Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / Reframe ‘Selling’ To Completely Transform Your Marketing and Make It FUN

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Reframe ‘Selling’ To Completely Transform Your Marketing and Make It FUN · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

• 0:00
  Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
• 0:03
  Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
• 0:06
  I'm your host and the founder and CEO of Mylance.
• 0:09
  Today we're going to talk about selling and reframing the
• 0:15
  mindset around selling because at the end of the day, if you go
• 0:21
  in with the mindset that you don't want to bother people or
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  you're taking from them, often it even prevents you from
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  putting yourself out there all together.
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  And the number of people I've talked to that feel like sales,
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  quote UN quote, is icky and gross and cringy and self
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  promote. I mean, there's so many people
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  out there that want to grow their fractional business, but
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  they're not really willing to put themselves out there.
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  And at the end of the day, imagine if I was a founder and I
• 0:52
  hired a marketing person and they're like, all right, we're
• 0:54
  going to do this and this and outbound and content and all
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  this stuff. And I'm like, oh, I don't know,
• 0:59
  like I don't want to put myself out there.
• 1:01
  I don't want to put the brand out there and be like, well, how
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  about how the hell do you plan to get clients, right?
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  It's like, it's just not something that you can just
• 1:10
  launch your business and expect clients to fall in your lap.
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  What's really interesting about fractionals is that's usually
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  exactly what happens at the beginning, right?
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  You have somebody reach out to you, you have a casual
• 1:21
  conversation, and all of a sudden an old colleague or a
• 1:25
  past manager, they hire you and you're like, holy shit, this is
• 1:28
  cool, right? I'm making money.
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  I'm doing what I want to do. Maybe I can make this a real
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  thing. And maybe that strategy of
• 1:35
  things falling in your lap with referrals and word of mouth, it
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  might last for months or even years, right?
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  You're like, well, I haven't had to do anything, which is fine.
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  And you have no sustainable sales process, right.
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  You are totally reliant on something that's completely out
• 1:54
  of your control. And so when you want to pull a
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  lever, when you have a slow quarter, there's you're starting
• 2:02
  from scratch and you just can't put yourself in that situation.
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  You have built a completely unsustainable business.
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  And so we get to totally reframe how we think about selling so
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  that we can create a sustainable business over time.
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  And I want you to know that you're in good hands, like when
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  you're thinking of, or I should say you're in good company
• 2:23
  because so many people, right? Unless you're a sales,
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  fractional sales manager, fractional head of sales,
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  everyone else from marketing to product operations, technology,
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  finance, all of those functions, you probably haven't had to sell
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  maybe ever in your life. You have amazing experience in
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  your function, but you haven't had experience actually putting
• 2:45
  yourself out there, right? Like you delivered the function
• 2:48
  once the company already brought in the customer.
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  So you're in good company. It's normal and it's something
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  you have to overcome. So let's talk about how we're
• 2:58
  going to do that. What I fear most commonly is
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  people, they fear rejection. They don't want to seem pushy or
• 3:08
  bothering people and they feel an incredible discomfort with
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  quote UN quote self promotion, right?
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  It feels cringy, it feels gross. They don't like when other
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  people do it, or maybe they're fine with other people, but they
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  don't want to do it themselves. And So what ends up happening is
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  you're not reaching out, right? Or when you are reach out,
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  you're reaching out really hesitantly, right?
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  You're not reaching out with conviction, with confidence.
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  And that comes through, right? People are smart, people feel
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  energy, people look at your language and respond
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  accordingly. And if you are hesitant in
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  reaching out, they're going to feel that and they're definitely
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  going to go with the person that is confident and clear about the
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  value that they bring. I would, if you check in with
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  yourself and you really think of how do I feel when I reach out
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  to someone, if you're feeling these negative emotions of
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  being, of having it feel gross or icky or self promoted or
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  cringy, that's going to come through.
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  So it's really important that you gain awareness about how
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  you're feeling in your body when you do outreach or you do your
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  own marketing and you find a way to shift it.
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  Now let's talk about what that actually looks like when you are
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  working with a client. What are you really doing for
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  that? You are adding value.
