Staying on Track with Summer Goals
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It is now the month of August.
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If you are not crushing your summer goals, I hope that we can get you back on track with these episodes.
Introducing James Smiley, Sales Guru
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Today, we have James Smiley.
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If you haven't heard of the guy, he has a huge following.
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Definitely one of the higher profile guests we've been able to get on the show.
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So you're going to want to get pen and paper out, take some notes, learn from this top sales guru here.
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Let us know what you think.
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Well, James, the co-host on the podcast, I should say, has been doing daily episodes.
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So hopefully you're enjoying those.
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Now we're going to do an interview for this episode.
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Let us know what you think.
Insights into the Solar Sales Industry
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in the solar business, there's really only two types of people.
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There's the ones that crush it, make six, seven, and eight figures, and then there's everyone else.
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The question is, which one will you be?
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Over the last four years, we've studied the sharpest solar sales and marketing pros.
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and how they build multi-million dollar incomes using only the best solar sales and marketing strategies.
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So how do these solarpreneurs do what they do and what makes them so successful?
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This podcast is your answer.
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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.
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Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast.
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What is up, solopreneurs?
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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.
James Smiley's Journey to Success
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I first saw him a couple months ago at his Goat-a-thon, he called it.
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It was right before Funnel Hacking Live.
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I saw him and Steve Larson, and he instantly caught my attention with what he's doing as far as sales and
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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
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I just tell them how Austin, I mean, you and Steve Larson, you guys both have great followings.
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You know, both are influencers.
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So I think it's awesome that you are able to come on people's podcasts and drop some gold like this.
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Because yeah, I mean, James, just looking at his, some of the stuff he's done, it's pretty amazing.
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I mean, you look at his kind of,
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Resume here 1.7 million dollars in sales in a single webinar.
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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.
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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?
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You're seeing these days
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You know, I grew up in the inner city in Seattle.
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Grew up kind of in one of those like poor minority neighborhood type of places in the 90s.
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And, you know, long story short, I remember going shopping with like $6 a week.
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That's what pretty much we had, you know.
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So like it was like, you know, my stepmom used to tell me like only shop and only look at the bottom row.
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in the grocery store.
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Cause that's where like the poor people food is.
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Like if you kind of look at eye level, that's where all the expensive food is.
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And so it was pretty funny, but yeah,
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But as you got older, you started realizing it kind of sucks to be poor.
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And so I had that feeling of not... I don't know.
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I always felt like there was more in the world and there was supposed to be more to life.
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And so, I don't know.
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When I was young, I just kind of decided I don't ever want to be like this.
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And so I remember asking myself simple questions like, where are the rich people at?
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And I would ask my dad that.
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And I remember like working in a FedEx warehouse in my teen, teenage years.
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I was in the middle of the night pushing boxes in Seattle, SeaTac airport.
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And I was pushing boxes.
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I'm asking my manager, I said, how do I become a millionaire working here?
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Cause I was making seven bucks an hour.
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And he said, well, maybe you, you know, work here until you're 40 or 50.
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And then you'll be making like 40 bucks an hour.
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He goes, maybe then you can be a millionaire.
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And then he walked away.
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And I did the math on it.
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I remember I pulled out a piece of paper in my pocket and I did the math.
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40 bucks an hour times, let's say 60, 70 hours a week.
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Let's say I work seven days a week.
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It wasn't even close to a million bucks.
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And then I remember that night continuing to push boxes and I started realizing, I said, the rich people are not here.
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They're not in this warehouse.
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And not that I have any problem with anybody who works in a warehouse at all.
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I mean, my family still works there.
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And I think it's a great place, especially to start.
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But yeah, that's kind of how I started out.
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And so basically the next day I quit.
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And I went on to try to figure out where
Balancing Business and Passion for Fishing
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And then the more I got around technology, the more I realized you had more leverage when you were using technology.
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And so you had leverage on your time, leverage on your money, on your, you know, on what you knew, leverage on your everything.
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And I mean, I know you did a lot of sports too.
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You did some college football, varsity high school athlete.
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And looking here, I mean, you're a pro, what is that?
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Is that what they call those guys?
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Yeah, I was a pro fisherman, man.
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I grew up fishing.
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You know, I grew up...
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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
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I remember like I would just sit out there fish or have a float tube or something or just fish from the bank.
