Transcript
Speaker: Yo, solopreneurs.
Speaker: It is now the month of August.
Speaker: If you are not crushing your summer goals, I hope that we can get you back on track with these episodes.
Speaker: Today, we have James Smiley.
Speaker: If you haven't heard of the guy, he has a huge following.
Speaker: Definitely one of the higher profile guests we've been able to get on the show.
Speaker: So you're going to want to get pen and paper out, take some notes, learn from this top sales guru here.
Speaker: Let us know what you think.
Speaker: James has been...
Speaker: Well, James, the co-host on the podcast, I should say, has been doing daily episodes.
Speaker: So hopefully you're enjoying those.
Speaker: Now we're going to do an interview for this episode.
Speaker: Let us know what you think.
Speaker: Look, in the solar business, there's really only two types of people.
Speaker: There's the ones that crush it, make six, seven, and eight figures, and then there's everyone else.
Speaker: The question is, which one will you be?
Speaker: Over the last four years, we've studied the sharpest solar sales and marketing pros.
Speaker: and how they build multi-million dollar incomes using only the best solar sales and marketing strategies.
Speaker: So how do these solarpreneurs do what they do and what makes them so successful?
Speaker: This podcast is your answer.
Speaker: Join us and thousands of sales pros, marketers, and entrepreneurs as we take the solar industry by storm and uncover what it takes to sell more solar with less effort.
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Speaker: What is up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Today, I am stoked for another episode because we have someone that, in my opinion, is one of the number one coaches for sales reps.
Speaker: I first saw him a couple months ago at his Goat-a-thon, he called it.
Speaker: It was right before Funnel Hacking Live.
Speaker: I saw him and Steve Larson, and he instantly caught my attention with what he's doing as far as sales and
Speaker: training other sales reps specifically in the b2b industry so we've got james smiley on today and we're excited to learn from him so james thanks for coming on the show and welcome hey man what's going on oh what's up to all the all the all the fans and followers of yours out there appreciate you having me on man yeah some drop some gold here for you guys let's do it yeah
Speaker: I just tell them how Austin, I mean, you and Steve Larson, you guys both have great followings.
Speaker: You know, both are influencers.
Speaker: So I think it's awesome that you are able to come on people's podcasts and drop some gold like this.
Speaker: Because yeah, I mean, James, just looking at his, some of the stuff he's done, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker: I mean, you look at his kind of,
Speaker: Resume here 1.7 million dollars in sales in a single webinar.
Speaker: I mean he's coached thousands of b2b sales reps He's led zero to twenty million dollars growth for two different companies So, I mean you've done some pretty crazy stuff.
Speaker: I have seven books published and just looking at I know you came from a pretty humble background James So tell us how what was your background and how do you think that contributed to all the success?
Speaker: You're seeing these days
Speaker: Thanks, man.
Speaker: You know, I grew up in the inner city in Seattle.
Speaker: Grew up kind of in one of those like poor minority neighborhood type of places in the 90s.
Speaker: And, you know, long story short, I remember going shopping with like $6 a week.
Speaker: That's what pretty much we had, you know.
Speaker: So like it was like, you know, my stepmom used to tell me like only shop and only look at the bottom row.
Speaker: in the grocery store.
Speaker: Cause that's where like the poor people food is.
Speaker: Like if you kind of look at eye level, that's where all the expensive food is.
Speaker: And so it was pretty funny, but yeah,
Speaker: But as you got older, you started realizing it kind of sucks to be poor.
Speaker: And so I had that feeling of not... I don't know.
Speaker: I always felt like there was more in the world and there was supposed to be more to life.
Speaker: And so, I don't know.
Speaker: When I was young, I just kind of decided I don't ever want to be like this.
Speaker: And so I remember asking myself simple questions like, where are the rich people at?
Speaker: And I would ask my dad that.
Speaker: And I remember like working in a FedEx warehouse in my teen, teenage years.
Speaker: I was in the middle of the night pushing boxes in Seattle, SeaTac airport.
Speaker: And I was pushing boxes.
Speaker: And I remember...
Speaker: I'm asking my manager, I said, how do I become a millionaire working here?
Speaker: Cause I was making seven bucks an hour.
Speaker: And he said, well, maybe you, you know, work here until you're 40 or 50.
Speaker: And then you'll be making like 40 bucks an hour.
Speaker: He goes, maybe then you can be a millionaire.
Speaker: And then he walked away.
Speaker: And I did the math on it.
Speaker: I remember I pulled out a piece of paper in my pocket and I did the math.
Speaker: 40 bucks an hour times, let's say 60, 70 hours a week.
Speaker: Let's say I work seven days a week.
Speaker: It wasn't even close to a million bucks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I remember that night continuing to push boxes and I started realizing, I said, the rich people are not here.
Speaker: They're not in this warehouse.
Speaker: And not that I have any problem with anybody who works in a warehouse at all.
Speaker: I mean, my family still works there.
Speaker: And I think it's a great place, especially to start.
Speaker: Taught me a lot.
Speaker: But yeah, that's kind of how I started out.
Speaker: And so basically the next day I quit.
Speaker: And I went on to try to figure out where they were.
Speaker: And then the more I got around technology, the more I realized you had more leverage when you were using technology.
Speaker: And so you had leverage on your time, leverage on your money, on your, you know, on what you knew, leverage on your everything.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: And I mean, I know you did a lot of sports too.
Speaker: You did some college football, varsity high school athlete.
Speaker: And looking here, I mean, you're a pro, what is that?
Speaker: Bassmaster pro?
Speaker: Is that what they call those guys?
Speaker: Yeah, I was a pro fisherman, man.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: I grew up fishing.
Speaker: You know, I grew up...
Speaker: in a struggling household you know I still love my family and stuff but man it was tough growing up you know and so like getting out in the outdoors was pretty much my only like escape and I remember like especially growing up in the northwest like I would just tell my mom like drop me off like at a lake at like six in the morning and I would be like just come get me when the sun goes down
Speaker: I remember like I would just sit out there fish or have a float tube or something or just fish from the bank.
Speaker: And I would rather be out there than like be around like strife and trauma.
Speaker: And so but it gave me a lot of time to think.
Speaker: And it also, you know, I started thinking about like what my friends were doing and what I'm doing.
Speaker: And a lot of them were just screwing around being knuckleheads.
Speaker: But being in the outdoors like really helped me, you know, just to stay out of trouble.
Speaker: And so I grew up fishing and then I learned that you can actually compete and make money fishing.
Speaker: So being highly, highly competitive, I was like, I'm going to go do that.
Speaker: And so, yeah, after we IPO'd Telonav in my 20s, I went on to try to be a professional bass fisherman and, you know,
Speaker: I actually made the ESPN national championship my first year.
Speaker: But so I was good.
Speaker: I worked hard.
Speaker: I was good at it.
Speaker: But I just couldn't deal with the travel and kind of like living in the circus feel like you just kind of like do your little show in these little teeny podunk towns.
Speaker: And then like, you know, then you go pick it all up and go to the next one.
Speaker: And you're basically like living the peanut butter and jelly sandwich lifestyle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: which was i mean to be honest it was fun you know like but um when you have family and stuff it was just like way too much yeah that's great well i'd love to have a separate podcast about how to be a professional fisherman but uh i mean i just had to bring that up because that's pretty freaking awesome the bass master how long were you doing the professional fishing for um i was kind of so there's like different levels kind of like nascar or something so i was in like the i would say like the um
Speaker: like semi-pro levels were probably like 10 years, just kind of like behind the scenes, you know, like, you know, after like work kind of stuff, like I was going fishing, like all through my 20s and in my teenage years too.