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  You are solving a problem. You are taking them from A to B,
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  right? They're only hiring you because
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  you are doing a function of service that they weren't doing
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  on their own. They either couldn't do on their
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  own, can't do on their own, or simply just don't have the
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  knowledge, expertise, bandwidth, whatever it is.
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  But the end of the day, they're hiring you for one reason and
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  one reason only, and it is to accomplish something.
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  So think about what you're really doing here, right?
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  You are adding value to a company that didn't have that
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  value before. And my guess is you feel really
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  confident in the value that you bring.
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  Every single person I talk to, they're like, oh, once I get a
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  client, I'm good. I can serve as I can deliver
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  that client no problem, right? I feel an incredible amount of
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  confidence. But getting the clients is
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  what's hard. And so you get to know in your
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  body that you are freaking amazing at what you do.
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  And in fact, this company not having you, you are doing them a
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  disservice when they don't have access to you.
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  Because when they do have access to you, they grow sales.
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  They, you know, improve their bottom line, They do better
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  marketing, they have their finance, whatever you do, they
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  get that value from you. And so they are legitimately
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  lucky to have you. I'm going to say that again,
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  they're legitimately lucky to have you.
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  And so you are actually doing them a disservice if they don't
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  have you. So imagine when you're doing
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  outreach, when you're doing marketing, you are thinking to
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  yourself, wow, I am giving these companies, I'm giving these
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  individuals, let's say the founder, CEO's, whoever, whoever
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  usually hires you, I am giving them an opportunity to work with
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  me because I'm going to deliver so much value that they would be
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  lucky to have me. And I'm simply giving them this
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  opportunity. I'm making them aware of who I
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  am and what I do. So I'm actually here to give
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  value. I'm not here to take a sale or
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  take anything. And in fact, the value that I
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  bring is significantly more than the money that I charge, right?
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  Always. And so I am actually giving them
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  the opportunity for a positive ROI deal that they're lucky to
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  have. And if I don't do that again,
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  I'm actually doing them a disservice.
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  What this allows you to do, it changes your mindset from I'm a
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  taker to I'm a giver, right? I'm giving a positive ROI.
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  I'm making them aware of what I do.
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  And that allows me to do three things.
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  When I'm, let's just say doing marketing, I'm going to stay
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  away from sales language because I think that just has this
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  negative connotation with a lot of people.
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  So when I am putting myself out there, sharing the awareness of
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  what I do, I can come from one, an empathetic standpoint of what
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  is their situation like they have a problem, right?
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  And that probably doesn't feel good for the company.
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  So I want to truly understand their situation with empathy,
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  with curiosity, with understanding.
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  I want to number 2 is generously offer insight and I do this to
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  build trust, to build credibility that I know what I'm
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  doing, right? I like, how else do they know
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  that I know what I'm doing? I can tell them what I've done
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  in the past. I can share anecdotes.
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  I can share maybe a point of view on how they can think about
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  the problem. I'm not saying you should work
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  for free, but you can absolutely share a bunch of thoughts with
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  them because the end of the day, it still needs to be executed,
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  right? So sharing of a few thoughts
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  about how Uber did it or how a company in your past did it, it
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  is a great value, great way to legitimize yourself.
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  And the last piece is inviting them to collaborate with you,
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  right? There's a fine line between
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  delivering value, sharing those anecdotes, sharing the stories,
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  and then saying, you know what, like why don't we come up with a
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  formal arrangement? And I'll continue to help you in
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  every way that you need, right? So you're inviting in that
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  collaboration. So again, one, empathy,
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  understanding their situation, 2, generously giving insight,
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  and three, inviting them into a partnership with you.
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  And if you, if you really think about this, this has nothing to
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  do with you, right? This isn't about your whole
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  story. This isn't about who you are,
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  and it's certainly not about what you want, right?
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  Because it what you want, frankly, is not important to the
• 8:55
  company. Like keep that really in mind.
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  Like, oh, I want three clients and I want to do this.
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  And I was like, nobody cares. I hate to break it to you.
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  Nobody cares. They want to fix their problem.
