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http://www.treptalks.com Interview with mike McMahon Transcript Sushant: Hey Treps, this is Sushant, founder and host of TrepTalks, and today I’m really excited with the guest that’s joining me today. His name is Mike Macmahon. He’s, he is a sales professional with thirty-‐eight years’ experience, and has personally closed more than 12,000 sales, and now he teaches what he calls “healthy selling,” which is about teaching people how to sell without having the need to close by applying pressure or stress. So, really excited to have you today, Mike, on my show. Welcome Mike: Well, thank you. I’m happy to be here. It’s exciting. Sushant: So, really today I wanted to ask you a few questions from the perspective of an entrepreneur or a startup founder, and hope to learn something that would make me a little bit more effective in trying to sell my ideas, or my products. And I think that, you know, when someone mentions the word sale or sales, there’s this sort of negative connotation or associations that come up, that someone is trying to have you buy something that you don’t really want and there, you know, putting pressure, or doing some sales tactics on you. But at the same time, I think that sales and persuasion, there’s a third aspect of persuasion with sales, whether you think about, you know, a little kid trying to persuade his or her parent trying to buy them a candy, or where there’s a CEO trying to close a deal. So, having said that, I really want to ask you, you have so much experience in sales, thirty-‐eight years of experience, what is one, what is the biggest lesson that you would like to share? I mean, what is the overall learning that you would like to share with my audience? Mike: Well, like you had mentioned, Sushant, people just have a real negative stereotype of salespeople, and the truth is, that a lot of that’s earned. [clears throat] Excuse me. A lot of that’s, you know, brought forward with Hollywood, you know, when they do a role, they feed into that. But the challenge that an entrepreneur or, you know, a solo practitioner faces when they begin to close a prospect, is that oftentimes they have that conflict, and they think, they feel like, they are stepping into this slimy, sleazy, cheaty, you know, hard closer role, and, and there’s a conflict. And so, with that conflict, then they don’t necessarily, they’re not effective, ‘cause, because they’re not congruent with what they believe, even though they know that the offer they have, the service that they can provide, the solution that they have in mind, is going to be transformational for who, whomever, they’re dealing with. Sushant: So the conflict is dealing with more in their own heads, it’s not really between the interaction they’re having with the person in front of them?
http://www.treptalks.com Mike: Right. They believe in what they’re offering, but they’re confused about the way to persuade without manipulating. And so that conflict comes across as a lack of confidence. And you know, with, if you’re having a conversation with somebody and you want to persuade them in whatever it is because it’s the best thing for them, if you’re not confident it’s going to come across deeply, and you know, the person that you’re talking to isn’t going to be inspired to take action. Sushant: That’s a very good distinction that you brought there, and I hadn’t thought about that. If the distinction between persuasion and manipulation. Mike: Um-‐hm, Sushant: So, it seems like, you know, even though they may know that what they have to offer is valuable and is going to help the people they’re trying, their prospects, they think that they somehow have to manipulate them in order to get them to buy. Mike: Sure. And, you know, what happens is when people come to talk to me and they want to learn more about how to sell whatever it is they have, whether it’s a good, a service, or whatever, more often than not they start asking, “How do I? Help me understand how to close the deal?” And the truth is, that’s not the place to start. The reality is you don’t need to close at all. What you need to do is learn how to open. And what I mean by that, my goal, the objective that I have, will have a lot to do with how I focus. It will have everything to do with what I say. You know, the reality is that I don’t need to worry about making a sale, I need really worry about, not necessarily worry, but what I need to uncover, I need, I have to decide whether or not my prospect actually needs what I have to offer, and I have to help them make that decision. So I really need to put on my detective hat, or think of a doctor. You know, a doctor has to do an examination. If you walked into a doctor’s office, and without him so much as even looking at you or talking to you, the nurse comes out and says, “Here, the doctor prescribed this for you.” Well, that’s malpractice. And we do that as entrepreneurs, and business owners, and salespeople. You know, we know our product or our service so well, we go into the conversation thinking that the best thing we can do is sell it, and so we end up creating pressure, and creating resistance, and what we really need to do is back up, we need to do an examination, we need to find out what their real needs are, and help them discover them too. Even if I’ve done this hundreds of times, it’s not for me. I have to go, I have to walk the prospect through the discovery process so that they really understand their challenges, and they understand what those challenges are costing them. Because there is a price that they’re paying not having a solution, and they just don’t understand that yet. So if I back up and I change my objective, I’m not trying to make a sale. What I’m really trying to do is just uncover a need, qualify whether or not I