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And I would rather be out there than like be around like strife and trauma.
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And so but it gave me a lot of time to think.
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And it also, you know, I started thinking about like what my friends were doing and what I'm doing.
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And a lot of them were just screwing around being knuckleheads.
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But being in the outdoors like really helped me, you know, just to stay out of trouble.
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And so I grew up fishing and then I learned that you can actually compete and make money fishing.
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So being highly, highly competitive, I was like, I'm going to go do that.
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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,
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I actually made the ESPN national championship my first year.
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But so I was good.
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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.
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And then like, you know, then you go pick it all up and go to the next one.
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And you're basically like living the peanut butter and jelly sandwich lifestyle.
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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
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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.
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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
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take off on a Thursday night, go out to my ranch, shoot like wild hogs and come back like the next night.
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Like, you know, and people are like, where were you?
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I'm like, Oh, I just shot like six pigs and two coyotes and a bobcat.
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Like, that's cool.
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Like we were just on a webinar.
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I'm like, yeah, I shot a pig.
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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.
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So yeah, you got the life, man.
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So it's pretty cool.
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And then you have a, do you still have a training program, the Texas pond fishing for people learning how to fish?
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How do you know about that, bro?
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Have you been Googling me?
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Yeah, I do, man, for sure.
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You know, I, it's just a fun side passion of mine.
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I actually sold my boat recently.
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And I was like, you know, pond fishing in Texas is ridiculously stupid good.
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Like, this has nothing to do with entrepreneurism, but they stock ponds with fish, with bass and catfish.
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Like, the state stocks them.
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And so you can go down to any neighborhood pond and catch a five-pound bass.
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I mean, it's crazy.
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And so, like, and so –
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we created an online course of how to do it in a web and a Facebook group.
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And it probably makes like on autopilot, like six to 800 bucks a month.
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I never touch it at all, but just all organic traffic.
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But yeah, it was just kind of a cool way.
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I would say it makes 400 to 800 bucks.
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I'm sometimes like five, four or 500 bucks, but, but yeah, it's, it's just kind of a fun, like,
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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
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That's for another pod.
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I'm sure other people with fishing podcasts would love to interview you for that.
Sales Strategies and Early Career Success
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That would be hilarious.
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But obviously, we are a sales podcast.
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We're all about helping solopreneurs taking their income and their sales to the next level.
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And James is a master at it because he knows how to leverage the technology in sales.
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So tell us about your first sales experience, James, how did you first kind of get into sales and what was that like?
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And then how did you begin to like leverage technology?
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Yeah, that's a really good question.
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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.
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I ran the cell phone kiosk.
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You know, this is in like 1999 or something like that, maybe 2000.
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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
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So I took me and the other person, this girl who worked with us, and she's kind of my employee.
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And, um, we would walk around and make offers to people.
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So we were literally like knocking on doors, like just businesses.
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I was walking through like, like business complexes or knocking on one door.
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It's a lawyer, knocking on another door.
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It's like a physical therapist, knocking on another door.
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It's like a psychiatrist.
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so we, we led sales in our region for this old cell phone carrier called Nextel.
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And so, so that allowed me to, you know, it's like, you know, one, one opportunity leads to another, right.
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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
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So I got recruited to sell the first BlackBerrys, if you guys remember those phones.
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Yeah, for a company called Nextel.
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Nextel was in Redmond, Washington.
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So I got recruited.
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I talked to a recruiter and went in to interview and I BS'd my way into the job, to be honest with you.
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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.
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Like, at least I didn't think I did.
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I definitely never wore a suit in my life.
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And so here I am on a team of like 80, 90 B2B sales reps.
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And most of these people have been selling B2B for 20, 25 years.
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I'm not even like 25 years old.
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You know, like some of these people are like, dude, I was selling when you were like,
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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
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I don't know why, but when I was a kid, like my logic would just kick in.
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And I was just like, does that work for people here?
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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.
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you know, and maybe they had a book of business or whatever, but they were not, you know, making a hundred calls a day.
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Like all the new guys come in and they're making 80 calls a day, a hundred calls a day.
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And, and so I was like, you know, there's gotta be a better way to do this.
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And so I literally remember the first day on the job, I got a first laptop I ever owned was from the company.
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The IT guy showed me how to use it, showed me how to log in.
