Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Do It! Selling with David Newman

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Do It! Selling with David Newman · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  One of my friends and early mentors, Sam Silverstein, who's an accountability expert,
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  the phrase that I keep coming back to of Sam's.
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  Is are you willing to do what you have to do so you get to do what you want to do?
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  And sales is one of those things that we have to get better at so that we get to do what we
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  want to do which is deliver the main product or service or program of our core business.
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  3, 2, 1,
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  0 ignition, liftoff.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number 1 small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now, here's your host.
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  The small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
• 1:01
  Or you renew Shine or a national still age, join me in Philadelphia, September 21st to 23rd
• 1:07
  for brand and demand live.
• 1:09
  I wanna teach you how to become a national sought after brand in your field.
• 1:14
  It's time for you to take the spotlight that you deserve.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady.
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  America number one small business expert, and I'm so excited to welcome you to another
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  episode of the small biz chat podcast.
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  Now if you're looking for ways to boost your sales, you're in the right place.
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  We have suggestions for fixing your mindset about sales.
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  If you're one of these people that just hate sales, here on the small beach chat podcast, we
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  talk about how to start and grow a successful small business.
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  My guests have amazing insight to share, and you will get sage advice from multiple angles.
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  The mission of small business chat is to end small business failure, and that is always our
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  goal.
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  You can watch the small business chat podcast on my small biz lady Facebook fan page or my
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  YouTube channel.
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  So please feel free to like and share and subscribe because we want more people to get
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  this valuable information.
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  Now it's time for me to turn to my very first guest David Newman, he is the author.
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  He is the best selling author of DeWitt Marketing, and his latest book is DeWitt
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  selling He's also the founder of the Duett MBA mentoring program and host of the selling show,
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  a top rated business podcast with over 300 episodes.
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  David Health's professional service sellers land better clients, bigger deals, and higher
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  fees.
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  And that's what he's about to help all of us do For more information, head over to do it
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  marketing.comforward/selling.
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  David, welcome to the small business chat podcast.
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  Hey, Melinda.
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  It's great to be here.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  Oh gosh.
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  You know, you are somebody who I have known since before the world knew the small bus lady.
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  So it's such a pleasure to have you here.
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  And I want you to start by telling us your your sort of origin slash evolution story.
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  Sure.
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  Well, I had a legitimate job at one point at a 10 year inside corporate consulting career.
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  Working for big technology consulting, HR, and management consulting firms.
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  2002 went out on my own.
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  Figuring I know how to train.
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  I know how to speak.
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  I know how to consult.
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  How hard can it be?
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  And guess what?
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  I found out how hard it can be because at that point as an entrepreneur, and, of course, I
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  wish I had had small biz lady in my pocket back then, but She didn't exist back in 2002.
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  It's not about doing the work.
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  It's about getting the work.
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  And I was a disaster at marketing and selling, and I hit every brick wall and every dead end.
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  I made every mistake in the book I made the good ones twice, and it was such a struggle
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  that the evolution of my business was looking back on that 4 little struggling corporate
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  refugee and say, what do I wish I knew?
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  What capabilities?
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  What competencies?
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  What strength that I lacked then that I can now give to people who are newer entrepreneurs or
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  even mid career entrepreneurs and even a few advanced very successful entrepreneurs to help
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  them break through to their next level of revenue and resolve.
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  So it all started, but it started at kind of a hot mess and a disaster.
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  Rising you became your own best student first, basically?
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  So how then, you know, you realizing that people need to learn how to sell lead to you
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  creating the the do it the do it marketing MBA?
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  Like, how how did that come about?
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  Yeah.
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  Well, it's funny because I had started out doing a lot of one on one coaching.
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  So one on one coaching then led to online courses.
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  The problem with online courses, and I think this is still the problem today.
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  My first online course came out 10 years ago.
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  People would buy the course.
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  And, Melinda, you know this, and it's it's just the sad fact of life, People who are
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  information junkies, they buy the information, they download the information, they may even
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  look at the information, but they don't implement the information.
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  Right.
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  So rather than say, hey.
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  Here's a course.
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  Good luck, we'd now started to add mentoring and coaching and personalized guidance and
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  accountability, and that's really the secret formula of our MBA mentorship, it's not just
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  teaching it to you.