http://www.treptalks.com can help them, and if I can, great, and if I can’t, that’s okay too. I succeeded in both cases. I’m not failing, I’m not creating pressure, I’m not building up rejection, and, you know, it’s just a better experience. Sushant: So, you know, that’s good, that, you know, first you have to uncover a need, you have to. But does that create a problem in, at first getting through the door? Like, in order to uncover a need, in order to get the customer to discover if they need what you have to offer, first you have to get an appointment, or you have to have them on the phone, and, you know, everyone is busy these days, you know. Why should they spend the next five minutes or even two minutes with you trying to do that discovery process? Like what is you experience in that regard? And how do you go about getting that initial time to be able to do that? Mark: Yes. So it all depends on whether or not you’re going to do cold calling and you’re going to call somebody up out of the blue, or you’re going to do attraction-‐ based marketing where you’re trying to draw them to you. The key thing to begin with though, is you have to understand who your ideal client is. So if I, you know, I mean very specifically, you know, what type of business do they have? If they’re not a business owner, what type of entrepreneur are they, you know? What’s in their revenue, you know? Where do they, you know, what are the things they like to do? How many employees do they have, you know? So we’re looking at all of these things, and the key word here is ideal. And the reason that matters is that, you know, if you’re targeting everybody, you’re not targeting anybody. So you really want to pick your area and become the specialist. So that’s one thing and it’s positioning. You’ve got to position yourself so that when you promote, it’s effective, so that you can profit. So, I want to position myself as an expert in my industry, and there’s a number of ways I can do that. I can speak publicly. I can author books, you know, start with a blog if you don’t have anything else. More often than not, I find that anybody that’s blogging for any length of time already has all the content they need for a book. They just need to bring it together, edit it, and put it out there. And with Kindle publishing, I mean, you can be a published author in no time. And, you know, not that you’re going to make a lot of money out of the book, that’s not the point. It’s all about positioning you as the expert. And so that can begin to create attraction marketing and can get people to come to you. And if I’m cold calling, which is very effective, if you’re doing B-‐to-‐B, you know, it’s kind of hard to do these days if you’re trying to call consumers, but if I’m calling businesses because the service I have applies to them, then the real key is “What’s in it for them? What’s the problem I solve consistently for those businesses?” I need to get that out, it’s not a game, I’m not trying to trick them into a conversation, you know, it’s just a very direct process. So you need to think of two strong benefits that you can call up with, and it’s not a time to sell. So if I make that cold call, and I offer the two benefits, and you know, it’s, “Hey this is Mike Macmahon, I’m with so-‐and-‐so, we specialize in helping whatever
http://www.treptalks.com the type of business they are. You know, minimize this and increase that, and if I’ve caught you at a good time, I’d like to ask you a few questions just to see whether or not our service would be a benefit to you.” That’s the key, the thing I just said there at the end, “If I’ve caught you at a good time, then I’d like to ask you a few questions to see whether or not our service would be a benefit to you.” Now, I’m asking for permission. If they just blow me off, if they say no, it’s not time to try to sell anything. Just let them go, move on to the next one. The thing you’re going to do, though, is you want to keep track. If you develop a dozen benefit statements, I mean you really understand, this is why you have to, you have to go ideal client. You need to understand their specific needs. So, if I can come up with a dozen or more, then every time I call I could use two different ones. So the first time I use one and two, second time it’s three and four, the next time it’s five and six, and what I’m doing over, you know, I wouldn’t call them more often than once a month, maybe once every six weeks, if I’m doing this cold calling thing. Each time I’m talking to them, I’m planting a seed, because I’m going to cover a different need that I know they typically have. And so you’ll be surprised what happens. Because again, I’m not trying to sell anything. I just want to hit a hot button, and some of the time, so if I’m touching base with them every month or so, and, you know, by the time I’ve made it through all twelve of my benefit statements, if I’m keeping track, you know, sometimes they’ll say, “Well you know that’s kind of interesting to me but this isn’t a good time.” They blow you off again. That’s okay. Just say no and move on. They’re going to recognize over two or three calls that you’re not there to pester them but you’re bring value because you understand their needs. Because this is what I tell everybody, you need to be able to describe your prospect’s pain better that they can. Well to do that, you need to become an expert in your industry, you have to know exactly what people