then you don’t want to try to tell a story that’s designed to sound better than theirs. Mm-hmm. Right? So you don’t want to change gears. But if you can establish some sort of comradery among them by indicating that you’ve had similar experiences, then your stories will go a lot farther. Jay: Yeah. And I think a couple things from my own experience: don’t interrupt. Don’t cut them off. Right? Let them talk. But I think where people really miss out and you know that I interview people for part of my living, right? David: Mm-hmm. Jay: And I’ve been a professional interviewer for 20 years, and I find that the key is not the initial question. Yes, ask open-ended question. That’s very, very important. But the key is always the follow-up question, and that’s where people fall down. They ask the question, they got the person talking, and then they dive into their product spiel, right? If you ask a follow-up question, it shows that you’re listening. It shows that you’re interested. And it will take you places that you never ever thought you could go. Like I have interview s where people send a list of questions and I’m like, just so you know going to ask you follow up questions and we’ll bounce around, and those kind of things. And by the time they’re done, they’re energized and they just feel so appreciated. and it’s because of active listening and good follow up questions. David: Yes. And that is so completely critical in sales. Jay: Yeah. David: People who don’t get that are at a tremendous disadvantage. You know, one of the big advantages of storytelling is that it allows you to potentially infuse emotion into an emotionless conversation. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: A lot of sales conversations are very sort of clinical and product oriented and detail oriented and price oriented, and it’s hard to get somebody into the zone. It’s hard to get them emotionally positive about the idea of buying something without being able to trigger something inside. Otherwise, it’s just a list of details and facts and specifications where if we can get them engaged with how they feel about what the product or service is going to do for them, the end result that they’re getting. What’s the thing that they want to have happen as a result of engaging in this promotion or doing whatever it is that they’re going to do? If they can tell you that and get themselves into a state of enthusiasm over your product, they’re going to be a hundred times more likely to buy it. Jay: Oh yeah, absolutely. I think that the natural fallback for salespeople is to focus on specifications. You know, I’ve been there on the car lot and the guy wants to show me all the specifics and horsepower and all those things. And then I’ve had people talk about, what are my goals and focusing more on my life than on this particular one item. It really shows, you know, more caring and that they’re more interested in me. David: It does, and you also have to be aware of the person you’re talking to. Because sometimes people will hear something like that and they’re like, I don’t want to get into that. Ja

Choosing worthy clients for your business means making decisions about whether or not a prospect deserves your time and attention, whether they’re worthy of follow up, and you are bound to make some mistakes in that process. When you do this, you have to recognize that some of that is going to come with the territory. You may make a wrong decision that will cost you some business down the line. So you have to weigh that against quality of life issues. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing choosing worthy clients. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Hey, thank you, David. It’s such a pleasure to be back on again. And once again, I love this topic. I feel like, personally in my experience, there is a tendency to believe that you have to take every client. And you know what? In some businesses that is true, you’re going to take every customer who comes through the door. In other cases, you can be more selective and it could make your life a lot easier. It can make your business a lot better. David: Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I thought this would be a really good topic, because I believe that in many businesses they don’t even consider the idea of worthy clients. I think that in many businesses we feel like, okay, we’re going to serve whoever we can serve. We want to take whoever comes through the door, and we just want to serve them to the best of our ability. And while that is noble, it’s not always great from your own standpoint, from your own business standpoint. And I wish this was something that I knew from the beginning, but it was not. As most things, we learn it the hard way and this is no exception. At some point along the way, the idea of pursuing worthy clients, choosing worthy clients, tracking down worthy clients just really started to appeal to me. When I started using that term with some of my clients, they were like, “wow, that never even occurred to me. And what do you mean by worthy?” Things like that. So we can dive into all of that in today’s podcast. Jay: Yeah. I think that there are some things that we hear over the years and they start to sink in. We just don’t ever challenge ’em in our mode of thinking. Like I think of the customer’s always, right. I’ve come to believe. No, no, that’s just not true. Do I want to do everything to satisfy the customer? Yes. Yes, I do. But there are customers who can never be satisfied or I can’t provide what they want. So, no, they’re not always right. I love that we have these discussions. Let’s start off with this word worthy. What in your mind is a worthy customer? David: Well, I think we have to decide that for ourselves, what we determine to be a worthy prospect or client for ourselves. And some of that can go back to what you talked about, in the customer’s always right or the customer’s not always right. But you can have a customer that is absolutely right about things and you can have a good relationship with them, but they may not still be a worthy client if they are taking up more time than they are costing. So if they’re not really focused on buying from you to the extent that you need them to in order to be worthy of your time and attention, it may be something as simple as that. And in those situations, I’m not suggesting, okay, well you’re just going