Speaker: and it was weird because like if I wasn't working hard I was fishing like crazy and I I was I had I've actually owned 14 bass boats in my life um bought a new boat almost every year and um yeah so like I was I was working hard I'm truly like a work hard play hard type of person like it is not uncommon for me now I live in Dallas Texas now so like it's not uncommon for me to like
Speaker: take off on a Thursday night, go out to my ranch, shoot like wild hogs and come back like the next night.
Speaker: Like, you know, and people are like, where were you?
Speaker: I'm like, Oh, I just shot like six pigs and two coyotes and a bobcat.
Speaker: Like, that's cool.
Speaker: Like we were just on a webinar.
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, I shot a pig.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, coming from Southern Utah myself, I mean, that's what we did too growing up is just went out and shot stuff and blew stuff up.
Speaker: So yeah, you got the life, man.
Speaker: So it's pretty cool.
Speaker: And then you have a, do you still have a training program, the Texas pond fishing for people learning how to fish?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How do you know about that, bro?
Speaker: Have you been Googling me?
Speaker: Yeah, I do, man, for sure.
Speaker: You know, I, it's just a fun side passion of mine.
Speaker: I actually sold my boat recently.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was like, you know, pond fishing in Texas is ridiculously stupid good.
Speaker: Like, this has nothing to do with entrepreneurism, but they stock ponds with fish, with bass and catfish.
Speaker: Like, the state stocks them.
Speaker: And so you can go down to any neighborhood pond and catch a five-pound bass.
Speaker: I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker: And so, like, and so –
Speaker: we created an online course of how to do it in a web and a Facebook group.
Speaker: And it probably makes like on autopilot, like six to 800 bucks a month.
Speaker: I never touch it.
Speaker: Never.
Speaker: I never touch it at all, but just all organic traffic.
Speaker: But yeah, it was just kind of a cool way.
Speaker: I would say it makes 400 to 800 bucks.
Speaker: I'm sometimes like five, four or 500 bucks, but, but yeah, it's, it's just kind of a fun, like,
Speaker: automated way to use the technology and stuff that we know to help people in the sport and it makes a little bit of money yeah that's awesome well yeah i wanted to bring that up but uh thanks for sharing with us about the fishing but we will not be doing a podcast on fishing today that would be hilarious if we did one on fishing i didn't even realize we were doing that yeah
Speaker: That's for another pod.
Speaker: I'm sure other people with fishing podcasts would love to interview you for that.
Speaker: That is funny.
Speaker: That would be hilarious.
Speaker: But obviously, we are a sales podcast.
Speaker: We're all about helping solopreneurs taking their income and their sales to the next level.
Speaker: And James is a master at it because he knows how to leverage the technology in sales.
Speaker: So tell us about your first sales experience, James, how did you first kind of get into sales and what was that like?
Speaker: And then how did you begin to like leverage technology?
Speaker: Yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker: So, um, like, you know, I, I, um, I was working at a, um, a little, uh, car retailer called car toys in Seattle, still there in downtown Seattle.
Speaker: And, um, uh,
Speaker: I ran the cell phone kiosk.
Speaker: You know, this is in like 1999 or something like that, maybe 2000.
Speaker: And I started realizing like, instead of waiting for people to come in the store, I could actually walk around and sell to businesses around the
Speaker: around my store.
Speaker: So I took me and the other person, this girl who worked with us, and she's kind of my employee.
Speaker: And, um, we would walk around and make offers to people.
Speaker: So we were literally like knocking on doors, like just businesses.
Speaker: I was walking through like, like business complexes or knocking on one door.
Speaker: It's a lawyer, knocking on another door.
Speaker: It's like a physical therapist, knocking on another door.
Speaker: It's like a psychiatrist.
Speaker: You never know.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: so we, we led sales in our region for this old cell phone carrier called Nextel.
Speaker: And so, so that allowed me to, you know, it's like, you know, one, one opportunity leads to another, right.
Speaker: One, you know,
Speaker: you know i mean like i could have just been a kid who just sat there made excuses oh there's not enough floor traffic oh you know if i was only in this other store i would have done better you know but um i don't know what it was like now that i look back it's like easy for me to say like like oh i was a thinker but to be honest i was just using logic when i was a kid like i wasn't like listening to like tony robbins or something you know i was just like thinking i can either sit here and make no money or go out there and have a chance you know so um
Speaker: So I got recruited to sell the first BlackBerrys, if you guys remember those phones.
Speaker: BlackBerry, okay.
Speaker: Yeah, for a company called Nextel.
Speaker: Nextel was in Redmond, Washington.
Speaker: So I got recruited.
Speaker: I talked to a recruiter and went in to interview and I BS'd my way into the job, to be honest with you.
Speaker: I mean, I just went in as hard as I could, but I didn't even know how I got the job because I never talked to a real business.
Speaker: Like, at least I didn't think I did.
Speaker: I definitely never wore a suit in my life.
Speaker: And so here I am on a team of like 80, 90 B2B sales reps.
Speaker: And most of these people have been selling B2B for 20, 25 years.
Speaker: I'm literally...
Speaker: I'm not even like 25 years old.
Speaker: You know, like some of these people are like, dude, I was selling when you were like,
Speaker: sperm it's like whoa too much information i was like damn y'all were selling like way back in the day yeah and um and so um like i i was super competitive so i just i didn't want to lose i didn't want to be last and i also didn't want to get fired the reality was you can get fired pretty fast if you don't sell everyone told me like dude okay man you just got to like pound the phones and pound the pavement that's the name of the game it's all numbers game
Speaker: I don't know why, but when I was a kid, like my logic would just kick in.
Speaker: And I was just like, does that work for people here?
Speaker: And I was like, you know, because when I looked at the top earners, the people who are literally the top earners on the floor, the people making $200,000, $300,000 a year, they weren't doing that.
Speaker: you know, and maybe they had a book of business or whatever, but they were not, you know, making a hundred calls a day.
Speaker: Like all the new guys come in and they're making 80 calls a day, a hundred calls a day.
Speaker: And, and so I was like, you know, there's gotta be a better way to do this.
Speaker: And so I literally remember the first day on the job, I got a first laptop I ever owned was from the company.
Speaker: I got a laptop.
Speaker: The IT guy showed me how to use it, showed me how to log in.
Speaker: And he showed me what email was.
Speaker: He set up my email and I never used email.
Speaker: Like I had a, I think I had like a Hotmail account.
Speaker: There wasn't even Gmail back then.
Speaker: Literally, it wasn't even Gmail.
Speaker: That's how old it was.
Speaker: I think I had a personal Hotmail account, but I never knew how to check it.
Speaker: And so he set me up with his email account and he's like, okay, you put in email addresses here, then you hit send and it'll go out to the customer.
Speaker: And then so then my sales manager came by and he showed me my customer list and it was an Excel spreadsheet.
Speaker: I'd never seen one before.
Speaker: And he showed me, he said, look, there's a customer names.
Speaker: These are addresses.
Speaker: This is their phone number.
Speaker: This is their email.
Speaker: And when he said, this is their email, I'm like, how many people are on this list?
Speaker: He said, there's 8,800 customers.
Speaker: No one in the company can sell these businesses, but you, in fact, if they sell to those businesses, you will get credit for it.
Speaker: I was like, there's 8,000 companies here and 8,000 emails?