are facing, and the problems that they have, and the challenges. You know I work with a lot of coaches, and the biggest challenge they have is maintaining that integrity with who they are and having the sales conversation. But the other issue is getting, just like you brought up, how on earth do we get in front of enough people so that we can have these introductions, these conversations, to make, you know, a solution available that somebody will take advantage of, have that enrollment conversation, as it were? So it really comes down to positioning yourself as the expert and then promoting correctly. Sushant: So that actually brings a couple of good, good recollections for me also. Recently someone, so I have an e-‐commerce business as well, and I got approached by different people and, you know, recently a salesperson, she tried selling me some of her services, which was more of a marketing, online marketing services. And she called me quite a few times, and she left a message, and you know, after some time, if you’d keep on doing that, you ‘d begin to recognize that person, you know, the person that’s telling their name and things like that. So finally I picked up the phone and we had a conversation. I said, “You know, okay send me your, you know,
http://www.treptalks.com whatever, thing that you’re selling.” She sent me an email. I responded back with this, you know, of course I’m also a businessperson, so I responded back, you know, trying to negotiate something. She sent me back an email with a very rude response, basically saying, you know, it seems like my services are not for you. Well, guess what happened after three months? She called me back again. Maybe she thought that I probably forgot, but I, you know, I did not forget, and this time, even if I may have been interested in her services, I did not, I pretty much said, “Do you remember what you told me last time?” And that was pretty much it. So, that is a very good point, that you know, that you mentioned, you know, be persistent but try not to force yourself on them or try not to be rude or something like that. Now the other question I want to ask you is, you mentioned that in a B-‐to-‐B setting you’re talking to people. Is there a good person in a business setting, like, that you should reach, because when you call a business you probably reach the front desk. Do you have any strategies to be reaching either the marketing manager or the CEO? Who is the right person to talk to in terms of making a sale? Mike: Well that’s a great question, and this again part of where you have to do your homework, and you need to be the expert for your particular industry. Because somebody in every business is typically the decision maker for whatever it is you have to offer. And so you have to figure that out. You know, for example, one of the companies I work with, they work with attorneys. Well, forty percent of their sales, the attorney is never on the phone, never has a conversation with anybody. It’s all handled through the information gatherer or the office manager, you know. So in traditional sales, you know, which is so outdated it’s not funny, but in the way most people are trained for selling, they think that they have to get to the owner and so they’ll do everything that they can, call it getting around the gatekeeper or, you know, get to the decision maker, and there is a place for that. But you have to know your specific market. So, if I’m selling marketing services, then who in the firm, the business that I’m calling in to, whose job is affected the most based on marketing results? Who can I come alongside and help? And so, everybody, it’s not always the owner, although I recommend, it’s much easier to call the owner first. In this day and age, you can Google the business, you know, you can easily find out all kinds of information about who’s in the firm. You can check out their website. You know the biggest mistake most people make, if they’re going to cold call, is they think they’re going to find all this stuff out on the phone in the call. You need to call up already knowing who they are, some of their successes, what you’ve preliminarily figured out, what their challenges are, and when you’ve done it for any length of time and you’re the expert in your market that really doesn’t take very long. You can do this quick analysis, ten minutes, and make the phone call. And so it’s always better to call above the level that you need to and have them refer you down then it would be to start at, you know, the gatekeeper, the receptionist, and try to work up. And there’s an easy way to get through that gatekeeper and have them help you. You just be
http://www.treptalks.com honest. “Hey this is Mike, I’m with Healthy Selling, and I help companies grow their sales and reduce the resistance to the sales process, and usually I talk to the owner or sometimes the office manager. I’m just wondering if you could direct me to the right person to have a conversation with?” And that gatekeeper will, they’re there to screen out people who are going to waste time. So when you introduce yourself, you give a couple of benefit statements about why you’re making the phone call, and you know, “I help companies grow, I eliminate problems in their sales pipeline, and you know, usually I work with the office manager or the owner. I’m just wondering if you could direct me to the right person” Most of the time, they’re going to direct you to the right person. If they’re not going to, try again another day. Move on to the next one. There’s so many fish in the ocean it’s just unbelievable. Sushant: So, let’s change the gears a little