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  We teach it.
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  We coach it.
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  We do it with you, and there's even some done for you.
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  Components to it so that people really generate results unlike passively watching a course or
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  buying a ebook or downloading yet another stream of videos that you're never gonna take a
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  look at.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  So what do you think are people's biggest challenges with sales today?
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  Well, I think it's very similar to what to what my experience was is that we start a business
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  because we're great at doing the work.
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  And I don't think you do ask any entrepreneur, any small business owner.
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  Hey.
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  Why did you get into the business that you're in?
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  Very few of them would say because I love selling.
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  I love sales.
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  I hope I get to sell all day, every day, 20 fourseven.
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  Yes.
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  I've got a business that does x, y, and z But, man, do I love the sales process?
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  Sales is almost always an afterthought, and sales is almost like a necessary evil.
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  So when I sometimes talk to entrepreneurs, and I say, you know, most of the people I talk to,
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  they love the work of the the work.
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  They love the work of the work.
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  They just don't like the sales part, and they hold up the sales part like it's a little dirty
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  rat.
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  And it's like, oh, I have to do this.
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  So one of my friends and early mentors, Sam Silverstein, who's an accountability expert,
• 7:15
  the phrase that I keep coming back to of Sam's.
• 7:18
  Is are you willing to do what you have to do so you get to do what you want to do?
• 7:26
  And sales is one of those things that we have to get better at so that we get to do what we
• 7:32
  want to do which is deliver the main product or service or program of our core business.
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  Well, okay.
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  So let's say I'm one of these people that hate sales.
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  I'm not, but let's just pretend that I am.
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  What could you do with somebody like me to help me get better quickly?
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  So one of the first things that we talk about in this one of the early chapters in the do it
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  selling book is take the word sales and selling out of your vocabulary.
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  Replace them with 2 new words.
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  Invitation to a conversation because no one's afraid of an invitation usually an invitation
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  on the other end of that is something good, a picnic, barbecue, cake, singing, bourbon,
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  invitations are good, No one's afraid of getting an invitation.
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  No one's afraid of afraid of sending an invitation.
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  Conversation is also great because conversations where you exchange ideas build
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  relationships.
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  Some of those relationships might end up as clients or customers.
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  Some might end up as referrals.
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  Some might end up as lifelong friends.
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  So reframe selling as simply a series of invitations to a conversation about how you can
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  help that person.
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  I love it.
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  So, really, it's it's sort of like about the service as opposed to the sale.
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  Right?
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  That's really what you're getting at.
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  So Why is mindset and attitude so critical in sales?
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  I think the number one thing holding people back is not a lack of strategy.
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  It's not a lack of tactics, not a lack of templates, it's not a lack of script because
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  all of those are available in abundance.
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  Everywhere you look.
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  There's blogs, there's videos, there's courses, there's all kinds of things.
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  This is like reading a weight loss book, Most weight loss books say, you gotta eat less and
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  move more.
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  Most personal finance books Say, you gotta save money, tear up your credit cards, and stop
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  spending more than your earning.
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  But the personal finance books on Amazon and in your local bookstore, endless, weight loss
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  books, endless.
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  These are both 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollar industries because knowing what to do
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  is not the challenge.
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  Changing your behavior so that you actually implement and do those things That's where
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  mindset comes into play.
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  So we always work on 3 things at the same time mindset, skill set, and tool set.
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  And getting people into action because action leads to traction, traction leads to momentum,
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  momentum leads to results.
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  Love it.
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  Love it.
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  So do you think that, you know, a lot of small business owners say they struggle with sales
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  because they're so busy.
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  And, like, who's got time for for cold calls?
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  What's your answer to that?
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  So cold calling is
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  a gigantic waste of time.
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  But everything that you have ever bought and one of the premises of the do it selling book
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  is take off your salesperson hat put on your prospect hat.
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  When you respond, to that initial outreach that you're sending out.
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  If it's batch and blast spam, copy, and paste, blow everyone out of your LinkedIn network, you
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  know, the connect and spam people, we wouldn't respond to that.
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  So why in the world as a small business owner would you send that out there?