to bag all these people. If you’ve got a relationship with someone and you like the relationship you have and you’re okay with it, then you can deem that prospect or client worthy. You can say, “all right, well, I like dealing with this person, therefore they are worthy of my time and attention.” But for me, I believe that’s where it starts. We each have to decide. Is this prospect or is this client worthy of my time and attention? Because obviously our time is the most important asset we have, and when we fail to recognize that, we can invest a lot of it, we can spend a lot of our time on prospects and clients who are not worthy of our time and attention. And it could go back to what they’re buying from us or not buying from us. It can also get down to personalities. If they’re rude, obnoxious, belligerent, then they’re unworthy in a lot of cases to do business with us. And I think sometimes as salespeople or as business owners, We don’t really look at it that way. We think, well, we have to be worthy. We have to grovel and try to get their approval and all that sort of thing. And I don’t really think it’s like that. I think it certainly has to be a two-way street. Because anyone that we decide to do business with also has to decide to do business with us. They have to decide if they think that we are worthy of working with them. But that’s their job. Our job is to determine if they are worthy of working with us. And to me that simply means being proactive about your choice of prospect and your choice of customer. Now, you can’t always know that right away with a prospect. You can’t know if they’re going to be a worthy client. But as you interview them, as you have conversations with them, as you qualify or disqualify them, you can make some judgments. You can make some decisions pretty quickly on whether or not this person seems to be a good fit for you and for your business, and whether or not you want to decide they’re worthy of doing business with you. Jay: Yeah, you brought up so many points there. I hadn’t really thought about, just like the time to revenue ratio, right? Because I grew up in the restaurant business, so we knew what our food costs should be. We knew what a plate of food should cost, we knew what our overhead should be, those types of things. And so that’s really easy to quantify. But in businesses where there’s a sales cycle, you know, those types of things, it’s a lot harder to quantify. Well, how much time did I really take to close this sale? And then what is my time actually worth? Just that thought process, just that equation can be so powerful. And I also think taking the time, maybe just get out a pad of paper, if people still use pen and paper. I don’t know, I haven’t for years. But get that out and just write down, what do you think your worthy customer is? How much time should it take to close a sale? What type of revenue should you expect from them? What should the communication look like? Those types of things. David: Yeah. And once again, making the decisions that are most important from your standpoint, for your business, for your coworkers. For me, I think people being friendly, people being nice. People being willing to engage? Willing to engage, willing to have conversation, that could be right at the top of the list. Because if they’re not willing to have conversations with you, then nothing’s going to happen. There are people who you can have a great conversation with, and then they will just never take or return your phone calls again. When you determine that that’s happened, when you’ve determined that you’re interacting with someone, or you’re trying to interact with someone, who is no longer willing to communicate, you really have to determine your tolerance for pain and “how long am I willing to continue to do that?” I know that over the years for myself, that timeframe has gotten shorter and shorter and shorter. Whereas in the early stages, you know, you pursue people to the ends of the earth. And now, you know, as I recognize the value of my own time, as I recognize the value of my coworker’s time, I don’t want them wasting time on people who are not worthy of our time and attention. So a lot of it could really start with that. Are they even willing to engage? Are they willing to communicate? Do they seem reasonably friendly, personable, able to interact with us? And if those things are positive, then, are they qualified to buy? Do they need what we have to sell? Do they have the money to buy what we have to sell? And are they willing to work with us to buy it? So those are all qualification questions and that really goes to a whole different topic when we get into the topic of qualification procedures, and all that sort of thing. But just identifying the fact that there are prospects out there, some of whom are worthy of your time and attention, some of whom are not. And so a lot of our job in the early stages is discernment: deciding worthy or unworthy? And then following through on that. Jay: Yeah, just having that mindset. I mean, I think there’s going to be a lot of people listening, like you said at the beginning. I’ve never even thought of these terms. I thought I was just supposed to deal with everybody. You also said tolerance for pain. I know of customers, like when I look down and I see the caller id, and it’s that person, if I’m going, “oh man, you know, I don’t want to pick up this phone.” Sometimes it’s easy to ask yourself, am I worthy? And I don’t think you’re saying we have to get rid of unworthy customers. I think we have to assess what we’re willing to do to continue to maintain that relationship. I think back, and I’ve actually had times where I’ve picked up the phone to a customer who’s taking more time and I said, listen, this is what I can offer you. If that works for you, great, let’s continue the relationship. But if it doesn’t, maybe you should find somebody else because I can’t. You can bring somebody into the worthiness zone. I know. I’ve done it. David: Yeah, I think that’s very true. I also think that when you have a situation where you’re looking at your phone and you’re dreading answering it, if you at least have this in the back of your mind now, that there are worthy clients and there are unworthy clients, if somebody’s causing you to cringe when you look at your phone, you have to decide, “okay, does this make this person unworthy of my time?” Jay: Yeah.