bit, let’s talk about the fear of rejection a little bit. So let’s say, because, this is a real thing, you know, fear of rejection. When I started doing a little bit of my sales, you know, a person who has not experienced fear of rejection they may have this idea that it’s something out there. You actually feel it in your body, it’s a real, real thing. So let’s say from the perspective on an entrepreneur, a startup founder, you know, they have an idea and they are going to pitch it to an investor, and they have made an appointment with a prospective client. What is, first of all, what have you experience been with rejection, and are there any, I mean, what is the best strategy to deal with that or become comfortable with that? Mike: Okay, so, I’ve gone the whole gamut. I’ve been in sales thirty years, I’ve made a lot of sales, but you can imagine having closed over twelve-‐thousand sales how many times I’ve been told no. And the traditional thing that managers and sales trainers, and even books, tell people is, you know, develop a thick skin, sales is a numbers game. Anybody that says that they thrive on rejection, they need help, because rejection is terrible. Nobody likes rejection, myself included. And I can tell you, that until I learned to deal with it, there were times that I would just dread making that phone call, or making that presentation. And so what I figured out, and this didn’t happen overnight, it took me a while to figure this out, but it’s actually very simple, it may be so simple that people don’t believe it, but the reality is, I shifted my why. And what I mean by that, is why am I making the phone call? Because if you’re making the phone call to make a sale, if that’s your primary purpose, well it’s one thing if I’ve already had multiple conversations with somebody and I’m now following up, and we’re just tying down brass tacks and making, you know, crossing T’s and dotting I’s, well sure, I can make the phone call and close the deal. But if I’m making that first phone call, it’s never about making the sale, ever. People have permission to stop trying to sell in that first phone call, just never do it again, don’t try to sell, what you’re actually doing is simply finding out whether or not they have a problem that you can help them solve. And if I’m going
http://www.treptalks.com into this with that approach, that’s my objective, I have changed my why, I’m reaching out to see whether or not the person I’m talking to has a problem I can help them solve. If I can, great. If I can’t, that’s okay too. Both of them are successes, I succeeded, I did not fail. This is called failure-‐proofing your prospecting. Because the whole point of that first call, it’s a qualification call. You know, if I ask a roomful of salespeople, people that sell every day for a living, what’s the purpose of the first call that you make? I’m going to hear people say, “Make the sale.” “Build rapport.” “Advance the sale.” You know, almost none will say, “Qualify.” But that’s what it’s about. And so, all I want to do is figure out, like I’ve said, do they have a problem and can I help them? Now, from an integrity point of view, what I want to do is, if they have a situation that I can’t solve but I know somebody else that can help, I’m going to point them in the right direction. So, I’m never going to lose by helping somebody, ever, you know, because if I didn’t have something to help them with, somebody else does, it’s good for both of them. In the long run, I will ultimately get that client somehow, either because they’re going to refer somebody to me because of my integrity, or I have a different service that’s going to meet their needs and they trust me. Because guess what? I wasn’t trying to be a salesperson. So I can eliminate failure, and what happens is, I eliminate the rejection. Now don’t get me wrong, you’re going to have people that are just going to say no right up front, but you know, again, and you have to craft that interest creating opening statement, you have very little time, you don’t beat around the bush, this is who I am, this is who I work for, here’s what I could possibly be able to, and you want to say poss—you know, we help, I specialize in helping companies, there’s a possibility I might be able to help you, blah blah blah, you know, two benefits, and I’ve got you at the right time I’d like to ask you a few questions, would that be okay? If they say, “No, this isn’t a good time.” Just let them go. But guess what? They’re not qualified. They’re not qualified, I had a successful call. So when I understand my objective is not to make the sale, I’m not creating pressure, I’m not creating resistance, I’m not getting rejection. You will get people that will tell you no, but it’s different, because you have a different purpose. And if you’re not, if either outcome isn’t okay with you, and that’s the key, you have to get okay with it, if they say yes, I’m going forward, if they say no, I’m going to the next one. I literally taught myself, when I heard that no, I would actually say to myself, and I’ve said this to myself thousands and thousands of times, “Thank you for saving me time. Now I can help somebody else.” That simple thing, and I know it sounds silly, but it makes a huge difference, because when someone says no right up front and just blows you off, they did you a favor. You got to think that way because I didn’t get five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, into a presentation for them to just boringly listen because they were trying to be nice, they weren’t polite enough to tell me no and get rid of me, they just, you know, they just let me go, let me go, let me go, and I get nowhere, because there was never a need that I could have uncovered. So they saved me time by telling me no early. And,
