Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales David Blaise

I mean, you have a podcast called Building Trust in Sales, you say, "yeah, be trustworthy." That's pretty obvious. But it's also necessary. It's necessary to be that, and to be able to convey that, and just to be authentic with it.







David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing building trust in sales. Welcome back, Jay.



Jay: Hey, David, it's such a pleasure to be with you. Sales is a huge part of our business model, trusting that system. And, a lot of times it's like crossing our fingers that it will work.



I think a lot of people would like to have a little bit more surety than that.



David: Yeah. And trust is absolutely critical to the whole experience. If they don't trust you, there's no way they're going to buy from you. Now, there are some people who are untrustworthy and people should not buy from them, right?



So if you're untrustworthy, this is not a podcast about how to appear trustworthy. I'm assuming that everybody who's paying attention to this is coming from a place of honesty and fact of being about who we are. Because trust is going to be built on that.



The trust is going to be built on the conversations that we're having, how those conversations are taking place.



Are we being candid? Do people feel like we are providing them with honest answers to questions? And sometimes in sales, that can be hard for people.



There's a balance between wanting to put our best foot forward in sales, and being completely truthful and honest. And I feel that when we're weighing that balance, being completely truthful and honest is absolutely the way to go.



Because if you start sugarcoating things, and if you start exaggerating your abilities, and that sort of thing, that's going to end up badly. And so I think in order to build trust, it has to start with ourselves. Are we trustworthy? And if we are, then how do we convey that to the people we're interacting with?



Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. And one of the things that, you know, looking at it from a consumer that really bothers me, and we've talked about this in other podcasts, is where I'm on a website, which is often the storefront now, and they're offering me a free quote or something like that and I go through the whole process, and at the end it says enter your email and we'll send you the free quote, and I'm like You freaking lied to me, right?



And the last thing I'm going to do after that is reach out to you or give you my email address.



David: Yeah, I think if people are clear about what's going to happen up front, that's usually better. I've been in situations like that myself. Now, if I see that somebody's asking questions and I start going through that series of questions, I'm kind of expecting it at the end.



But, There are a lot of sites like that, where it'll start out and it'll just ask for your zip code, right? If you're trying to find a professional in a particular area, you enter your zip code, and then they ask what you're looking for, and when you're looking for it, and how soon, and, all that sort of thing, and they do exactly the same thing.



You get there and then they want your information, and then some of these sites will pass it on to a hundred different people, and now instead of finding the one solution, now you've got a hundred people annoying you.



To me, that's a business model problem. Which creates a trust problem because now, we don't trust anybody who's asking us for any information.



So a lot of times the worst players in the market set the tone, set the stage for what we have to go through. And when you're having an honest conversation with someone, talking to them about working with them, they're viewing us through the lens of someone who is not ...

What do we want the overall customer experience to be like? How do we want this person to be welcomed if they happen to walk into our business? Because we want that experience to be consistent.



That's another important aspect of this. The businesses that really consider their customer experience want to make sure that it is absolutely consistent.







David: Hello and welcome back in today's podcast. Co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing crafting the customer experience. Welcome back, Jay.



Jay: Hey, thank you so much, David. And I feel like here once again I'm going to learn something from our discussion because I don't think a lot about crafting the experience. For me, it's like, Hey, we had a sales call. Now you're a client and we'll just fake it until we make it, I guess.



David: Right. And that is certainly a way to do it. It's certainly valid. I believe it's probably what many businesses do, perhaps most. The thing that actually got me thinking about this was a trip that I took to Disney World a number of years ago.



And I thought about how every aspect of the experience is crafted. It is thought out in advance. It's planned. It's choreographed. There is very little, ideally, that happens there by accident. And at the time, I thought, "wow, as a business, if we were able to craft a similar sort of experience for our customers, what would that look like?"



I've done presentations on this topic over the years. It's something that a lot of businesses tend not to think about, but when I raise the issue with them, they seem to feel that it's pretty appealing and interesting.



Jay: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you bring up Disney World or amusement parks. I remember being a little kid and going to an amusement park, and I thought even the staff members were installed as part of the experience.