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And he showed me what email was.
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He set up my email and I never used email.
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Like I had a, I think I had like a Hotmail account.
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There wasn't even Gmail back then.
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Literally, it wasn't even Gmail.
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That's how old it was.
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I think I had a personal Hotmail account, but I never knew how to check it.
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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.
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And then so then my sales manager came by and he showed me my customer list and it was an Excel spreadsheet.
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I'd never seen one before.
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And he showed me, he said, look, there's a customer names.
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These are addresses.
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This is their phone number.
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This is their email.
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And when he said, this is their email, I'm like, how many people are on this list?
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He said, there's 8,800 customers.
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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.
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I was like, there's 8,000 companies here and 8,000 emails?
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I was like, why don't I just send an email to all these people?
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He's like, oh, no, no.
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Like, we don't do that.
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Like, no one wants to get your email.
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You know, like, he's like, no, no one's going to check it.
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You know, people get mad when you send them an email.
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I'm like, have you ever sent somebody an email?
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He's like, no, no.
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I mean, I just know because I wouldn't want to get one.
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And they walked away.
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I was like, well, that sounds stupid.
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Like this guy doesn't even get an email.
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So I didn't really know.
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So I ended up copying and pasting 8,000 emails into an email.
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And then I literally looked around.
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I didn't know what to write.
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And then I realized, shoot, I don't even know what to say.
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I was like going to say, hey, I'm James from Nextel.
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Call me or something.
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I didn't even know what to say.
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And then, but I looked and there was a flyer that was marketing approved language and all the stuff that was on my desk.
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And it was a, it was a BlackBerry flyer.
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And so I typed that in to the email.
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I literally typed it in word for word and then hit send, put my phone number at the end, then hit send.
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And this is no joke.
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This is my life change when I hit send.
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Nothing happened and I thought, okay, this doesn't work.
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Maybe like security caught it.
00:17:35
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I didn't know what would happen when you send an email.
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I thought it might go zing zing or do something, like a cash register or something.
00:17:42
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Well, like 15 minutes later, my phone rang.
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They didn't have a run my first day on the job.
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And I'm like, who the hell is this?
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Some weird number.
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And so I answer it and it's a customer who just got my email.
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And he, he ordered like eight phones on the phone.
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So in 15, 20 minutes on the job, my quota for the month was like 20 phones.
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I just sold eight in 15 minutes.
Effective Sales Strategies and Mindset
00:18:08
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So by the end of that month, I had sold 60 something phones.
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I was leading the whole, the whole floor.
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I was leading the whole floor.
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20 year old rookie.
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Never sold to a business before nothing.
00:18:19
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And, um, so anyway, long story short, I became one of the top salespeople in the country.
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Got recruited by mobile app company.
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Cause this is when like smartphones were starting.
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Then the mobile technology, like mobile apps were starting as well.
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I got recruited to work for a small startup called Telenev and that's kind of how that all happened.
00:18:37
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But the moral of the story is number one, don't be afraid to think outside the box.
00:18:45
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Number two, just because someone says they don't think it would work, that doesn't mean a damn thing.
00:18:50
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That doesn't mean it won't work.
00:18:52
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And also, if you don't try stuff, you can't win.
00:18:57
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You can only be like everyone else.
00:19:00
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You have to try stuff.
00:19:01
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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
00:19:24
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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?
00:19:32
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So like, you know, like, like the, the, the ultimate for like, for sure rejection is not doing anything.
00:19:40
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Yeah, that's true.
00:19:43
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So, yeah, I mean, it's thinking outside of the box.
00:19:45
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And I think that's what's allowed you to have a ton of success.
00:19:47
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Just being a solopreneur, entrepreneur, thinking outside the box.
00:19:52
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And you guys have done a ton of cool stuff.
00:19:54
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So B2B, our industry, solar, we're going house to house.
00:20:00
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We're mostly serving residential.
00:20:03
Speaker
So B2B sales, is that mostly over the phone?
00:20:06
Speaker
Is that just mostly calling businesses or is it walking up to them?
00:20:10
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Is it kind of all of the above?
00:20:11
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How does that relate to, I guess, more traditional sales, would you say, James?
00:20:16
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Well, across the country, B2B can be anything nowadays.
00:20:19
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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.
00:20:31
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So a lot of times knocking on doors still works.