http://www.treptalks.com you know, it’s thank you for saving me time. Now I can go help somebody else. And it just makes a difference. Sushant: That statement, when you say that to yourself, or do you actually tell them that? Mike: No I say that to myself. Sushant: Okay. Alright, just a question. I thought that was the case. So let’s say that, you know, I have been in sales presentations, and where, you know, people try to teach you how to be better at real estate, and it’s more of an information kind of thing. You might have been in similar kind of thing, where they do more of an informational kind of marketing, they, you know, a very dynamic speaker comes on the thing and he gives his presentation and at the end of the sale they say, you know, the salespeople are sitting in the back, and they use something, I would call it manipulation techniques, where they would say that the first ten people who will buy they will get a thousand dollar discount, and then their own people, well a couple of their own people who are sitting in the audience will actually run to the back, and that forces other people to, I mean, do you recommend using some sort of those kinds of manipulation techniques? I mean, is that kind of leaning towards a scam? Mike: No, I mean, no I don’t recommend any of that. The reality is, it is manipulation. There’s a great book out there, I can’t think of the title of the book, but the author is Robert Cialdini. He wrote the book so that everybody can— Sushant: Influence and persuasion. Mike: Influence. Absolutely. So the point, the reason he wrote the book was so that all, Joe Public, everybody the consumer, could know what these processes salespeople use, you know, so that they could be, you know, have a defense against them. And, you know, and unfortunately, what’s really happened is almost everybody in sales has gone and gotten this book and figured out, “Okay, this works.” And so the problem is, that those strategies and tactics, however disreputable they may be, they do work. And because they work, people that don’t have a lot of integrity are going to continue to use them, you know. So I’m absolutely opposed to any kind of manipulation, you know the reality is that the best client is a client that made the decision, the right decision, for themselves. Because it’s just the right decision, not because there was artificial scarcity created, not because, you know, they think that there’s this artificial herd movement, you know, because people tend to move in herds. That’s the whole reason you get chills in when the audience stands up and you immediately go to the back. It’s just, it’s manipulation
http://www.treptalks.com and I don’t agree with it. I’m okay with influence. And the real big difference between influence and manipulation is intent. So healthy selling, which is the cure for what everyone hates about sales, because there’s plenty to hate, it’s based on love. Literally, I mean, it’s love to self. So rather than manipulate somebody, I’m going to put their needs first, even if it means referring them to a competitor or just flat out telling them I can’t help you. Whatever’s best for them, I’m going to put that first, because in the long run, there’s plenty of opportunity out there for everybody. There is no scarcity, it’s the salespeople that twist arms, hardcore close, and I know I was one, I am a reformed hardcore closer, I learned. Those salespeople operate from this idea that there’s only a little bit out there, and that’s not true. I mean, there’s almost seven billion people on this planet. There are, if the thing that you’re in doesn’t have a big enough opportunity, get a better thing, so that you don’t have to try and rely on those things. There’s just so much you could do with anything you’re offering in this day and age, because it’s a global planet. You know, we’re not stuck to our zip code anymore. Sushant: That’s very true. And so what you’re saying is it really comes down to integrity because— Mike: Yes. Sushant: You can take the time to, you know, uncover the need of the customer and show them how you can help them, and that may be one customer at a time, but at the same time, if you use these techniques, you can probably close more people more quickly, but I think what you’re saying is, if you’re coming from the place of love and integrity, in the long run, you’ll probably be in a better sales position. Is that right? Mike: You are. And you can still do group sales from a position of love and integrity, you know. I mean, it’s, and I’ve experienced it, I’ve done it. You can stand in front of that room and have a presentation that’s going to benefit the people, but the people in the audience, whoever you’re talking to, they’re going to know whether or not you have a solution that’s going to help them. You don’t have to twist their arm. And you know, if you’ve got to talk somebody into a sale, then you’ve got to talk somebody into staying in the sale. Say I found that, and seriously, I’ve closed a lot of sales, and early in my career I was taught old-‐school, traditional selling. You use alternative advance closes, tie downs, you know, and it’s only a form of manipulation. And as far as I was concerned, as long as I thought that the product was really good, and it would help the person, then that wasn’t manipulation, it was influence. Well as I began to evolve and learn, and I’ve changed more in the last ten years then in the previous twenty, I recognize that that still is manipulation. Just because I have a great product doesn’t mean I need to impose it on anybody. What I