Speaker: He's like, yeah.
Speaker: I was like, why don't I just send an email to all these people?
Speaker: He's like, oh, no, no.
Speaker: Like, we don't do that.
Speaker: Like, no one wants to get your email.
Speaker: You know, like, he's like, no, no one's going to check it.
Speaker: You know, people get mad when you send them an email.
Speaker: I'm like, have you ever sent somebody an email?
Speaker: He's like, no, no.
Speaker: I mean, I just know because I wouldn't want to get one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they walked away.
Speaker: I was like, well, that sounds stupid.
Speaker: Like this guy doesn't even get an email.
Speaker: Never tried it.
Speaker: So I didn't really know.
Speaker: So I ended up copying and pasting 8,000 emails into an email.
Speaker: And then I literally looked around.
Speaker: I didn't know what to write.
Speaker: And then I realized, shoot, I don't even know what to say.
Speaker: I was like going to say, hey, I'm James from Nextel.
Speaker: Call me or something.
Speaker: I didn't even know what to say.
Speaker: And then, but I looked and there was a flyer that was marketing approved language and all the stuff that was on my desk.
Speaker: And it was a, it was a BlackBerry flyer.
Speaker: And so I typed that in to the email.
Speaker: I literally typed it in word for word and then hit send, put my phone number at the end, then hit send.
Speaker: And this is no joke.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: This is my life change when I hit send.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Nothing happened and I thought, okay, this doesn't work.
Speaker: Maybe like security caught it.
Speaker: I didn't know what would happen when you send an email.
Speaker: I thought it might go zing zing or do something, like a cash register or something.
Speaker: Well, like 15 minutes later, my phone rang.
Speaker: my company phone.
Speaker: They didn't have a run my first day on the job.
Speaker: And I'm like, who the hell is this?
Speaker: Some weird number.
Speaker: And so I answer it and it's a customer who just got my email.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And he, he ordered like eight phones on the phone.
Speaker: So in 15, 20 minutes on the job, my quota for the month was like 20 phones.
Speaker: I just sold eight in 15 minutes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So by the end of that month, I had sold 60 something phones.
Speaker: I was leading the whole, the whole floor.
Speaker: I was leading the whole floor.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: 20 year old rookie.
Speaker: Never sold to a business before nothing.
Speaker: And, um, so anyway, long story short, I became one of the top salespeople in the country.
Speaker: Got recruited by mobile app company.
Speaker: Cause this is when like smartphones were starting.
Speaker: Then the mobile technology, like mobile apps were starting as well.
Speaker: Um, and,
Speaker: I got recruited to work for a small startup called Telenev and that's kind of how that all happened.
Speaker: But the moral of the story is number one, don't be afraid to think outside the box.
Speaker: Number two, just because someone says they don't think it would work, that doesn't mean a damn thing.
Speaker: That doesn't mean it won't work.
Speaker: And also, if you don't try stuff, you can't win.
Speaker: You can only be like everyone else.
Speaker: You have to try stuff.
Speaker: yeah um you know you have to have that like people don't try stuff because they're overly cautious i would say i would use a better word i would say they're timid they're afraid of what might happen what what their lost time you know might waste my time i might waste my energy i might get rejected i don't know if i can handle that you know but um
Speaker: But look, if you don't try stuff, you're going to get rejected anyway by your bank account, by your spouse, by your, you know what I mean?
Speaker: So like, you know, like, like the, the, the ultimate for like, for sure rejection is not doing anything.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: So, yeah, I mean, it's thinking outside of the box.
Speaker: And I think that's what's allowed you to have a ton of success.
Speaker: Just being a solopreneur, entrepreneur, thinking outside the box.
Speaker: And you guys have done a ton of cool stuff.
Speaker: So B2B, our industry, solar, we're going house to house.
Speaker: We're mostly serving residential.
Speaker: So B2B sales, is that mostly over the phone?
Speaker: Is that just mostly calling businesses or is it walking up to them?
Speaker: Is it kind of all of the above?
Speaker: How does that relate to, I guess, more traditional sales, would you say, James?
Speaker: Well, across the country, B2B can be anything nowadays.
Speaker: It can be over the internet, it can be over the phone, it can be flyers, it can be sending packages to executives, it can be knocking on doors still.
Speaker: So a lot of times knocking on doors still works.
Speaker: So yeah, it can be almost anything.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So yeah, besides, I know you've trained thousands of B2B sales reps.
Speaker: So what do you see, what are like some, I guess, mistakes you see people make, just sales in general?
Speaker: And what do you think it is that's separating the top reps from the guys that kind of fall out of the industry and don't have success?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So number one, I'll just say a lot of people have asked me, how did you train 20 or like 12,000 sales reps in your twenties?
Speaker: Like who does that?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's a lot.
Speaker: Well, it's not that hard if you go to all the cell phone carriers and leverage their teams to sell your stuff.
Speaker: And so I went and got deals when I was working for Telnav, but we were the first Google maps essentially.
Speaker: We're like cycle zero of Google maps.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: Um, I got all the cell phone companies to sign up to sell my service.
Speaker: And then once I got them signed up, excuse me, um, then I told them, Hey, so if you want me to sell, why don't you let me into all your sales meetings?
Speaker: You guys have these kickoff meetings where you have like a thousand people at a time.
Speaker: why don't you let me come speak and I'll give away like tens of thousands of dollars in prizes and spiffs and all this stuff.
Speaker: So I became like a key guest keynote guest speaker in my mid twenties for every major cell phone company in the country.
Speaker: And so it's funny now that I'm 39,
Speaker: I meet people who are in telecom in, in the mid two thousands and they go, you were the talent of kid.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: I remember that, you know?
Speaker: And so, yeah.
Speaker: So, but anyway, um,
Speaker: But I'm sorry, dude.
Speaker: What was your exact question?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My question was just in all your training of reps, what do you see?
Speaker: Like, what's the difference between super successful and the ones that are falling out and not having success that you've noticed?
Speaker: I think that's a broad question.
Speaker: But if I were to try to answer that, I think that –
Speaker: Number one, you can separate yourself in the top 20% just by effort.
Speaker: And this is true in any job.
Speaker: People tend to not give their effort because, not because they're bad people and also not even because they're the type of person who doesn't want to give their effort.
Speaker: They tend to not give their effort because they lose and they have fear of loss.
Speaker: You have to understand sales is a game of losing enough to win.
Speaker: I mean, that is the reality of sales.
Speaker: I don't care if you're selling shoes at Nordstrom's or cars on the car lot or, you know, security software for Cisco or, you know,
Speaker: Doesn't matter, you know, or solar door to door.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: Like it's a game of numbers and like you have to understand that most people are going to say no, even when you're on a webinar.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: When, when we pitch on webinars, when you first present your price, you have to understand 99% of people listening just said no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, and that's why really good webinars, like, you know, like, you know, we have some that really convert well.
Speaker: Steve has some, um, Russell Brunson, a lot of people do.
Speaker: Um, you'll see, like, we'll have, you know, 10 to 15 different ways to close after we've presented the price.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the reason we're doing that is because we know immediately when we first say, everyone go buy.
Speaker: We know everyone just said no.
Speaker: And we're not afraid of that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, whereas most people will pitch in the customer says no.
Speaker: And they're like, all right, I'll see you later.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't want to bother you.
Speaker: I don't want to be an inconvenience.
Speaker: But it's like, how can you be an inconvenience if you really believe in what you're doing?
