Latest / Sell Well: Helping Agencies Close More Deals and Grow Revenue / I’m There for You: What Jerry and Elaine Can Teach Us Before Year End

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I’m There for You: What Jerry and Elaine Can Teach Us Before Year End · Sell Well: Helping Agencies Close More Deals and Grow Revenue

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every year at Lawson House, we had a client who came back in Q4 and paid for their entire next year up front in full because they wanted the tax write-off before December 31st.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I loved that client.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: We were all about it, but I want to talk about what that kind of money can do to your head if you're not careful.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Q4 is such a funny season, especially in agency world.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: People have budget they need to spend before the year closes out, and clients who have been quiet all year suddenly want to talk.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Deals that have stalled out over the summer start moving again.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, your books in November are looking phenomenal.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you're thinking, wow, business is really picking up.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it is, but a lot of the time it's just seasonality.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how I typically see this play out.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: December comes in and you're slammed with delivery and the holidays, and it feels like everything is cruising.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're sitting there with your pumpkin pie, maybe a little old-fashioned, your goal setting for the next year, and you're like, man, I think I can dream a little bit bigger.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like business is really on the upswing.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be awesome.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then January 1st rolls around and you're like, okay, back at it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: A new year.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I set this goal.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna make a bajillion dollars.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna keep this rolling.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: But business dries up, leads stop coming in, and you're looking around going, but wait a minute, we had so much momentum.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: We were doing so well.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We just closed all these amazing deals.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I see happen.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I say this from personal experience and also after working with so many different types of business owners.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that in Q4, we all start to get a little comfortable with the amount of leads that we have.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we stop paying attention to the actual lead flow that's happening, where the leads are coming from, our new deals coming in.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: We take our foot off the gas a little bit.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a busy time of year personally.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's got stuff going on.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Kids have one bajillion Christmas things they've got to go do.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, you can get distracted with your personal life, feel like the business is doing super well, and by January be out of leads.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I recommend to all of my clients to run a sales blitz sometime in Q4.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to start sparking some of these leads that are going to carry you through the new year now so that when you get to January, you're not having the conversation of, hey, I just wanted to reach out.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, cool, we're setting budgets.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: We'll let you know.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're having the conversation instead of, hey, I know that we had talked about weaving us into a part of the plan.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let me know when we can get rolling.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited to get things moving.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're picking up momentum for where you started it earlier in the year.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And now is the perfect, perfect time to start those conversations.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening for a while, you have definitely heard me talk about a sales blitz.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really passionate about this because it's one of the most effective ways I know to get revenue on the table quickly.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: The name Sales Blitz that I came up with is a football reference.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have three younger brothers and grew up in a house of raving sports fans.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I learned a couple things about football.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: But just in case you are not a sports guy or gal, let me break it down a little bit.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: A blitz is when the defense sends extra players to the quarterback more than the offense is expecting.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: This only happens a handful of times in most games.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason being is you want to keep that element of surprise.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that it's against the rules.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that the other team isn't expecting it to come at some point, but making sure that it doesn't feel like they're blitzing every play protects that element of surprise when they actually do.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is exactly why I named this strategy a sales blitz.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: You give your customers a reason to work with you that's new and exciting and time-bound, a special offer, a bundle, something they haven't seen from you before.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't do it so often that they feel like you're always selling to them.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a quick refresher on how to run a sales blitz.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Pick something small and easy to say yes to.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't your big signature offer.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is a strategy session or a one-day intensive, a quick term project.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh at one point I did a lot of one-day websites.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can also bundle one of my clients, packaged a year full of blogs, preloaded onto your website and scheduled to go out the first of every month for one flat fee, but you had to buy it by a certain date.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Discounts and flash sales will work too.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I tend to say for agency world, the first two work the best.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Once you decide on whatever this new exciting offer is going to be, or maybe the bundle you're going to put together, you go to your people, your raving fans, your past clients who have loved working with you, the people who got a proposal and went quiet.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I love a Hail Mary list because we need one more sports reference.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can also reference people who have you talked to a long time ago and they never quite got to like the pitching stage.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can reach out to them with this special deal as well.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you simply just tell them, hey, here's what I've got going on.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: You would need to agree to it by this date.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is limited, and you know, here's the day that it expires.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: A really good follow-up email to send is also asking for a referral, like, hey, maybe now is not the right time for this for you.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Totally get it.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you're happy that we're gonna stay connected.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I did want to ask if you hear of anybody who you think this is a good fit for, would love an intro.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you did this every week or even every month in your business, people will get really tired of you.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you start to get accused of being salesy or you're always asking for something.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've all seen those people on Instagram who it feels like they're launching something every two weeks.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like, oh my gosh, you guys have got way too much going on.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have found that a really good cadence for this is doing it maybe once a quarter.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Preferably you're doing this like two, three times a year, um, but definitely in Q4.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, if you've been listening to the show for a while, you're probably like, Susie, I know I'm going to run a sales blitz.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you have talked about this nonstop.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to tell you why it's going to make a difference in your January as well.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even if they don't buy the offer, even if they're like hard pass on the sales blitz, right?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, nah, this isn't for me.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to hold off for now.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or even if they don't write you back, they just continue to ghost you.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Your name is popping up in their inbox and reminding them of who you are and what you do and the initial reason they reached out to you.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: When I was working at Story Brand, one time somebody said, Don, I think we're sending out too many emails.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Our open rate isn't super high.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, I don't care.