I was amazed when I realized they actually went home after work. And then I ended up working at that very same amusement park on the backside, you know, where all the employees walk? It's so disappointing!



David: It's got to be.



Jay: Yeah, absolutely, and I think this is one of those topics where we're not talking about, boom, one day you've got the customer experience defined. I think this is a process. It's going to be very different from when you first open your doors, so to speak, because it is something that you should always be fine tuning, correct?



David: Yeah, and we can't even fine tune it if we're not thinking about it. If we basically show up for work every day and do what we do, then we're doing what we do. We're not considering what the customer experience is.



If you just take the title of this podcast to heart and say, "okay, what if I did want to craft the customer experience? What would that look like?" What happens if somebody calls our business on the phone, what happens?



Is it a person who answers? Is it an auto attendant? If so, what does that auto attendant say? Is it encouraging to help people get where they need to go? Is it discouraging? Is it likely to put them off? Something as simple as that, that's one aspect of the customer experience.



This is what happens when someone calls us on the phone. This is what happens if someone visits our physical location. This is what happens when I meet someone on a Zoom call or in an in-person situation.



Every single aspect of the experience, if it is considered, if it's even thought about, is likely to be a whole lot better than if we're just winging it.



Jay: Yeah, such a great point. And I think one of the problems, David, is self-awareness. I think about this in sports. Like when all my daughters played sports and there were players and parents of players who didn't really understand their individual skill set and they t...

Over the years, I have met some exceptional performers who still struggle to get enough customers.



It's not a function of who they are as people. It's also not a reflection of their work. It's not even a mindset issue. It's about the fact that being exceptionally good at what you do, and being able to get enough customers or clients are two completely different skill sets.







I can't tell you how many business owners I've talked to over the years who are exceptional at what they do, but they can't get enough customers. I've met:



Chefs who make amazing food, but can't get enough people into their restaurants to keep the lights on.

Real estate agents who know their markets in and out, they're great with people, can handle all the details, but can't get enough clients to pay their bills.

Artists who have amazing skills, but who never mastered the art of customer acquisition, so their actual art remains largely unseen.

Printers who have taken out loans to invest enormous amounts of money in equipment that just sits there, because they don't know how to get enough of the customers and clients they need to feed the machines.



Recently, I heard from a life coach, whose story really touched me, because she knows she could really help people, but she's struggling to get the clients she needs.



Here's what she said,



"I am a good coach but there are no clients for me. I feel profoundly sad for not being financially independent. I am a good person, I do personal growth, I am a really good coach and yet I can not pay the bills and have a lovely and happy life. Why does it have to be so hard?"



In each of these situations, the most important thing to recognize is that there is a huge difference between being exceptionally good at the technical aspects of a job -- like cooking, selling homes, creating art, printing stationary or coaching people who need help -- and being able to get enough of the customers or clients who need those products and services.



They are two completely different skill sets.



There are many exceptional writers in the world, but as Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad once said, "On the top of my books it's written *Best-Selling Author* & not *Best-Writing Author*".



Two different things.



So today I'd like to share with you, what I shared with this coach. And it applies to any business that is great at what they do, but that struggles to get enough of the customers or clients it needs to thrive.



If you're great at what you do, then you're halfway there, but this is not a mindset issue. It is a focus issue.



So if you want to make the money you need to make, then 100% of your focus and learning now need to be on 3 things. It’s what I call the MVPs of Marketing & Sales™.



If you’ve heard this from me before, but you’re not yet earning what you think you’re worth, then please, listen again.



In sports, MVP stands for Most Valuable Player. In Marketing and Sales, MVP stands for Message, Vehicles and People.



Specifically:



What is the marketing (M)essage you need to convey about your product or service?

Which combination of marketing (V)ehicles will you use to communicate your message?

And Who are the (P)eople or prospects you need to reach?



This begins with having a crystal-clear idea of exactly WHO you want to benefit from what you do. Those are your People.



When you know who your people are, then you have to consider exactly what you'll need to SAY to engage those people. To invite them in. To take advantage of everything you have to offer. That's your Message.