Speaker: True.
Speaker: You can't be an inconvenience, you know, and if you really are, they're going to tell you and you'll get that vibe.
Speaker: But most of the time the customer just gets cold feet.
Speaker: You know, I was on a call yesterday with somebody who was interested in our coaching and this was a, I wish I would have recorded this call.
Speaker: This is a classic interview.
Speaker: classic call where, um, so I really focus on sales on, I don't do high pressure sales, but I really focus on accountability and clarity.
Speaker: Those are two words that I talk, I use a lot in the call.
Speaker: I say in the very beginning, I say, Hey, my, my objective today is to make sure that we have really good clarity on what we're talking about.
Speaker: We have good clarity on your vision.
Speaker: Um, and we also, um, have a level of accountability that,
Speaker: Because if you want to get something done, you need someone to hold you accountable.
Speaker: And are you okay with that?
Speaker: And I bring that up to the client or to the prospect.
Speaker: So I went through a sales call and the whole thing went about an hour.
Speaker: And then at the end, I presented the price and the person said all the right things.
Speaker: He said that because I qualified him early on and said, hey, do you have money to invest in yourself today?
Speaker: If everything made sense, he said, oh, yeah, I have money.
Speaker: So I'm thinking, okay, he must have money.
Speaker: when I presented the price, his actual response was, man, that's cheap.
Speaker: That's a deal.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: So I'm thinking, okay, he's giving me great buying signals.
Speaker: He says he has money.
Speaker: He says it's cheap.
Speaker: And then so I go for the sale towards the end.
Speaker: And he says, hey, man, this is really, really awesome.
Speaker: I'm really excited.
Speaker: I'm definitely, okay, I just want you to understand that everybody, he says, I'm definitely going to sign up.
Speaker: I just need a day to think about it.
Speaker: I need to sleep on it.
Speaker: okay let me just tell you the reality of that situation okay and don't don't think bad about your prospect but they are lying to you yeah
Speaker: I'm telling you, they're lying.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like, you know, there's no other way to say it.
Speaker: They are flat out lying to you.
Speaker: Now you don't want to say that, but they're lying.
Speaker: And so most people, I even have sales reps on our team now that would have went, all right, man, bye.
Speaker: I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Speaker: And I guarantee you that guy's gone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I, I pushed him a little bit and I, and I, I said, so once again, coming back to clarity and accountability, Hey man, let me just make sure I understand this correctly.
Speaker: Maybe I got it wrong, but you said you have the money, right?
Speaker: Or am I trying to get that wrong?
Speaker: No, I have the money.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: So I'm holding him accountable for what he says.
Speaker: He said he had the money.
Speaker: You said it was cheap, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: So let me just ask if you don't mind, and I just want to have clarity so I don't waste my time through the night and tomorrow and you don't waste your time.
Speaker: What are you thinking about?
Speaker: What do you need?
Speaker: If you don't mind me asking, and hopefully you don't, you know, I tell them like, hopefully you don't see that as me pressuring you or anything, man.
Speaker: I just want to have some good clarity and help you through your thought process.
Speaker: What are you thinking?
Speaker: And so he, so he, he said, Oh, nothing, man, nothing.
Speaker: So he's still playing the game.
Speaker: I mean, he goes, no, no,
Speaker: The nothing man, I'm ready to go.
Speaker: I'm definitely going to do – like he literally is saying, I'm definitely going to do this.
Speaker: This is a done deal.
Speaker: He's trying to get me the hell off the phone.
Speaker: You guys have to understand that.
Speaker: People are trying to close –
Speaker: the door they're trying to get you to walk away why there's something hanging them up and and and who you don't know i don't know what's hanging them up but something is and so um i asked him i said um how can you be so sure that you're definitely going to do this like i don't understand and so i said
Speaker: Let me, let me, let me ask you this just, uh, just, uh, so that I know you're serious.
Speaker: Uh, I said, why don't you go ahead and, uh, uh, give me your credit card number and I'll hold this payment until tomorrow.
Speaker: And then I said, look, man, if you have for any reason, don't want to do it, just message me and I won't charge you.
Speaker: But if you, if I don't hear from you, I'll charge you in 24 hours.
Speaker: Cause if you're definitely in and you're definitely going to do it and you're definitely sold and you definitely have the money, then why would you not do that?
Speaker: You give your money to somebody and, you know, overseas to give your credit card to somebody.
Speaker: You don't even know who they are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's been following me for years.
Speaker: He was on the same event you were.
Speaker: I'm like, why would you not give it to me?
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: So then, and I was being super nice.
Speaker: I wasn't being aggressive at all.
Speaker: And so he goes, he finally broke down.
Speaker: He goes, look, man, I'm going to have to move some money around.
Speaker: I don't have enough money on this card.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: He didn't have the money.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: he like i'm saying he wasn't bad he's just a little bit intimidated he's posturing he's talking to somebody who he thinks is successful more way more successful than he could ever be and he's just going man i got a posture to this guy i can't tell him i need to move the money around i can't tell him that yeah now he should have just said that but he did it and so now i've come to a matter of clarity right i'm like okay cool um so then i'm like okay um
Speaker: do you need me to split the, like, do you need me to split this up for you so I can take part of it today?
Speaker: I said, how much can you do today?
Speaker: What can you do?
Speaker: So I got him down and then I, then I hear somebody whispering and,
Speaker: to him and i realize it's probably a spouse for some yeah so now i'm going okay this is not going to go anywhere not nothing against the spouse i appreciate the spouse but i have not been had a chance to explain anything to the spouse and there's no way a spouse is just going to be like oh yeah ten thousand dollars let's do it right now you know or whatever the price there's just no way right like um just like if i was started off the call and said hey man you want to give me 10 grand today and i'll do this no no one's gonna do that yeah so um
Speaker: So then I knew like, okay, this is probably not going to go anywhere because there's someone else influential who's there literally in his ear.
Speaker: And so he goes, well, I've got 1500 bucks right now that I can do.
Speaker: So I'm going, okay, man, let me take your 1500 bucks.
Speaker: When do you want to pay the rest?
Speaker: He told me when he wanted to pay the rest.
Speaker: I said, okay, cool.
Speaker: So here we go, man.
Speaker: 1500 bucks today.
Speaker: Give me your card number.
Speaker: I'll get you signed up.
Speaker: And I said, you know what?
Speaker: Let me do this for you too, man.
Speaker: If for some reason that's 24 hours, you don't want to do this.
Speaker: Just let me know.
Speaker: Uh, just cause I don't want to make this a, an issue about that.
Speaker: So we set up a plan to get him paid off in a couple of weeks, all this stuff.
Speaker: And I was going to stop financing all this stuff.
Speaker: And all of a sudden he goes, James, I just can't do this.
Speaker: I just can't.
Speaker: Like he just abruptly said that.
Speaker: And I'm like, what?
Speaker: He, I just gave you a finance plan.
Speaker: I give you, I was like, why?
Speaker: And he goes, my wife will kill me.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Guys, they are lying to you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Not maliciously, but just get that phrase in your head.
Speaker: They're lying to you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now don't be narcissistic lying.
Speaker: They're not, they're, they're trying to protect themselves.
Speaker: They don't want to admit it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I finally got into a point of clarity and said, okay, dude, let's be honest.
Speaker: You need to break it up.
Speaker: You need to explain it to your wife.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Um, so obviously, you know, I can tell she's a little bit heated, so I don't want to talk to her at this point, but I, but it's a really good point of clarity from there forward, a good technique for everyone to understand is, uh, this happens a lot in B2B where somebody has got now got to go explain it to someone else.