http://www.treptalks.com need to do, it always comes back to I need to qualify them, I need to help them discover what their real issues are, and together, we need to put our heads together and figure out whether or not I can solve them. And you can do that from the platform, or you can do it one on one. You can have a webinar and you can lay it out, you’ve done your research, and this is the key, you have to do your research, if you know what people’s challenges are, so that you can describe it, their pain, better than they can, then you can address those issues and they’re going to recognize that, “You know what? This person can help me.” I don’t have to use fancy clothes, I don’t have to twist any arms. Now that’s not to say I can’t put bonuses on an offer, it’s not to say I can’t make an attractive offer for people that make a decision quickly, because as a business, you know, if I can close, if I can close a sale in one conversation, it’s far less expensive for me then if it takes seven to eight, nine, or ten, you know. So maybe I want to sit down and figure out what the best offer is I have, and then what can I do that really makes it just irresistible? And this is about value. You know if I’m asking somebody to pay me a thousand dollars for whatever it is I have to offer, how can I add ten thousand dollars’ worth of legitimate value that they recognize as just awesome? And now, I’m selling, it’s a value proposition, now it’s really irresistible. Create an irresistible offer that way, and then stand behind it with an unconditional guarantee. Be bold. Sushant: That reminds me of some of the infomercials that you watch on the television, like— Mike: But wait, there’s more! Sushant: Exactly, the, you know, the knife sets and all. They really are worth $300 but today it’s for $159.99. But wait, there’s more, you get this free. And then if you call right now, you will get this also. So you’re saying that they’re making an irresistible offer for people to make that decision. Mike: Yeah. Sushant: In that very moment, in that actual— Mike: And it’s an impulsive thing, you know, if you’re watching an infomercial and they do them, there’s a lot of psychology behind it, they do them the way they do them for a specific reason. And that particular technique is called piling on, you know, and it works. I mean, at some point, somebody’s sitting there, “You mean I only have to pay this for that?” You know, so they’re reducing it, ridiculous in a lot of ways. I don’t know that you need to sound like, I think if it sounds like a salesperson, stop doing it. So, but that’s not to say, you know, but that still doesn’t mean that when you’re putting together your offer, whatever it is, you want to build
http://www.treptalks.com as much value into that as possible. Because what people are paying for, people pay for the results, the transformation. What am I going to get out of it? They don’t care that there’s fifty-‐two pieces to the puzzle. They don’t care that you have seven different, you know, volumes of audio information and there’s sixteen videos, and we’ve got seven hours of this. Nobody cares. That’s not what they’re buying. They’re not buying stuff to put on their shelf, they’re buying what they believe it will do for them. And so, you know, that’s important to recognize. How do I language what I’m doing so that I’m addressing the benefits that they need that are going to help them the most? Sushant: But my follow-‐up question to that is, you know, I think that the technique you mentioned is piling? Or stock-‐piling? Mike: Piling. Sushant: You know, let’s say that I have an irresistible offer and that is like, let’s say I have a DVD set and I want to add an additional e-‐book, or two e-‐books to that. Is that more effective if I say that, you know, I’m giving all three for a certain price, or is it more effective to say that, you know, I’m giving you DVD this much, but I’m going to add these two e-‐books in addition to that, would that make it more, is that a psychological trick that works better? Mike: Well so yeah, to a degree. So here’s the thing. If you, people don’t value anything for free if you just give it to them. So you have to build the value in why this thing that you’re adding. So I’ve got this fabulous DVD set, it’s worth every penny you’re paying for it, but I really want to make it special for you. I’m also going to include this, whatever it is, it’s irrelevant, and you need to build out why it all by itself is worth something. You still have to sell the “freemium”, you know, you’re giving away something for free, but you still have to sell the value behind it so that they can appreciate it. So, and I’m not saying inflate it. You know, this is worth ten grand, well, you see some of them, some of them are just ridiculous these days. You got people offering thirty-‐five thousand dollars’ worth of bonuses and you’re paying ninety-‐seven bucks. I mean, nobody believes that. And that’s crazy. But, you know, if I’m paying ninety-‐seven dollars for a DVD series and somebody, you know, but also we’re going to add on this other component and this other component, these two other e-‐books that are both worth twenty-‐seven dollars, or whatever. It doesn’t matter, it’s got to be a realistic amount. But you do need to sell the value, even though you’re including it at no charge. That helps people feel like they’re getting a really good deal. Sushant: So you have to include the value, you can’t say that, this is like free of cost, because then people are not going to value it.