Finally, you need to determine HOW you'll reach them, in other words,

Everybody has to make those determinations about their business when making sales and building brands. How am I going to do it? Is it going to be about me? Is it going to be about the customer? And how do I convey that in terms of my company name, my logo, my brand, and any slogans or taglines that you use, in order to communicate all that.







David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing making sales and building brands. Welcome back, Jay.



Jay: Thank you so much, David. And again, just a great topic. I don't know if everybody feels like they're a brand. Like, I'm a company, I offer a service, but am I a brand?



When I think of brands, I think of like Kellogg's or Tesla or things like that. I don't know if I think about my own business that way.



David: Yeah. And a lot of small businesses don't. But even though they don't, very often, if they don't know what to do from a marketing and sales standpoint, they will copy the big brands because that's what they're seeing.



You're watching TV, you see a commercial for Kellogg's or you see a commercial for McDonald's or some retail brand and you say, "Oh, okay, that's what I need to do. I just need to get my name out there." Right? When I think of branding, particularly for small business, that's what I think of. Somebody who's like, "Oh, I just have to get my name out there."



And when you've spent as much money on marketing as Kellogg's has, or as McDonald's has, or any of the big companies have, they already know what those companies are all about. They already know what they do. So they can just basically say, come in and buy from us. And they're like, okay, I already know what it's all about.



For small businesses to do that, to just put out the name of their company and expect people to want to wander in, it just doesn't happen. And that's why I think this topic, you know, the idea of making sales and building brands, I could have said making sales versus building brands, because I think sometimes people view it as two different things, but ideally we have to do both.



And even if it's not a matter of seeing yourself as a brand right now, once You're established enough in your market where people recognize who you are and what you do. That's sort of building a brand in their minds. So that when they hear the name of your business, they associate it with certain things, related to what you do and how you do it.



When you think about Tesla or Elon Musk, you have a very good feel for sort of what he's all about and how he tends to approach things. So to me, that's an established brand. When small businesses want to establish a brand, they can spend a lot of money doing it, which is why they kind of have to be making sales along the way and focused on that first.



Jay: Yeah, great point. You know, in those big companies, they have the big dollars to have focus groups and all of those things. Talking about the very beginning of your branding, again, I think we're coming up with another podcast topic here, though. People who just throw together their logos or their slogans, It drives me crazy because it's like the first impression when they meet you in public.



David: Yeah, and again, with small businesses in particular, sometimes we can be too cute for our own good, too creative, quote unquote, for our own good. We think that something that appeals to us is going to appeal to everyone else.



Personally, I think that the simpler we keep it, the more direct we keep it, the more sense it makes. Now Nike spent so much money establishing what that swoosh means that they can put a swoosh up on the screen and people go, Oh, maybe I'll go buy some shoes, right? We can't do that. And so. Unless you have that level of funding,

When we think in terms of creating persuasive communication, it's really important to consider the flow. What is the flow of the communication? In what order are you asking these questions and having these conversations? Are you leading with the pitch? Because if you're leading with the sales pitch, then that's not going to work well at all.







David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing creating persuasive communication. Welcome back, Jay.



Jay: Thanks, David. You mean all communication is not good communication? I just thought sending out emails and random texts, that's the way to go.



David: Yeah, random communication is often different than persuasive communication.



I guess sometimes it can line up, but the stars have to all be in alignment for that to happen.



Jay: Yeah, I see this. I get emails saying, Hey, just following up. And I'm like, Oh, you know, I don't know that that's really how you want to approach a potential customer. There's no energy, there's no urgency, there's nothing persuasive about it.



It kind of feels meh. And, I recognize that now cause I'm in that business, right?



David: Exactly. And I think if we start from the premise that different prospects have different needs, that's a really good way to start. Because I think a lot of salespeople tend to think in terms of persuasive communication, meaning saying things that will get them to buy from you.



And that's only the case if and when we've determined that we have a good fit with the person that we're talking to, right? Persuasive communication doesn't just mean getting them to buy. It's about seeing if they buy into what it is that we do, seeing if we've got enough of a fit to have it make sense.