Speaker: Um, you want to ideally book that meeting so that you can be there to present your own stuff.
Speaker: Um, there's a lot of techniques to try to get in there, but if you can't, um, you always want to say,
Speaker: How are you going to justify $10,000 to so-and-so?
Speaker: How would you ever do that?
Speaker: Why would they agree to that?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Then just pause and listen to what they say.
Speaker: 99% of the time, my response to what they tell me is going to be, look, man, I got to be honest.
Speaker: This is my own stuff.
Speaker: You didn't even sell me.
Speaker: Like I'm the easiest guy to sell, dude.
Speaker: What you just said, I wouldn't buy it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So do you want me to tell you how to sell it to somebody?
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah, dude, man.
Speaker: Okay, get a pen.
Speaker: So that technique does work.
Speaker: None of these are 100%, but that works very, very well.
Speaker: If you can get them to say, look, here's the bullet points you need to tell them.
Speaker: Here's how you explain it to them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Justified to them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love that James.
Speaker: And basically all what you said, those objections, we get those exact same things in solar.
Speaker: I mean, most of the time we're selling solar loans to people, 20, $30,000 sometimes, you know, up to a hundred grand, even these solar loans and 90% of the time it's saving them money.
Speaker: But like you said, if we're presenting to just a husband, just a wife, you're
Speaker: and they don't have clarity on it a lot of times we're going to get that same objection a lot of times they're going to give us that same bs at the end and say oh this is awesome saves me a ton of money but you know what i'm going to think about it yeah always step number one for us is i mean we try to set it up so both decision makers can be there because yeah that's going to decrease the chance of them saying that by quite a bit
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then like you're saying, just being clear on it, getting to the truth and they're coming up with things like that, which a lot of times they do just figuring out what the whole up it is.
Speaker: A lot of times they're scared that it's a loan.
Speaker: A lot of times they're scared that it's being financed, but the truth is it's saving them money.
Speaker: I mean, even though they're financing 30 grand, still saving them money.
Speaker: But yeah, if they don't, it'd be the same thing if they go to their spouse and say, honey, do you want to finance $30,000 to get solar?
Speaker: If they don't understand the context of that, then 100%, they're going to say no every time.
Speaker: So I love that, what you said.
Speaker: And everyone, you know, have empathy for your client.
Speaker: Like, they don't know what they're doing.
Speaker: You know, they're not used to being pitched.
Speaker: You know, they've been pitched before, but they're not used to it and they don't like it.
Speaker: It's a little bit uncomfortable.
Speaker: And, you know, like their school didn't teach them how to deal with being pitched.
Speaker: Like no one taught them.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So this is like, you know, how, you know, like when you're in junior high and high school and you're trying to talk to a girl and the girls are like, well, why doesn't he just come say something?
Speaker: And we're like, because no one told me how to go talk to you.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then you walk up and say something you think is smart and she totally takes it the wrong way and you walk away like, well, obviously she doesn't like me.
Speaker: And like, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Like it's literally that kind of conversation happening with adults where, you know, the person is saying something
Speaker: And they don't know what to say.
Speaker: They don't.
Speaker: And they're sometimes they're just embarrassed.
Speaker: I truly believe the guy I was talking to yesterday.
Speaker: He didn't know.
Speaker: Like he, like he knew initially that, that he, he had a, he needed to move some money around, but,
Speaker: But he didn't want to tell me about his wife and all these other things because he probably was embarrassed by it.
Speaker: And he shouldn't be.
Speaker: And I should give him that comfortable place to say, look, man, I appreciate you telling me that.
Speaker: And I just want to let you know, man, don't feel bad about that and don't think that's bad.
Speaker: Other people might pressure you on something like that and say, you know, don't listen to her.
Speaker: But I'm not saying that.
Speaker: I'm saying I appreciate her stance.
Speaker: And I appreciate you have somebody like that who makes you think, you know, and that's only going to make you better if we move forward together, you know.
Speaker: So you want to agree and embrace, you know, their pause, but then, you know, bring them back to the truth and the reality.
Speaker: If you can bring them back to get clarity around reality, which, like you said, is, you know, it may be –
Speaker: you know, an additional loan or whatever.
Speaker: But when you look at, you know, their initiatives, maybe they care about green stuff, right?
Speaker: And this is supporting that.
Speaker: You know, it saves them money in the long run.
Speaker: It ups the value of their home, like all those kinds of things.
Speaker: Like you have to, you have to, you
Speaker: you have to always associate value with cost, value with price, right?
Speaker: And another thing is, you probably teach this, but some people might say, well, what do you do if there's the wife or another decision maker?
Speaker: ideally you want to get both people on the phone.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And so my next step, the guy said he thinks he can close his wife.
Speaker: So he's gonna let me know by today.
Speaker: I am probably going to give him a 20% chance of closing his wife.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just because he didn't sell me on it very well.
Speaker: So the chance of him selling her is probably not that good.
Speaker: But who knows?
Speaker: But if that doesn't work, my next step will be to say, hey, why don't we all get on the phone?
Speaker: We can have a quick chat.
Speaker: Now, the reality of that conversation is you want to start in the very beginning.
Speaker: This is where salespeople mess up.
Speaker: They will go into that conversation and one party's heard the whole thing.
Speaker: So they'll start at the end.
Speaker: Or they'll even say, like, why do I want to repeat all this stuff?
Speaker: No, you won't repeat it all.
Speaker: Because the other person has no clue.
Speaker: And they also have some pre-frame of everything that literally has nothing to do with what you're about to say.
Speaker: The only time where that would not work and doesn't work is in a high level B2B meeting.
Speaker: You might present to a team of five people who are making a decision on a multimillion dollar thing.
Speaker: And those five people have heard your spiel two or three times.
Speaker: Then the big executive comes in on the third meeting and he only has 15 minutes.
Speaker: So you have to understand if he has 15 minutes, you better get it out in 15 minutes.
Speaker: And the most important thing then is whether it's a spouse or an executive or whatever, is you need to tell that person what they want to hear.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You, you, you, you can't sell your features, functions, benefits.
Speaker: You need to tell them exactly what they want to hear.
Speaker: Oh man, this is, this is almost no cost because of the ROI.
Speaker: This is instant, almost instant installation.
Speaker: You're not going to have to do anything.
Speaker: It's not going to devalue your home.
Speaker: In fact, people are going to think you're cool.
Speaker: yeah because of this you like if you think that's what they want to hear now you i'm telling you if it's quick you have to it basically you're you're it's like a headline you know i mean like like a like a like a headline is like clickbait you know the headline has to tell somebody what they want to hear you can't like say you know hey did you know this and this and this and this and this no no one gives a crap right like yeah um
Speaker: So now you can get to now if the executive or the other person who you're talking to, if they have questions about what you're saying, well, how's that possible?
Speaker: Then give them the detail, then tell them the detail.
Speaker: But,
Speaker: if it's quick, you have to tell them what they want to hear.
Speaker: I've tried this over and over and over again.
Speaker: And like, you can tell you see most of the time we present, we tell people what they need.
Speaker: You really need this because of this, this, and this, but they want it for a certain reason.
Speaker: The difference between want need is the difference between buying or not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, like when I know I want something, like, you know, if I'm speaking on stage and I have a dry...
Speaker: dry throat.
Speaker: Well, at that point, I want this bottle of water.