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just happy they're seeing my name in their inbox every morning.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I thought this was such an interesting take.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Don didn't care if they read every single word.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: He was more concerned about staying top of mind.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want you to focus on in this next quarter.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that if you run a sales blitz, you will have bytes, you will have people that take you up on it.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the main goal here is to just reignite your list, start these conversations fresh.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if your email cadence is, hey, here's our offer, here's the time bound, you follow up again.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, even if this isn't for you, I'd love an intro.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really great thing to follow up and send one more email, which is why we want to start sooner, right?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be sending all these emails like back to back and we're like, hey, Merry Christmas on the 25th.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just wanted to check in.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: You want to make sure you're giving them a little bit of runway going into the holiday season.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: But you can send a third email and just say, hey, you know, just want to follow up one more time.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: As you are making plans for 2027, I just wanted to make sure that you know we're here for anything that you need if you're an agency from a marketing perspective or from a social perspective.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any photo shoots planned, whatever your business is, keeping in mind, hey, I just wanted you to know, you know, we've got these offerings linked to your service page or whatever.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's anything you'd like to talk through or get quoted before the new year to work into your budget, I'd love to make that happen for you.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, go ahead and schedule a call here.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have made a lot of money running sales blitzes.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have sent a lot of people one-time offers, but nothing has made me more money than sending emails like that.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: The amount of people who have written me back and said, Yeah, I want to get on a call.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're going to do a new website next year.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or I'm so glad you reached out.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, do you do email campaigns?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: The amount of times I've gotten a quick email reply like that because somebody is sitting in a Q4 meeting.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I even had somebody one time say, It's like you knew I have my Q4 meeting today.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's sitting in a room and somebody else says, we should do this marketing campaign.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the person sitting there, like, crap, now I've got to find somebody.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And who should pop in your inbox?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But Susie saying, Hey, I just wanted to let you know if you need anything, I'm here.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: This reminds me of one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes where Jerry and Elaine are trying to break up a couple and they're trying to figure out what to say.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to be pushy.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to just be like, hey, I think you should dump them so that you'll be in a relationship with me instead.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Elaine's trying to date the guy, Jerry's trying to date the girl.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so what they come up with is calling them and saying, I'm there for you.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And as they're going through this breakup, I'm there for you.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this brilliant line in the show.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I forget if it's Jerry or Elaine, but one of them says, eventually you go from I'm there for you, and you're just there.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want you to do, this Q4.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to go from I'm there for you to I'm just there.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: You are going to make sure that they feel supported.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to be pushy.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: These three emails are not, it is not a pushy sequence.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, hey, I wanted to let you know about an offer.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: If this offer's not for you, maybe it's for one of your friends.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Last chance, if you have anything coming up next year, I'd love to help you out and make sure that you have everything you need.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm there for you.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: This technique and this follow-up cadence is why January and February were consistently some of our biggest months at Lost in House.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: While our peers and other agency owners were calling us saying, hey, what are you doing for Legion?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's been really slow.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're getting hung up on budgets and stuff like that.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So many people go into January and they get stalled out on budgets.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can find a way to get people to sign off, even just give you a verbal yes before the year starts.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Beginning of the year is crazy.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: The worst time to try to get people to sign a deal is when their kids are going back to school.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is mayhem.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter is only, I guess she'll be almost two.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she turns two in January.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes to preschool two days a week.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it is still so difficult for us to get out the door and get things going.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she's got to collect leaves next week for school.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of stuff with kids.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you have multiples and they play sports, I don't even know how you have a job.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much going on.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Don't wait until your clients' lives get busy and you're trying to hound them to sign a contract in January.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Get this done while everybody is feeling good about business, while everybody's feeling good about the holidays in Q4.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Get that conversation rolling.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you can't get the deal signed, get some kind of momentum rolling before the year starts.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you are sitting here going, Susie, I need somebody to hold my hand.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what to offer.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm feeling really lost.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: My 21-day challenge is a great place to start.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: In week one, we're going to clean up your business.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to make sure that you have set some goals.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: In week two, we're going to make sure that you are fully prepared to run a sales blitz.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your templates are in place.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: You are all ready to go when business really starts to take off.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then in week three, every day I have you do something to run a sales blitz.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that first start of the week, you're going to identify what your offer is going to be.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I walk you through that.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then we're going to every day reach out to a different group of people and I help you identify that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've got templates and tools for you.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: It really is super helpful if you're looking for somebody to help you clean up your business and run a sales blitz before the end of the year.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: It is only three weeks long.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is only five minutes a day, and it's only$197.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you use code podcast, you'll get$100 off.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I'm super nice and feeling generous going into uh this cozy season.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really excited to hear your results from it.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to susieconsoli.com slash sell dash well.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh or if you just go to susieconsoli.com, you'll find it right on the homepage on the drop down menu.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Can't miss it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it is something that I have already been hearing great feedback from people on, and I'm really excited to share some of that with you guys soon.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Five minutes a day.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: I promise it's going to change your business and help you make more money and keep more of it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I am so excited to hear about all of the money you guys are going to make in Q4.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let this be the year that you get complacent.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Keep your foot on that gas pedal.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go and close some deals.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, sell well.