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  They want to grow, they want to improve their bottom line, they
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  want to improve efficiency, whatever it is, you get to focus
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  entirely on their problem. The only part about you is when
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  you legitimize yourself by sharing, you know, quick
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  anecdotes or a point of view or things like that that you've
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  done in your past. So how can we apply this for our
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  actual marketing is we can think of, let's just say I'm
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  publishing content, right? My, my thought process when I'm
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  publishing content is how do I add the most value to the user
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  reading this? And the user ideally should be
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  your ideal client, right? So if you work with founders, I
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  love the marketing analytics examples, right?
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  You help them take all their marketing and you make it into
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  beautiful dashboards so they can understand what's working and
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  what's not working in their marketing and spend more money
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  on the channels that are working and and less on the ones that
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  aren't. So I can think about that
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  founder that's in that situation, right?
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  What are their pain points and how can I deliver the maximum
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  amount of value to that founder, right?
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  I want to be a giver, A giver, a giver, and I want to give an
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  opportunity as I'm giving to share how other companies I've
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  worked with have done this in the past, best practices to do
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  mistakes to avoid, right? All of those kinds of things
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  from a I'm giving, I'm giving, I'm giving, I'm giving.
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  They're going to learn from me. And it look, to be honest, some
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  of them might go take this and implement it themselves.
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  And if they're going to do that, they're going to do that.
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  I like content is not secret sauce, right?
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  The implementation, the incredible execution.
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  That is what your bread and butter is.
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  So that's where you get to trust that your content for the
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  everyone founder that's going to take the information go build it
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  themselves. There's literally 95 founders
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  that are be like, I don't have time or the expertise to learn
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  all of that myself. I'm going to hire this person
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  instead. When you think about all of the
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  outreaches that you get, I know we all get tons of outreaches on
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  LinkedIn, especially if you have founder or any kind of owner,
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  manager, whatever in your title, you get tons.
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  I know I do. I'm sure you all do.
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  I would say 9 out of 10 outreaches I get focus on the
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  individual. They focus on themselves.
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  They say, hey, Bradley Ioffer, video editing services for
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  social media. I was like, great.
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  I don't care, honestly. Like that is literally what goes
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  through my mind. I was like, that's good for you
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  that you offer those things that has nothing to do with me.
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  You haven't asked me if I have a problem.
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  You have no idea what's going on with my business.
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  And so they're immediately discarded in my mind.
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  In fact, sometimes I literally just disconnect.
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  I like remove the connection because that is no way to start
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  a relationship with somebody in a different world.
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  When someone comes to me, introduces themselves and ask me
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  a question about a problem I have, I will kindly reply.
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  I either have this problem or I don't have this problem, but at
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  least they're getting curious about me and from that
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  standpoint I'm thinking OK, they have a value to add.
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  I currently don't need it. Maybe, or maybe I do right?
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  I've certainly hired people from LinkedIn DMS, so I will answer
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  honestly. And ideally they would stop, you
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  know, the selling. At that point, we'd either have
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  a conversation about the problem I do or don't have.
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  Maybe it makes sense to jump on a call, maybe it doesn't, right?
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  But the end of the day, their outreach is about me because
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  they are offering the value. And the way to do that is to
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  see, do I have a problem? There's a big difference in the
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  taker. I'm a video editor and please
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  let me work for you, which I don't reply to and often
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  disconnect from versus the giver that I want to give value.
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  I want to do something to solve a problem.
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  Do you have this problem? If so, can I help you solve it?
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  Can Ioffer you some, you know, free audit?
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  Can Ioffer you a brainstorming conversation?
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  Right? Like I hired a coach based on
• 12:57
  someone that said like hey, I work on this specific problem in
• 12:59
  business. Do you want a free 30 minute
• 13:02
  conversation that might support you in this?
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  And I said absolutely. So I took the free 30 minutes
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  and he was fantastic. So I end up hiring him for six
• 13:11
  months to be a business coach for me.
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  And again, the niche is incredibly important because if
• 13:17
  he just said like I'd help businesses grow, right?
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  I would be like, OK, you sound like a million other people.
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  I'm not interested the what he was focused on, and I'll just
• 13:25
  share it. He was a coach, is a coach that
• 13:28
  focuses entirely on accountability towards a North
• 13:32
  Star. He's like, I help founders pick
• 13:35
  the North Star, pick the activities they're going to do
• 13:37
  and hold them accountable every week with extreme focus.