To leverage the law of attraction, you have to get beyond the book and the movie. If you’re feeling stuck in your business, ask yourself this. “Am I really clear on exactly what it is that I’m building here? And to the extent that it’s not coming together, how’s your vision? Are you very clear on what that means? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the truth about the Law of Attraction. Now, this applies to business, it applies to life. If you’re familiar with the movie and book The Secret, there’s been a lot of talk about this concept. The Law of Attraction. It basically says that we attract into our lives the people and circumstances we need, based on essentially the vibes that we’re putting out. Jay: Well, and I was just sitting here thinking, I must not be putting out very good vibes. David: I’m sure it’s not that. But… I think sometimes when people get into this mindset, they can get frustrated. Because if you think that all you have to do is really want it and it’s going to come to you, it’s not quite the whole story. And I think the movie and the book called The Secret probably caused some people some problems with this. Part of it is because a lot of that movie was based on a book called The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. If you read that book, you recognize that there’s a lot more to it than just trying to attract with your mind. I mean, you actually have to follow up. You have to do some things afterwards if you want to get the results you’re actually looking for. So I feel like what they did in the book and the movie was kind of a disservice to the law of attraction, which I think can be valid, if you follow up with it. Jay: Yeah, I’ve always kind of felt, talking about this, that it’s more about a change in mentality than it is that you’ll speak into the universe and the universe will grant you this wonderful thing out of the kindness of its heart. That because you’ve said these things, it’s just like setting a goal. Right? And so, when you hear things spoken, when your mind hears them, when you speak them with your mouth, it’s different than just thinking about them. And so, over time, I think it changes your behavior. That leads you to the thing that you, quote, spoke into the universe. David: Yeah, I believe that entirely as well. I think that when you are focused on a goal, when you’re focused on trying to using the law of attraction to accomplish something in your life… When your mind is going in that direction, it is a lot more likely to get you enthused about it, get you thinking about it more and get you taking action on it, which ultimately is what is going to lead to the success. Now one aspect of it that I think is really important, on the front end of that, is that you have enough belief in what it is that you want to accomplish, that you continue to look for the ways to make it happen. Because if you don’t believe you can do it, obviously you’re not going to do it. I think that’s pretty much a given. If you don’t think you can do something, if you don’t think you can accomplish something, then you will very likely not take the actions necessary to make it happen. That’s not about law of attraction, it’s about human nature and inevitability. So in those circumstances, it’s kind of a given that you won’t succeed. But if you’ve got the consummate belief in what it is that you want to do and what you’re pursuing, then in a lot of cases, it will allow you to start to see the things that will make it possible. So when people talk about attracting people and circumstances into your life, I believe there is truth to that. But I also think a lot of that might’ve been there to begin with. When you’re aware of it, you’re going to be more likely to see it. If you’re looking for something, you’re going to be more likely to find it. Then you’ll take action on it. And that’s when the law of attraction actually starts to pay off. Jay: Yeah, I really like that you’re building awareness. Because you’ve spoken these things and you’ve kind of made these mental goals. Whereas before, if you hadn’t taken the time to even assess what you want and talk to yourself about what you want, kind of make these mental goals, then when that person enters your life or that opportunity arises, you’re not going to see it for what it is. Because you haven’t planned ahead, you haven’t made a mental note that that’s specifically something that you wanted or needed. David: Right, you’re not tuned into it. And, you know, the mind has this particular activating system that many people are aware of. It’s the part of your brain that notices the things that you’re interested in. A common example is if you just got a certain kind of car, or if you’re looking at a certain type of car and thinking about buying it, chances are you see it all over the road