http://www.treptalks.com Mike: Right, I mean, look. Normally, and what helps is as your business grows and as you have more product, because if you’re not continually creating product you’re missing out on lots of opportunities. So ideally you’re continuing to create product, some of its free, some of its paid, but, you know. If I happen two or three, if I’m, if I’m in the information marketing business for example, and I build a course, you know, and a year down the road I still have that course, it’s still reasonably evergreen, but I’m coming out with another course, both of them are compatible, they’re not necessarily repetitive, they’re two different areas. I have this course that I can turn around and say, you know, “Hey look, people paid me $197 for this course. If you go ahead and get this one, I’m only asking you to pay $197 for this one, but I’ll give you the one that people paid me $197.” Here’s what it does, boom boom boom boom boom. So you’re getting two for one. You know, and that’s part of the benefit of continuing to create product. You know, if you’re in the software industry, you have ancillary products, if you’re a chiropractor, you know, what other, what other goods and services can I provide that make what I’m offering more valuable? Sushant: And, and, so on an, in an internet business where your storefront, I guess, would be your website, where you’re not communicating directly, well I guess you can communicate via video, but the sales pitch would be more of a copy writing, that would come under copy writing? Mike: Sure, absolutely. But yeah, you want to learn how to tell the sale. You want to become a good copy writer. It’s not overly complicated. You are— Sushant: But it’s the same kind of principles that you use in sales, but it’s an art form? Mike: It’s a salesman in print, so you can either copy write yourself, and I think everybody should write sales letters. I will tell you that great copy write get anywhere from thirty to a hundred thousand dollars to write a sales letter. Thirty thousand, I’m not saying thirty dollars. Thirty thousand dollars to a hundred grand. You know, and there’s a lot of copy writers in the five hundred to three hundred thousand dollar range per sales letter, which depends on the length of the letter. Sales copy is an art, and I think everybody needs to learn how to present whatever they have to offer, you know. So they need to, they need to study sales copy, and you know, and there’s—So a great thing to get is if any of your listeners aren’t on Gary Halbert’s list, now Gary Halbert passed away years ago, but his son continues to manage his newsletter. Go Google Gary Halbert and get on his list, because the guy is a master copy writer, and so every day or every week, you know, you get a newsletter with great content, just really good stuff. And every business owner
http://www.treptalks.com should be understanding how to do copy. Even if they’re going to pay somebody else to do it, you’ve got to recognize good copy. Sushant: Now I have heard Gary Halbert’s name, I haven’t actually, I mean, he’s on my reading list. Mike: Um-‐hum. Sushant: But so if I get on his list, it is his previous work that they send us? Or— Mike: Yeah. His son still pushes his stuff out. And they do, you know—Well just get on the list, it’s worth it. It’s free, you just get on his newsletter, you know, you have nothing to lose. I mean, obviously they will market to you, but it’s great marketing, it’s just good stuff. So yeah, and if you don’t have a Swype file, that’s another thing everybody should do, if you run across a copy, a sales page that you just really like, you want to copy it and study it, break it down and figure out what, what is it about this that makes it work? You know, I mean, business is work. Sales is work. If you’re going to be great at what you’re doing, I mean, if you look at a professional athlete, they didn’t just show up with natural talent, they spent tens of thousands of hours being who they are. You know, Tiger Woods was, regardless of what you think about his personal life, was one of the greatest golfers of all time. He’s been playing since he was four years old. He has three coaches. The guy studies every day. Michael Jordan, an amazing basketball player, the guy was relentless in his practice. He practiced, practiced, practiced. Here in San Diego we had Tony Glenn. He had three thousand hits, you know, great RBI, the guy was always on base, played for the Padres forever. But that guy practiced more than anybody, you know. And so, if you want to be good at it, make it your vocation, you know, choose to be the expert at what you’re doing. And within a very short period of time, if you continue to focus and if you study, you understand your market area, you know, you pick whatever discipline you need to be better at and, whether it’s marketing or sales or whatever, and you know, if you need to get good at lead generation, well get good at lead generation. Sushant: And entrepreneurs have to choose the one to get good at because you can’t do everything. So, at a certain point, you have to hire people who are experts. But you have to know what your strengths are and pursue that and spend time to help in that. Mike: And I agree. Yeah first thing they should do is, first thing every entrepreneur should do is hire help, as soon as they can afford to.