00:20:34
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So yeah, it can be almost anything.
00:20:38
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So yeah, besides, I know you've trained thousands of B2B sales reps.
00:20:42
Speaker
So what do you see, what are like some, I guess, mistakes you see people make, just sales in general?
00:20:47
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?
00:20:58
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?
00:21:07
Speaker
Like who does that?
00:21:11
Speaker
Well, it's not that hard if you go to all the cell phone carriers and leverage their teams to sell your stuff.
00:21:16
Speaker
And so I went and got deals when I was working for Telnav, but we were the first Google maps essentially.
00:21:22
Speaker
We're like cycle zero of Google maps.
00:21:27
Speaker
Um, I got all the cell phone companies to sign up to sell my service.
00:21:31
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?
00:21:39
Speaker
You guys have these kickoff meetings where you have like a thousand people at a time.
00:21:43
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.
00:21:49
Speaker
So I became like a key guest keynote guest speaker in my mid twenties for every major cell phone company in the country.
00:21:58
Speaker
And so it's funny now that I'm 39,
00:22:01
Speaker
I meet people who are in telecom in, in the mid two thousands and they go, you were the talent of kid.
00:22:10
Speaker
I remember that, you know?
00:22:13
Speaker
So, but anyway, um,
00:22:16
Speaker
But I'm sorry, dude.
00:22:18
Speaker
What was your exact question?
00:22:22
Speaker
My question was just in all your training of reps, what do you see?
00:22:25
Speaker
Like, what's the difference between super successful and the ones that are falling out and not having success that you've noticed?
00:22:32
Speaker
I think that's a broad question.
00:22:35
Speaker
But if I were to try to answer that, I think that –
00:22:40
Speaker
Number one, you can separate yourself in the top 20% just by effort.
00:22:44
Speaker
And this is true in any job.
00:22:48
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.
00:23:01
Speaker
They tend to not give their effort because they lose and they have fear of loss.
00:23:09
Speaker
You have to understand sales is a game of losing enough to win.
00:23:15
Speaker
I mean, that is the reality of sales.
00:23:18
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,
00:23:26
Speaker
Doesn't matter, you know, or solar door to door.
00:23:30
Speaker
It doesn't matter.
00:23:30
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.
00:23:40
Speaker
When, when we pitch on webinars, when you first present your price, you have to understand 99% of people listening just said no.
00:23:51
Speaker
Like, and that's why really good webinars, like, you know, like, you know, we have some that really convert well.
00:23:57
Speaker
Steve has some, um, Russell Brunson, a lot of people do.
00:24:01
Speaker
Um, you'll see, like, we'll have, you know, 10 to 15 different ways to close after we've presented the price.
00:24:10
Speaker
And the reason we're doing that is because we know immediately when we first say, everyone go buy.
00:24:21
Speaker
We know everyone just said no.
00:24:25
Speaker
And we're not afraid of that.
00:24:27
Speaker
Like, whereas most people will pitch in the customer says no.
00:24:31
Speaker
And they're like, all right, I'll see you later.
00:24:34
Speaker
I don't want to bother you.
00:24:36
Speaker
I don't want to be an inconvenience.
00:24:37
Speaker
But it's like, how can you be an inconvenience if you really believe in what you're doing?
00:24:42
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.
00:24:47
Speaker
But most of the time the customer just gets cold feet.
00:24:51
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.
00:24:58
Speaker
This is a classic interview.
00:25:00
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.
00:25:12
Speaker
Those are two words that I talk, I use a lot in the call.
00:25:15
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.
00:25:23
Speaker
We have good clarity on your vision.
00:25:25
Speaker
Um, and we also, um, have a level of accountability that,
00:25:29
Speaker
Because if you want to get something done, you need someone to hold you accountable.
00:25:33
Speaker
And are you okay with that?
00:25:34
Speaker
And I bring that up to the client or to the prospect.
00:25:39
Speaker
So I went through a sales call and the whole thing went about an hour.
00:25:42
Speaker
And then at the end, I presented the price and the person said all the right things.
00:25:47
Speaker
He said that because I qualified him early on and said, hey, do you have money to invest in yourself today?
00:25:54
Speaker
If everything made sense, he said, oh, yeah, I have money.
00:25:57
Speaker
So I'm thinking, okay, he must have money.