now, because it’s now in your mind, so you see it and recognize it. So, there’s a little bit of that with law of attraction. But the primary thing that I think is important for anyone to consider as they’re trying to accomplish things in their lives and in their businesses is that the idea, the goal is a great beginning. We’ll be talking about this in future podcasts, but then ultimately, it’s what comes from that. The ideas that we get. The things that we take action on. That’s ultimately going to help us to get there. Jay: Yeah, and I’ve always felt like this is the core of the law of attraction. That it’s very important to not just think about something. That you attach benchmarks to it, you attach follow up to it. Maybe you work backwards from that thing, that you don’t just put it to chance. If you work towards that thing then first of all the odds of it happening are going to be much greater and you’ve gone out, and you’ve taken it for yourself anyway David: Yeah, and I know we don’t normally get too woo woo in these podcasts. And I’m not looking to do that today. But I think there’s been so much talk about the law of attraction over the years that it’s at least worth having a discussion about. People may think they’re doing everything they can to accomplish their goals. But they don’t realize that there may be some steps that are missing. There’s a quote from St. Augustine that says, Pray as though everything depended on God, work as though everything depended on you. And I think that’s sort of a different take on it, but it covers kind of the same thing. If you take responsibility for what you’re looking for, and I really love what you mentioned, about the idea of those benchmarks, because if you’ve got something that you want to accomplish and you’re keeping track of each benchmark along the way, then you will be more likely to see the people and circumstances that are already there that will allow you to get to the next benchmark. I think that makes the idea of the law of attraction seem more real. When you just have your eye on the goal and you’re not really thinking in terms of all the interim steps in between, you can really miss out on a lot because you’re looking for this and right now you’re only ready for this. Jay: Yeah, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time studying highly successful people, Elon Musk, Bill Gates you know, very, very successful people, and none of them sat around and waited for anything, right? Mark Cuban, and even after they have found incredible success they didn’t say, okay, got what I wanted. They continue to work aggressively every single day. And I think about what would I do if I had that kind of money? Would I continue to work? Or would you find me on a beach somewhere? You know, this is a mentality, it’s part of them. It’s their love. It’s their passion. I think it has very little to do with money or even the law of attraction. David: I agree. that’s the result of sort of doing the things that you’re good at and the things that you love exceptionally well. When you do that and you’re able to impact enough other people, and I think that’s a key component that’s often missing, is that they’re great at what they did and they pursued it with passion. But what they were pursuing was able to impact enough other people, that they were able to generate the result. They were able to generate the revenue, which is essentially the reward for being able to serve or service enough people so that it comes back to you like that. Jay: Yeah. So I think it’s about, you know, kind of thinking about those things that you want to achieve, creating a plan to get there and working as hard as you can, to achieve that success. David: Yeah. I know personally, the times in my life where I was really focused on a particular goal, especially business, we’re talking business here. I have an idea for something. You have an idea for a business or you have an idea for a product. You have an idea for something. And when you believe in it enough, and when you’re passionate enough about it, It just seems to almost take on a life of its own. You sort of know what to do next. You see the opportunities and you take them because you know how it fits in. And pretty much every major success that I’ve had in business has rolled that way. A lot of times when you’re just sort of trying to slug something out and you’re trying to figure it out and things aren’t coming together. I think some of it has to do with the vision. Either the vision isn’t clear enough of exactly what it is that you want this thing to be, because you have to have that first. Just like building a house, you have to know what it’s going to look like. You want the blueprint before you start nailing boards together. So you need to have a clear idea of it first, because when you’ve got that clear i