What I think in terms of persuasive communication, it's the kind of thing that's going to get people engaged. It's going to pull them into the conversation rather than repel them from the conversation. So while the term persuasive sort of implies that we're trying to persuade them to do something, that is true, but it's not just about that.



It's not just about trying to get someone to do something. It's about seeing if what we're talking about to begin with even makes sense.



Jay: Yeah, and I think we talked about that a lot in our last episode, getting to know that customer so that you can build loyalty. How do you expect to send out persuasive communication if you haven't taken the time to get to know them?



And for example, I'm in the tax business, which is hard for me to say, I can't believe that happened. But my communication is very different right now in the summer than it is in March, right? In March, there's a built in urgency, and so it's a lot easier to communicate to them what they need. This time of year, very different.



David: Right, and the things that you need to persuade them of now are different than the things you have to persuade them of in January, February, March, right? Because what you need to persuade them of now is perhaps thinking in advance about what they're going to need to do rather than trying to cram it in at the last minute.



So that's going to change the languaging. If you think in terms of who do you need to appeal to, that's going to be happening throughout the year. What type of prospect am I looking to bring in the door, and how can I help that person to make a decision based on what we're doing as opposed to what someone else is doing?



You know, what are they likely to want? And we can't always know that. We can assume, okay, well, I think they're going to want to pay less taxes. That's probably a reasonable assumption. And for some people, for most of them, that's probably going to be the case,

When I think in terms of turning leads into loyal customers, what is that first contact? And I know we've talked about that in a number of podcasts. And then from there, what is the desired path that we want them to take with us, that we want to take with them, right? Without some sort of basic path to get from here to there, the likelihood of making that happen is pretty much slim to none.







David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing turning leads into loyal customers. Welcome back, Jay.



Jay: Hey, thank you, David. Such a great topic again. I love our conversations cause I learn so much and I feel like there's a tendency to say, okay, I got the lead. I closed them. Now I'm going to move on to the next lead.



And I think we would save ourselves a lot of time and money, if we were able to turn that customer into a returning loyal customer.



David: Yeah, absolutely. And you raised a great point because I was thinking in terms of just new leads that come in, turning them into loyal customers.



But I think what you pointed out is probably even more important, that we already got someone and we've already turned them into a customer. And now how do we make that customer more loyal to us?



I know in a lot of presentations that I've done over the years, I've talked about these sort of different layers of recognition in terms of what do people think about us? And I've often drawn it out like a target for archery practice. And outside the target is the area where it's total obscurity. They have absolutely no idea who we are or why they should do business with us. And at the center of the target, it's complete customer loyalty.



And you don't get from, "I don't know who you are," to "I'm completely loyal to you" in one step. It's got to happen in a series of actions. So what you're talking about there, you make that first sale. That doesn't even happen very often in the first contact. A lot of times it requires intelligent repetition of contact to even get to that.



We go from obscurity. I don't know who you are, to recognition, I recognize you, but I'm not sure if I love you yet, right? I don't know enough about you. To comfort, and then once we get to comfort, once they're comfortable enough with us to place that first time order, like what you were talking about, then they're going to see how we do.



And if we did well, they might give us another chance and come back again. And if we do well on that second one, they might come back and give us a third chance. And then As long as that continues to play out, that's going to lead to that level of loyalty, but it sure isn't likely to happen in one conversation or one transaction.



Jay: Yeah, absolutely. But I kind of like where you started off, too, before we dive into that a little bit more. And that is thinking about making the loyal customer out of the lead . Where do you start? Because a lot of people are like, I can't make them loyal until they've purchased a product. That's not true, is it?



David: Well, I think if you recognize that when I attract a lead into my organization or when I'm even just trying to attract a lead into my organization, the goal is to turn that person into a loyal, longtime customer or client.



So when you start with that perspective, you become a lot more discerning about even the people that you're approaching. You have more skin in the game, because it's not just about, "hey, can I make a sale to pay my bills for today?" It's about, "do I want this person as a loyal customer?"



And this goes back to a lot of what we've talked about in previous episodes about qualification and that sort of thing.



But if we start out with the idea that we want to turn our leads into loyal customers,