00:26:00
Speaker
when I presented the price, his actual response was, man, that's cheap.
00:26:05
Speaker
So I'm thinking, okay, he's giving me great buying signals.
00:26:08
Speaker
He says he has money.
00:26:09
Speaker
He says it's cheap.
00:26:11
Speaker
And then so I go for the sale towards the end.
00:26:15
Speaker
And he says, hey, man, this is really, really awesome.
00:26:19
Speaker
I'm really excited.
00:26:20
Speaker
I'm definitely, okay, I just want you to understand that everybody, he says, I'm definitely going to sign up.
00:26:25
Speaker
I just need a day to think about it.
00:26:27
Speaker
I need to sleep on it.
00:26:29
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
00:26:41
Speaker
I'm telling you, they're lying.
00:26:43
Speaker
Like, you know, there's no other way to say it.
00:26:45
Speaker
They are flat out lying to you.
00:26:47
Speaker
Now you don't want to say that, but they're lying.
00:26:50
Speaker
And so most people, I even have sales reps on our team now that would have went, all right, man, bye.
00:26:56
Speaker
I'll talk to you tomorrow.
00:26:58
Speaker
And I guarantee you that guy's gone.
00:27:01
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.
00:27:12
Speaker
Maybe I got it wrong, but you said you have the money, right?
00:27:16
Speaker
Or am I trying to get that wrong?
00:27:18
Speaker
No, I have the money.
00:27:19
Speaker
So I'm holding him accountable for what he says.
00:27:21
Speaker
He said he had the money.
00:27:23
Speaker
You said it was cheap, right?
00:27:28
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.
00:27:35
Speaker
What are you thinking about?
00:27:39
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.
00:27:44
Speaker
I just want to have some good clarity and help you through your thought process.
00:27:47
Speaker
What are you thinking?
00:27:49
Speaker
And so he, so he, he said, Oh, nothing, man, nothing.
00:27:54
Speaker
So he's still playing the game.
00:27:56
Speaker
I mean, he goes, no, no,
00:27:57
Speaker
The nothing man, I'm ready to go.
00:27:59
Speaker
I'm definitely going to do – like he literally is saying, I'm definitely going to do this.
00:28:04
Speaker
This is a done deal.
00:28:06
Speaker
He's trying to get me the hell off the phone.
00:28:09
Speaker
You guys have to understand that.
00:28:11
Speaker
People are trying to close –
00:28:14
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
00:28:34
Speaker
Let me, let me, let me ask you this just, uh, just, uh, so that I know you're serious.
00:28:39
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.
00:28:48
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.
00:28:56
Speaker
But if you, if I don't hear from you, I'll charge you in 24 hours.
00:29:00
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?
00:29:08
Speaker
You give your money to somebody and, you know, overseas to give your credit card to somebody.
00:29:12
Speaker
You don't even know who they are.
00:29:14
Speaker
He's been following me for years.
00:29:16
Speaker
He was on the same event you were.
00:29:18
Speaker
I'm like, why would you not give it to me?
00:29:22
Speaker
So then, and I was being super nice.
00:29:24
Speaker
I wasn't being aggressive at all.
00:29:25
Speaker
And so he goes, he finally broke down.
00:29:27
Speaker
He goes, look, man, I'm going to have to move some money around.
00:29:30
Speaker
I don't have enough money on this card.
00:29:33
Speaker
He didn't have the money.
00:29:39
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
00:30:09
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?
00:30:13
Speaker
I said, how much can you do today?
00:30:18
Speaker
So I got him down and then I, then I hear somebody whispering and,
00:30:23
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
00:30:53
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.
00:30:58
Speaker
And so he goes, well, I've got 1500 bucks right now that I can do.
00:31:02
Speaker
So I'm going, okay, man, let me take your 1500 bucks.
00:31:05
Speaker
When do you want to pay the rest?
00:31:06
Speaker
He told me when he wanted to pay the rest.
00:31:07
Speaker
I said, okay, cool.
00:31:09
Speaker
So here we go, man.
00:31:11
Speaker
Give me your card number.
00:31:12
Speaker
I'll get you signed up.
00:31:14
Speaker
And I said, you know what?
00:31:15
Speaker
Let me do this for you too, man.
00:31:17
Speaker
If for some reason that's 24 hours, you don't want to do this.