http://www.treptalks.com Sushant: Now, so an entrepreneur has, is in front of their customer or the people that they—let’s say now, using everything that you have told us, have now made the sale? What, is that the end of it, I mean, is there something that they need to do after they have made the sale? Mike: Absolutely. But let’s back up just a second, because there’s a big key part we left out. Sushant: Okay. Mike: So we’ve qualified them, we’ve uncovered what their real needs are, we’ve really quantified what those needs are, because it’s not just a matter of asking them what their problems are, you have to ask why those problems are a problem. Once I know what all those issues are, I’m going to present a solution. The solution that I present is going to only be based on the problems we uncovered. Think like an attorney, if you’re in a court of law and you’re doing a trial, you know, you know there’s this whole issue about the rules of evidence. And they can’t bring up something in cross-‐examination that wasn’t brought up in examination. So, so I need to discipline myself as a salesperson the same way. Kind of like the doctor example, if he does an examination, then he’s going to diagnose specific to the examination. He’s not going to sit there, the doctor’s not going to sit there and talk about twenty other things that have nothing to do with my issue. So as a presentation comes together, it should be based specifically on the client’s needs, not the three things I think are the greatest about what I do, it’s not about me, it’s about them. It’s their needs, and when I do that, yes, I’m going to win the sale. I’m going to win the sale without having to close, because it becomes a natural result of a well-‐done presentation. So now I’ve got the client, I call it the support structure, once I’ve got the client I need to deliver a wow experience. I really need to go above and beyond what they expect of me to do, I want to help them succeed, that’s the whole point. And so when I help them succeed, and I follow up, you know, I didn’t just make the sale and forget about them, I follow up, I put success processes in place for them, you know, and they’r going to let me know that they’ve had success. That’s when I can ask for a referral. You know, if they’re happy with what I’ve done I can ask for referrals. If they’re not happy with what I’ve done, I want to solve the problem. You know, so, and all of that can be automated. And, so business ow—a lot of, it’s amazing how many business owners I work with that don’t have a referral process in place. They don’t have a follow-‐up survey, for example, “Hey thank you for purchasing XYZ, we want to make sure that everything has gone smoothly for you. Has this been, you know, are you satisfied with your purchase? Yes? No?” If yes, obviously we can take them down another pipe and ask them for referrals, if no, well somebody’s got to have a conversation with this person to find out why they’re not satisfied and fix the problem immediately. And when I do that, I’m building
http://www.treptalks.com happy clients that become raving fans, and when I’ve got raving fans, I’ve got people that are getting referred to me and I have more business than I know what to do with. Now I need to put solutions in place so that I can handle all that extra business. Sushant: Okay. So referrals, we covered that. Is there, is that the complete sales process, or is there, are we leaving out something still? Mike: Well what I’ve created with Healthy Selling is real four simple steps. I have the prospecting machine, you know, because obviously you need your leads, whether you’re doing attraction or cold calling, you still have to have prospects, you know. We have the analysis matrix, because I’ve got, I have to dig in, find what their situation is, and I’ve got to determine whether or not I can help them, and if I can’t refer them to somebody else. Then I have the success system, which is actually the presentation, well-‐done presentation which results in a natural close. And now I have support structure. So it’s four steps, they stand for PASS, so it’s Prospecting machine, Analysis matrix, Success system, and Support structure, and I don’t have to close in this process, I don’t have to do any hardcore closing, so I can take a PASS on hardcore closing and still get the client. And it’s, it’s, it’s really, I’ve embraced everything that’s changed in the last decade. More has changed in the last ten years than the previous hundred when it comes to individual access to information, you know. The sales process is completely different. You have social media, you have reputations that are out there, you know, you’ve got people making recommendations socially. You can’t hide, you can’t be a company that, you know, thinks your client’s ignorant. That’s ridiculous. They can find out more about you today in thirty seconds then they ever could ten years ago. So just take all that and put it into the four simple steps. It’s just PASS, and it’s easy to remember, simple to go through, but you know, it does take a little while to learn it. But you know, it’s very effective, so it’s worth the investment in time. Sushant: And one thing I want to mention, in this day and age, things have become so transparent that if a business is relying on manipulation, even a little bit, it’s going to get exposed really quickly and, you know, these days, when I try to, when I am doing business with anyone, whether it’s a person, you know, whether I’m contacting a doctor, a lawyer, or whether it’s a business, the first thing I do is, you know, I type their name in Google and I, you know— Mike: Sure. Sushant: Everything comes up. So these days, with social media and Google searching, you can’t really hide and in fact, you have to make an effort to create a, create an online persona of yourself, of what you want yourself to be perceived by, you know, your perspective clients. So that’s, that’s a really great message. Now, if
http://www.treptalks.com someone wants to get in touch with you, or get to know about your four step system, how, what is the best way of getting to do that? Mike: Sure. They can go to the website, healthysellingsystem.com, or they can visit us on Facebook, which is facebook.com/healthyselling, and you know, we do webinars pretty frequently, so they can check that out and, you know, and learn more, you know, and go from there. Sushant: Well that’s great, Mike. I really appreciate your time today, I really, you know, from a mindset point of view, I think that’s the biggest lesson someone can learn. And if, by changing your mindset a little bit that definitely changes a lot of things. So that was really helpful and I definitely learned a lot today. So I really appreciate your time today and thank you very much for joining us on TrepTalks. Mike: Well thank you. I appreciate being here, I really appreciate the opportunity to share. Sushant: Thanks, bye. Mike: Thanks.