Speaker: Like it's not a need.
Speaker: It became a want.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would pay, I'd hand somebody a $20 bill to give me a bottle of water, $20 to give me a 50 cent, 20 cent bottle of water.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: If I was speaking up on stage and somebody lifted their hands and said, Hey, will you buy this $20 bottle of water?
Speaker: I'm like, why?
Speaker: Well, you're thirsty.
Speaker: Not really, but I need it, but not right now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's a need.
Speaker: I don't really need it.
Speaker: Why would I spend 20 bucks on a bottle of water?
Speaker: But if I want it,
Speaker: if i gotta have it i will pay 20 bucks right on the spot for a stupid bottle of water you know what i mean exactly when the sale goes quick um which is not ideal by the way but when the sale goes quick you have to tell them what they want okay love it love it without lying obviously this goes on saying don't lie don't be unethical but tell them exactly what they want okay love that
Speaker: Well, cool, James.
Speaker: I know we're running short on time here, but I want to transition also into a lot of our solopreneurs.
Speaker: What we're teaching people is to run their funnels, get leads online.
Speaker: A lot of us still knock doors, which is awesome.
Speaker: But for these online leads, I know that's how you run your business is you get leads online, you close them over the phone, I'm sure a lot of the times.
Speaker: So what advice do you have for us getting leads over the phone or
Speaker: you know, online through ads, I guess, what advice do you have from taking these leads that come online and then actually converting them into sales?
Speaker: I know it's a little different in your business, but what do you do in your business to actually take these leads?
Speaker: You get a lead, hits your funnel.
Speaker: How do you convert it into an appointment and into a closed deal in your business?
Speaker: Yeah, so I think if you're already getting leads, then like how to get the lead and all that is kind of one thing.
Speaker: If you're getting leads and then it's like, what do you do with them?
Speaker: I would have a couple approaches.
Speaker: One, I would try to reach out to them right away.
Speaker: like within 20 minutes or so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Two, I try to have multiple touch points where I would probably text, like what we do, a script we use, we text them.
Speaker: So the application says, you know, we may text you at this number.
Speaker: That way they're not, cause you, some people, especially like an old, you know, someone who's, you know, a baby boomer or something like that, they might get offended that you just texted.
Speaker: It's like, dude, seriously, like, you know, millennial like us, like we'd probably get offended if you call us.
Speaker: Why didn't he just text me?
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, so like, but, but so we will, we'll text them basically saying, Hey, we got your application.
Speaker: And we basically say some script that says in a sentence or two, probably two sentences.
Speaker: It says we received your application.
Speaker: We reviewed it and, and things look pretty good.
Speaker: So we want to make it optimistic.
Speaker: We want to make it, um,
Speaker: seem like there was some logic put into it and um and also there is i mean literally if we look at it it's bad we won't we won't try to follow up with them but we try to start making them feel like right away like they're a little bit unique in that um they're they're kind of above grade um and the way the application process and the you know works and the psychology of the funnel um
Speaker: it would be for any high ticket sale, I would use all what we call takeaway selling and scarcity selling.
Speaker: So like, you know, this is a limited time offer.
Speaker: We're only doing five houses in your neighborhood.
Speaker: Chances are we've already got a couple.
Speaker: So maybe we're only doing one, two or three.
Speaker: But, but if you really want this apply and we'll see if you qualify.
Speaker: You know, so, so, or a lot of things, a lot of times we'll say like, we'll see if you're ready.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: you want to flip the table if you can so that they are selling why they should be the house on that street to get it.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And, and, you know, like if I've sold someone else on that street, I would be like, well, we already got, you know, Chris six blocks, six houses down from you.
Speaker: So, you know, typically we wouldn't do this on multiple homes.
Speaker: But, you know, so we would basically turn the table of the conversation to make them say why they think they're qualified for it.
Speaker: you know?
Speaker: And, and so this, this really changed.
Speaker: Now that doesn't mean you still, you still have to sell them a little bit.
Speaker: You have to explain it, but also you've balanced the conversation so that,
Speaker: they're selling you on why they're qualified and you're selling them on why your stuff's qualified, you know, versus when it's all one way, that's when it gets really, really tough, you know?
Speaker: So, so you set that up through the funnel and through the way that the funnel and the psychology of the funnel, and it's really the wording, the psychology of it is really key.
Speaker: Then all the way through.
Speaker: the application, then the, um, the first text message is basically saying you might be one of these people that qualify.
Speaker: You know, we, we, we thought you were better than some other people, like some type of psychology like that.
Speaker: Um, and then we say, um, well, so then we wait for a response and then what we do is we text them back and say, um, um, we're really slammed this week.
Speaker: Obviously, you know, this kind of service is getting a lot of publicity right now.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: you know, we might be able to squeeze you in in the next couple of days.
Speaker: You know, what time did, what time in general would you be available?
Speaker: So once again, very, a lot of scarcity, right?
Speaker: So this is going to make somebody go, well, I'm available today, tomorrow.
Speaker: You just tell me like, that's the best call when they start saying that.
Speaker: Now, when you give them a time, this is the best.
Speaker: give them a time that is not a round number.
Speaker: You like 335, you know, 345.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like make it a 15 minute increment.
Speaker: I have seen people where like an influencer is really, really popular.
Speaker: If there's truly like a lot of demand on somebody, the best way to do it is actually to make it like a weird number.
Speaker: Like you can meet with them at 447 to 457.
Speaker: They're like, okay.
Speaker: Like, what the hell?
Speaker: Is he getting out of, like, an elevator?
Speaker: And then he's, like, 447?
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And literally, like, it says, like, so-and-so tracks his time so much that this is the exact time he will be able to take it.
Speaker: 447.
Speaker: They're like, 447?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I guess they'll be right at 447.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like if the person's not like a superstar or the service isn't like on fire like that, just use a round number like 445, you know, cause if it's not, then people know you're screwing with them.
Speaker: They're like, come on, don't act like you're so frigging busy.
Speaker: You couldn't do it two minutes earlier.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: okay um yeah but that does make and that makes them feel like um man this person's time must be valuable they couldn't even wait till five they had to do it 445 yeah and um uh which which now i've been in conferences and stuff and people say well you know i'm just not into that unethical stuff i'm like why is that unethical i don't have do you have extra time just to screw around no
Speaker: You don't have an extra 15 minutes.
Speaker: Something you're saying is 100% true.
Speaker: So that's what I would try to do.
Speaker: And then obviously getting them on the phone, just all the standard sales stuff.
Speaker: So making sure that you're asking the questions, not them.
Speaker: Make sure that you're not going in and saying, well, what questions do you have?
Speaker: That's probably the worst.
Speaker: you know, and, and yeah, like, you know, just understand their needs and, you know, go from there and the typical sales conversation.
Speaker: Yeah, love it.
Speaker: Yeah, that's something we've talked about before.
Speaker: And I know Steve has talked about it too.
Speaker: That book, you probably know it, the Pitch Anything book, but talks all about that and just creating the frame that you're the expert there.
Speaker: And yeah, because yeah, I mean, that's what that's, I think, one of the biggest mistakes I was making when I got into solar cells is I was just come across so needy, so baggy.
Speaker: like, oh, what's it going to take for you to do this?
Speaker: Like, please do this.
Speaker: Basically begging them to do it.
Speaker: It just turns people off.
Speaker: But when you can switch the frame on them and make them tell you why you should do it for them.