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  Nothing else gets done until these things get done in that
• 13:44
  season of of the business. This was last year.
• 13:47
  That's exactly what I was looking for.
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  It was just like perfectly timed and worded.
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  And so I took him up on the free offer.
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  He was fantastic. I hired him for six months.
• 13:57
  So you get to totally rewrite the script in your head right
• 14:01
  from the script that might be now thinking, you know, saying
• 14:05
  to yourself, they'll think I'm a spammer.
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  I'm bothering them. That's the common language that
• 14:11
  I hear. I don't want to bother people.
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  I don't want to self promote. I don't want to be cringy to
• 14:16
  changing that entire script to I'm offering a solution.
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  I'm offering value. I am helping a company achieve a
• 14:24
  goal that they may struggle to achieve without me.
• 14:27
  And look, are some people going to say, hey, please leave me
• 14:29
  alone? Yes, right.
• 14:31
  That is just part of the game. Because in a perfect world,
• 14:34
  everyone would have a sign on their forehead saying here's my
• 14:37
  problems and here's what I need. And then you could just go to
• 14:40
  the people and solve the problems that are relevant.
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  But we don't have that. So we're guessing a little bit.
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  We say like, hey, do you guys have this problem?
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  Right. And some people will and some
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  people won't, and some people will be rude about it and that's
• 14:51
  OK. Literally the worst case
• 14:54
  scenario here is that someone says, I don't have this problem,
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  leave me alone, you're bothering me.
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  There's two options you have when that happens.
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  It's either OK, no worries, you had a bad day, you could have
• 15:06
  been nicer about it, but that's OK, not about me, it's about
• 15:09
  them. Or you let it totally shut you
• 15:12
  down. Like, Oh my God, my worst fear
• 15:14
  is came true. I'm a bother.
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  It's like, look, the end of the day, if you're going to do big
• 15:18
  things in this world, not everyone's going to like you.
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  And that's just part of it. As a founder, I've certainly
• 15:24
  learned that. So you get to basically know
• 15:27
  that you offer value. You are finding people with a
• 15:30
  problem that you solve, and you get to let the little stuff go
• 15:34
  where people said something not so nice to you or whatever it
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  is. It doesn't matter.
• 15:38
  It's not about you. And you get to just know that
• 15:41
  it's part of business. Know that it's part of
• 15:43
  marketing, business development, outreach and you get to let it
• 15:45
  go. So that's all we got time for
• 15:48
  today. I hope this was helpful.
• 15:49
  And really thinking about the value that you offer versus
• 15:53
  being a bother. It's a huge mindset shift.
• 15:56
  It changed everything for my business as I was thinking about
• 15:59
  selling, especially when I was consulting and made it honestly
• 16:02
  fun to do sales. And I continue to embrace this
• 16:05
  mindset now of how can I add value?
• 16:07
  How can I add value? How can I find the people who
• 16:10
  have the problems that I can uniquely add value to?
• 16:13
  Mylance is a free community, and we are building a really cool
• 16:17
  tool right now. We are building a tool that's
• 16:19
  going to help you produce the right LinkedIn content that's
• 16:23
  going to resonate with your audience.
• 16:24
  It's going to learn your voice. It's going to learn what works
• 16:27
  and doesn't work on LinkedIn. It's going to make everything
• 16:30
  easier for you. On the website right now, you
• 16:32
  can sign up for the wait list and for beta access.
• 16:36
  We're letting a few beta customers come off the wait list
• 16:38
  right now, so come check it out. We're building a content
• 16:41
  calendar that's going to tell you when to post, what to post.
• 16:43
  It's it's really awesome. Customers are absolutely loving
• 16:45
  it. So come check us out if you like
• 16:48
  this. If you got value out of this
• 16:50
  podcast should be note on LinkedIn, give us a review.
• 16:53
  It means the world to us. Obviously, it's not free to
• 16:56
  produce this. And again, I'm just offering
• 16:58
  value here. So come, come let me know.
• 17:02
  Join the Mylands community. I can't wait to hear from you.
• 17:04
  See you in there. And I can't wait to see all of
• 17:06
  your amazing LinkedIn value add content.