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  But everything that you've ever bought of any significance started with an initial
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  conversation, not a cold call, but an initial conversation based on research, relevance, and
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  relationship.
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  And how to do that research and how to show up on a prospect radar with something immediately
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  relevant and immediately valuable where they're more than likely to go, wow.
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  That's that's something that I should look into.
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  That's something that's probably worth an initial chat.
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  So sending out initial invitations to a conversation based on research, based on
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  relevance, not worrying about making a sale, but really about serving before selling and
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  helping before pitching, that's the key.
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  And then from the helping conversation, you qualify or disqualify them to see if they're
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  interested and see if they qualify for a sales conversation.
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  I know that in your book, you encourage small business owners to stop doing crap they hate,
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  to reach buyers.
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  What what do
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  you mean by that?
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  Yes.
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  So so many times we have this blanket advice, everyone needs to write back in the age of
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  blogging when blogging was new, and that was sexy.
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  Oh, you have to write a blog.
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  You have to write a column.
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  You have to write so many small business owners go, but, David, I I hate writing.
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  And then we get some other advice.
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  Oh, it's all about speaking.
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  Because Melinda, you're a fantastic speaker.
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  I'm a pretty good speaker.
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  We do speaking to generate leads because it's an awesome one to many sales platform.
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  I don't like speaking.
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  I'm afraid of speaking.
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  I don't think speaking's gonna work for me.
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  Then we go to technology.
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  Oh, you gotta use technology.
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  Technology is amazing.
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  Search engine optimization, you know, social media gotta engineer your website, lead magnets
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  funnels.
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  If you don't like technology, don't use technology.
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  If you don't love writing, don't use writing.
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  If you don't love speaking, Then don't do speaking.
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  If you don't love networking, both online and in person, shaking hands and kissing babies,
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  for heaven's sake, don't use networking strategies.
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  Pick one thing.
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  And out of all of those things, by the way, I know there's one thing.
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  That you actually not only are great at, but that you probably enjoy and double down and
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  triple down on the marketing activities and the lead generation activities that you find easy,
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  effortless, and enjoyable because those are the only ones that will ever be effective.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  Alright.
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  So one more question before we go to break.
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  Is texting a good way to follow-up with sales leads?
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  I think texting is tricky.
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  Texting, you know, all the tech thing companies will say, hey.
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  Text thing is great.
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  Got a 90% plus open rate.
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  Text people, they will get it I think it depends on how early in the relationship, you
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  ask for that cell phone number and you start the texting, I think texting is an earned it's
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  an earned medium, meaning that you need to build up some familiarity and some trust and
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  some respect for that company who's gonna start texting you, you do it too early or you do it
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  too shallow or you ask for the sale, before you've really earned the opportunity to ask for
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  the sale, It becomes intrusive.
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  That's where you get those hate packs.
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  Like, who the hell are you?
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  And I'm not giving this a family rated show, so I can't say some of the other things.
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  That I've gotten back from some texts that were not welcome and not well received.
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  But once you're in a customer or prospect relationship, Once that customer recognizes
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  your name, maybe they've even been retargeted, so they visit your website a couple of times.
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  Maybe they subscribe to some things.
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  There, I think texting is the secret sauce because texting can be really, really awesome.
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  The open rates and the intimacy and the ability to reply in a format that someone already has
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  in their pocket most of their work day.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  Well, when we come back, we're gonna talk more with David Newman How to get better at sales,
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  especially if you hate sales.
• 14:46
  Are you ready to become a boss?
• 14:49
  Hi.
• 14:49
  I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz City.
• 14:51
  Click the button below and take my free boss quiz.
• 14:55
  This assessment will help you learn your entrepreneur type and find the right business
• 14:59
  model for you.
• 15:00
  Get this information about the number one asset in your business.
• 15:04
  Yeah.
• 15:04
  That's you.
• 15:09
  Welcome back to the small biz chat podcast.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady, your host, and we have been talking about how to get
• 15:17
  better at sales with David Newman.
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  David, talk to me about the sales process.
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  It is a lot more complicated than it used to be.
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  What how many aspects should people be trying to really manage in their sales process?
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  Well, the first thing about a sales process is you gotta have one.
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  Meaning that most entrepreneurs, most small business owners, when you say, well, talk about
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  your sales process.