Speaker: And yeah, I've noticed my sales have definitely increased just by implementing some of that stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And a lot of times, um,
Speaker: when you're selling something high level, um, a lot of times you'll be dealing with a type a or an alpha type of person.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That type of person, you want them to be on the hunt.
Speaker: You want them to be, um,
Speaker: trying to prove themselves, trying to sell themselves, you know, you don't want to let them tee off on you, you know, or you, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Like you want to, you can control the conversation a lot better if you give them something to hunt for versus let them hunt for anything they want.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you need to, you need to understand, especially when you get on the phone with somebody like that and they're like,
Speaker: You'll right away.
Speaker: Hey man.
Speaker: So, um, thanks.
Speaker: So here's what I want to do on this call.
Speaker: This is the reason I booked this call is I wanted to blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And I wanted to ask you this question.
Speaker: So tell me, man, what, why is this so important and what, what's this all about?
Speaker: Yeah, that's the worst.
Speaker: First thing I say is number one, always agree.
Speaker: You know what, man, that was a great question.
Speaker: I'm glad you asked that because that way I don't have to ask that question.
Speaker: Great question.
Speaker: So what I was going to ask you today is, can I time out?
Speaker: Do you see what I just, I addressed what he said so that way he doesn't get pissed.
Speaker: But now I just flipped the script on him and he probably didn't even realize I'm literally going to take over the conversation right now because I'm basically going to follow my script.
Speaker: yeah i agreed with him made him feel good he's like pumping his chest like yeah i got this guy and then i come right back with my question he's like uh so like um yeah like you know that's that's a really good way to to do it is because if you if you don't address their question then it creates friction right and that's that's really bad
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You don't want any friction between you and the person you're trying to sell something to.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Definitely always agree.
Speaker: And then yeah, flip that frame on them.
Speaker: Two huge things.
Speaker: So thanks for sharing that, James.
Speaker: So yeah, I mean, last thing I wanted to ask you, James, we're obviously solar, we're selling solar.
Speaker: So I guess, um, I know you've ran your own businesses, things like that.
Speaker: If you were to start your own solar company,
Speaker: what are some ideas you'd have about just marketing it and I don't know, closing more deals.
Speaker: Do you have any ideas if you were to jump into the solar industry yourself?
Speaker: If I were to go in, um,
Speaker: I would probably do it all remote.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And the first thing that I would do, I'd probably definitely build a really nice webinar that talks about what people want.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Not about features and benefits and feature functions and benefits.
Speaker: That's for later on.
Speaker: When someone, there's a cold prospect, especially on the internet, you can, you'll trigger them by telling what they want to hear.
Speaker: so you have to know what they want to hear you have to know like um you know maybe status is important to them and that's why they buy that's a big reason why they buy so you need to tell them that um you need to tell them that people will notice that you're like like um you know the neighborhoods that i live in it's a status symbol to get you know a solar system on your house like it is literally a status symbol like it's like
Speaker: Find a new car, you know, and people will do that as one of their buying decisions if they know it's going to make them look good.
Speaker: If they feel like it's going to make them look bad, then they won't.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, so that's one thing.
Speaker: But yeah, I would, I would have a short webinar that really talks about what they really want.
Speaker: And then I would use scarcity and say, hey, if you want to be one of the exclusive people to do this, let's get on the phone and see if we can find someone to book a meeting, see if you can get on the calendar.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And then in terms of leads, I'm really big into leverage.
Speaker: So ever since I started doing email with, back when I was a kid at Nextel, I realized like you can leverage stuff.
Speaker: And so I would actually look for people who have already sold to all of my clients.
Speaker: So it could be pest control companies, it could be whatever.
Speaker: And I would go to them and I would say, hey, can I offer you 10% of all my sales and we do a joint marketing campaign to all your clients?
Speaker: So this way, the leads are warm.
Speaker: And also, you have to consider, now I'm not spending money on ads and all that stuff.
Speaker: I'm giving that money away as a commission or as a referral.
Speaker: But the lead is a much better lead.
Speaker: And so I would really try to do that.
Speaker: And then that might be like an email to an application.
Speaker: Or a really good thing would be to do a voice drop, like using a slide dial or a text called slide broadcast would be the business version of that.
Speaker: And dial my calls is another one we use a lot for sending voicemails.
Speaker: But basically slips a voicemail onto their phone without the phone ringing.
Speaker: Dial my calls is really cool because they can actually get the voicemail and they can hit one and it will call back the number.
Speaker: So we'll get a lot of our sales reps will get inbound calls.
Speaker: A lot of them will.
Speaker: And so what I would do is I would try to get the CEO of the pest control company or the pool cleaner or whatever to him to do the voicemail, to do the first one.
Speaker: Hey, it's James with such and such pool cleaning.
Speaker: I know we've done blah, blah, blah for such and such amount of years.
Speaker: Hey, I want to introduce you to a friend that I've got.
Speaker: I've got this, one of my good friends named Taylor Armstrong and they absolutely rock it in the solar industry.
Speaker: This is a huge thing.
Speaker: It's initiatives all the way from the government to local to all this and that.
Speaker: And, uh, they've got an incredible deal.
Speaker: And not only is Taylor somebody that, that provides an awesome product, but he's a friend.
Speaker: He's somebody that I trust.
Speaker: And so, um, if you guys want to get ahold of him, press one, um, and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And you can book a meeting.
Speaker: He, uh, uh,
Speaker: But, you know, whatever, or I'd also say in the voicemail, he's probably going to try to reach out to you the next few days.
Speaker: I just want to let you know that he might text or call you.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: If you want to talk to him and try to be one of the first people in your neighborhood, go ahead and press one and you'll get on the phone with him or one of his people.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I would do something like that.
Speaker: That way the person, the CEO of, let's say, the pest control company, they are pre-framing you coming in.
Speaker: And I would sell it to them as, look, man, you don't have to do anything.
Speaker: You're going to make X amount of money per sale.
Speaker: And, dude, all you got to do is let me come to your office and let's record a voicemail thing really quick on my phone.
Speaker: On your phone.
Speaker: Send me a voice that says, send me the file.
Speaker: That's it, dude.
Speaker: I'll do the rest, you know?
Speaker: You know, so, so yeah, I would try to do stuff like that.
Speaker: I might even go all the way to like accountants, tax people, those kinds of things.
Speaker: And every single day, my goal would be to talk to somebody who's an aggregate of my clients.
Speaker: Every day I try to talk to somebody.
Speaker: I'd make an offer to somebody who, who hasn't, who has my clients now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, I love that.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: So with that dial my calls, you're saying you can just record a single message and then you can plug all the numbers into it and just go out immediately to every, every customer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Dial my calls.
Speaker: It'll, it'll also text.
Speaker: Um, so you can text everybody.
Speaker: There's a, there's some rules and regulations around texts.
Speaker: I would just say, be careful.
Speaker: Uh, be super careful if you're bulk texting people, if they haven't opted in, you could actually get sued.
Speaker: Um, so be careful on that.
Speaker: But, um, but calling them, no problem.
Speaker: You can call them, um, dial my calls allows you to actually ring their phone.
Speaker: So they might answer.
Speaker: And if they answer, then it forwards the call.
Speaker: Actually, if they answer, then it plays the voice note.
Speaker: And then it says, you know, so we always say press one if you want to talk to me.
Speaker: You know, so they'll be listening.
Speaker: Oh, this is pretty cool.
Speaker: Let me hit one.
Speaker: And then it's all of a sudden it's ringing your cell phone, you know, or it's going to a call tree or whatever, you know, so.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: It's a good idea.
Speaker: And you wouldn't get in trouble for like, would these customers from say a pool company or something?
Speaker: Could they, they wouldn't like try and see you or something for, for someone else con like a third party contacting, right?
Speaker: You couldn't get into trouble with that.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Especially if it's pre-framed, if the person is saying, Hey, this person's going to call you.
Speaker: If you want to opt out, text me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: That kind of thing.
Speaker: If you give them an option to opt out or you know, yeah, if you give them an option to opt out, you know, the other thing is, yeah,
Speaker: If you're not like hammering them, usually you can call a big list of thousands of numbers and you might get like one or two people in a thousand that are going to complain.
Speaker: And as soon as they complain, just say, would you like it if I take you off the list?
Speaker: And just take them off the list, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause really they don't want to sue you.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: They just want to get off the list.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, um, so yeah, that's what I would do.
Speaker: The other thing I would do if I were running this business is every month I would have an initiative where,
Speaker: we specifically follow up on dead leads.
Speaker: This is a huge miss in businesses where every month I would email or do a dial my calls or something, but I would hit all those old leads in a real, this is a good value bomb here for people, a really good email that works is people call it the are you still,
Speaker: email are you still so it's basically like a 10 word email and it says doesn't even say hey jack it doesn't have your signature nothing it just says excuse me it just says are you still interested in um getting and so you want to use something general are you still interested um
Speaker: in getting, you know, in making your house more green or whatever.
Speaker: See, you don't want to say, are you still interested in, you know, solar by new power by blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: You don't want to put your brand or, cause they're going to be like, no, but you want to say like the category, you know, are you still interested in, and then say like a general category.
Speaker: And believe it or not, you will get people who literally reply.
Speaker: and say yes that's awesome that's money yeah i love that so yeah believe it or not you will um okay yeah i mean um
Speaker: But yeah, cause a lot of times with those old leads, it's just bad timing for them.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: They got a little bit excited, it's bad timing, but yeah.
Speaker: But, but so those are kind of the different ways I would do it.
Speaker: I'd, I'd have a kind of, you know, daily, you know, stuff, new, new, new leads and stuff for doing.
Speaker: I'd be working with people who, who I can leverage their lists and their relationship.
Speaker: And then I'd have an initiative to follow up with old leads.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That right there, you could crush it.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, I don't doubt that at all.
Speaker: That's money.
Speaker: That last tip you just gave.
Speaker: Cause I did that recently.
Speaker: I didn't, I wish I would have known that earlier.
Speaker: Cause I went through a list of about a thousand old beads that I found just from people that answered from calls and emails and stuff.
Speaker: There was over 80 of these old beads that, that bought solar from another company.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that cost me a couple hundred grand probably on deals.
Speaker: I like lost out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, if I would have known that, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, but yeah, if you're not falling off these dead leads, someone else is going to.
Speaker: Because I think a lot of times if they don't buy from you, you've planted the seed for them to buy someone else.
Speaker: Buy from someone else.
Speaker: So that's huge.
Speaker: Yeah, a really good thing to do would be to have every week or maybe twice a week, but at least once a week, try to send them something in email.
Speaker: That's like a case study or I would set up a Google alert.
Speaker: for the word solar or whatever it is specific that you do, solar panel, residential solar panels, residential solar.
Speaker: I would set up a Google alert with those phrases.
Speaker: That way, like every week or every day, you can get a weekly or daily.
Speaker: Anything hot on the internet that's around that word is going to push through your email.
Speaker: So you'll get an email that says like,
Speaker: here's a new regulation.
Speaker: Here's somebody who's has success story.
Speaker: Here's a new technology.
Speaker: Here's a, here's a horror story.
Speaker: Here's a whatever, but it gives you really good content and it makes you sound like a total genius because you're always talking about something new and relevant.
Speaker: And people are always like, man, how does he know this stuff?
Speaker: How does he know this stuff?
Speaker: And this person's like a practitioner.
Speaker: Like, uh, no, I set up Google alert.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't even know you could do that.
Speaker: So you can just have Google alert you when anything new comes out that's associated with solar.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: It's free.
Speaker: I literally Google, Google alert and it comes up and then you type in the word you want and then you say, okay, send this to me every week.
Speaker: Once a week, I want to get an email, you know?
Speaker: So yeah, that's great.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a really cool way because now any video, blog, infograph, anything, any, any article, anything that's hot on the internet around that word is going to come to you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's sweet.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Well, money tips you gave us.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm definitely going to go out and try some of these things.
Speaker: Got my notes going.
Speaker: So James, thanks for sharing your wisdom with us today.
Speaker: And no, we got to wrap it up pretty quick here, but where can people find out more about you and what you're doing?
Speaker: And do you have any other words of advice you can give to our solopreneurs?
Speaker: Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker: So, you know, JamesSmiley.org has a lot of really cool free stuff that you guys can get.
Speaker: There's like a B2B playbook.
Speaker: There's a USB drive with all a bunch of stuff.
Speaker: If you've never been to any of my events, we've got a bunch of events on that free plus shipping USB drive.
Speaker: But also just on Facebook, you know, you can find me on my personal page.
Speaker: And we're always publishing tons and tons of stuff every day.
Speaker: So, you know, just free content or whatever, but I would encourage any of your followers, you know, become a practitioner at this game and you'll be great at it, you know.
Speaker: So one, understand the industry, what's going on.
Speaker: Google alerts will help you do that.
Speaker: Number two, understand the technology that is going to help you and the technology that you can leverage.
Speaker: So things like, you know,
Speaker: being on this listening to this podcast following people like me and steve on facebook you know because we're just dropping gold every day you know teach people new ways to sell new things are happening online so you got to come become a practitioner at this stuff um and it's it's it's you know it doesn't happen in a day but if you get a little teeny drip every single day um it pushes you along and next thing you know a couple months down the road you know some one of your followers is the guru and they're on they're on the show here with taylor
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: So yeah, definitely go check out what James is doing.
Speaker: Like you said, we had Steve on Steve Larson a couple months back.
Speaker: So check out that episode if you didn't hear it already.
Speaker: And yeah, James will continue to drop the value and we appreciate everything you do, James.
Speaker: And we're definitely here to support you.
Speaker: Let us know if we can do anything, but thanks again for coming on the show.
Speaker: Appreciate you, man.
Speaker: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker: Appreciate all you guys.
Speaker: And I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: Hope you love that value.
Speaker: Those golden nuggets that James Smiley dropped with us.
Speaker: So go show them some love.
Speaker: Let them know you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: And also let us know it motivates us to keep doing more stuff like this.
Speaker: For next week's interview, we're going to have Jackson Rucker on the show.
Speaker: He has his own podcast.
Speaker: It's called Door-to-Door Success Secrets.
Speaker: We're excited to bring him on the show for next Friday to hear what his perspective is with online marketing and door-to-door sales, how they integrate.
Speaker: So keep listening for more daily content, and we'll see you back for next week, and enjoy the episodes.
Speaker: Wow, what another amazing episode of the Solarpreneur Podcast.
Speaker: Now, before we take off here, do us a favor and go leave an honest review on your platform of choice or wherever you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker: It helps us get the word out about the solarpreneur movement and impact more entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and marketers just like you.
Speaker: And hey, don't forget to
Speaker: head over to Facebook and join the Solopreneur group for more daily content that's going to impact you and help you take your sales game to the next level.
Speaker: See you guys in the next episode.