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  Feel like every sale rolls out on its own, Sometimes it's 3 touches.
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  Sometimes it's 7 touches.
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  Sometimes it takes 2 weeks.
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  Sometimes it takes 2 months.
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  So we enforce our own sales cycle.
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  Meaning, if you're expecting a short sales cycle and you structure your sales process for
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  a short sales cycle, that's what you will get.
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  If you don't put anchors into the process, if you let the prospect kinda run the show and
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  delay and procrastinate give you all kinds of excuses and stalls, then you will get a long
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  sales process.
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  What's really important is without getting into too much detail, You need to be the leader of
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  that sales conversation.
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  Never leave one conversation without booking the next touch point on the prospect's calendar
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  and keep things moving towards a decision.
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  Our job is not to sell products and services.
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  Our job is to collect decisions.
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  And to make those decisions clear and strong and calendarized so that you have a monthly
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  goal and you hit that target You got a quarterly goal and you hit that target, and
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  that leads to an annual goal for your revenue, and you're gonna hit that target.
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  Love it.
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  So what do you think is the best way to drive repeat business and referrals?
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  I think the first thing you need to do is ask and also every initial sales conversation needs
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  to have renewal and referral baked into the conversation.
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  Don't make this an afterthought.
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  Don't make this a surprise.
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  So let's say that you're doing a project or a program, and maybe it's 90 days.
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  Refer to that initial 90 days as our 1st 90 days together.
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  And then should we decide to continue?
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  Should we go on?
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  Here's what phase 2 looks like.
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  So people stop doing business with small business owners when the prospect or when the
• 17:30
  the client thinks they're finished.
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  If you're always painting a bigger, better future, that, hey.
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  There's phase 2.
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  Hey.
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  There's more things that we might do together.
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  Hey.
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  Let's get this piece of business done And then here's what you have to look forward to to
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  literally bake in the renewal conversation and the upselling and cross selling.
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  We call it upselling and cross selling.
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  Find other ways to extend that value and start talking about that during the first sales
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  conversation, not waiting until the end, And then similarly with referrals, when we ask for
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  referrals, while we expect referrals, one of the ground rules of doing business with us, is
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  hey Melinda.
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  I assume that if we do a fantastic job for you that you might refer 2 or 3 other people in
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  your world who are important to you, and that we can serve them in the same way that we're
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  serving you.
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  Would that be fair?
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  Yes.
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  It would.
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  That's the little quick mini talk track.
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  And then now they're thinking, well, who else can I refer A lot of people think, hey?
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  Let's wait until the service is delivered.
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  The peak of their excitement is right after they bought.
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  It is not after the service is delivered, So ask for that referral conversation the moment
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  that you seal the deal.
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  Now that's actually information I have never heard before.
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  So Go after them the minute they buy for the referral.
• 18:47
  Yeah.
• 18:47
  I love it.
• 18:48
  I love it.
• 18:48
  Okay.
• 18:49
  Well, wonderful.
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  Well, last question for you, David.
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  Tell me is the best business advice you have ever been given?
• 18:55
  Yeah.
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  This is really, really important.
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  What I was really studying, I had one of my early sales mentors tell me that David York So
• 19:02
  committed to being a better salesperson.
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  Don't worry about that.
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  Don't worry about being a better salesperson.
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  Be a better person, and more sales will happen.
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  Be more caring.
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  Be more curious.
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  Be more committed to your prospect success.
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  And that advice has stood me in a very good stead for over a decade.
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  I love it.
• 19:23
  I love it.
• 19:24
  Thank you so much, David Newman, for being on the show.
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  Your wonderful new book.
• 19:29
  Do it selling is is worth a reined for sure.
• 19:32
  And when we come back, we're gonna be talking about how to use data to boost your brand.
• 19:40
  Or new revenue shine on a national stage, join me in Philadelphia September 21st to 23rd for
• 19:46
  brand and demand live.
• 19:48
  I wanna teach you how to become a national sought after brand in your field.
• 19:52
  It's time for you to take the spotlight that you deserve.
• 20:03
  Scribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday for more
• 20:08
  fantastic information and interviews.
• 20:11
  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 20:15
  website succeed as your own boss.com.
• 20:19
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.