00:31:20
Speaker
Uh, just cause I don't want to make this a, an issue about that.
00:31:24
Speaker
So we set up a plan to get him paid off in a couple of weeks, all this stuff.
00:31:27
Speaker
And I was going to stop financing all this stuff.
00:31:29
Speaker
And all of a sudden he goes, James, I just can't do this.
00:31:33
Speaker
Like he just abruptly said that.
00:31:35
Speaker
And I'm like, what?
00:31:36
Speaker
He, I just gave you a finance plan.
00:31:38
Speaker
I give you, I was like, why?
00:31:39
Speaker
And he goes, my wife will kill me.
00:31:45
Speaker
Guys, they are lying to you.
00:31:48
Speaker
Not maliciously, but just get that phrase in your head.
00:31:53
Speaker
They're lying to you.
00:31:54
Speaker
Now don't be narcissistic lying.
00:31:57
Speaker
They're not, they're, they're trying to protect themselves.
00:32:00
Speaker
They don't want to admit it.
00:32:02
Speaker
So I finally got into a point of clarity and said, okay, dude, let's be honest.
00:32:07
Speaker
You need to break it up.
00:32:08
Speaker
You need to explain it to your wife.
00:32:12
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.
00:32:28
Speaker
Um, you want to ideally book that meeting so that you can be there to present your own stuff.
00:32:34
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,
00:32:41
Speaker
How are you going to justify $10,000 to so-and-so?
00:32:47
Speaker
How would you ever do that?
00:32:48
Speaker
Why would they agree to that?
00:32:52
Speaker
Then just pause and listen to what they say.
00:32:54
Speaker
99% of the time, my response to what they tell me is going to be, look, man, I got to be honest.
00:33:01
Speaker
This is my own stuff.
00:33:03
Speaker
You didn't even sell me.
00:33:06
Speaker
Like I'm the easiest guy to sell, dude.
00:33:08
Speaker
What you just said, I wouldn't buy it.
00:33:11
Speaker
So do you want me to tell you how to sell it to somebody?
00:33:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, dude, man.
00:33:19
Speaker
So that technique does work.
00:33:24
Speaker
None of these are 100%, but that works very, very well.
00:33:28
Speaker
If you can get them to say, look, here's the bullet points you need to tell them.
00:33:33
Speaker
Here's how you explain it to them.
00:33:35
Speaker
Justified to them.
00:33:37
Speaker
I love that James.
00:33:38
Speaker
And basically all what you said, those objections, we get those exact same things in solar.
00:33:43
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.
00:33:57
Speaker
But like you said, if we're presenting to just a husband, just a wife, you're
00:34:01
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
00:34:26
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.
00:34:35
Speaker
A lot of times they're scared that it's a loan.
00:34:37
Speaker
A lot of times they're scared that it's being financed, but the truth is it's saving them money.
00:34:41
Speaker
I mean, even though they're financing 30 grand, still saving them money.
00:34:45
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?
00:34:54
Speaker
If they don't understand the context of that, then 100%, they're going to say no every time.
00:34:58
Speaker
So I love that, what you said.
00:35:00
Speaker
And everyone, you know, have empathy for your client.
00:35:03
Speaker
Like, they don't know what they're doing.
00:35:06
Speaker
You know, they're not used to being pitched.
00:35:08
Speaker
You know, they've been pitched before, but they're not used to it and they don't like it.
00:35:11
Speaker
It's a little bit uncomfortable.
00:35:14
Speaker
And, you know, like their school didn't teach them how to deal with being pitched.
00:35:18
Speaker
Like no one taught them.
00:35:21
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?
00:35:30
Speaker
And we're like, because no one told me how to go talk to you.
00:35:34
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.
00:35:41
Speaker
And like, you know what I mean?
00:35:42
Speaker
Like it's literally that kind of conversation happening with adults where, you know, the person is saying something
00:35:49
Speaker
And they don't know what to say.
00:35:52
Speaker
And they're sometimes they're just embarrassed.
00:35:55
Speaker
I truly believe the guy I was talking to yesterday.
00:35:59
Speaker
Like he, like he knew initially that, that he, he had a, he needed to move some money around, but,
00:36:07
Speaker
But he didn't want to tell me about his wife and all these other things because he probably was embarrassed by it.
00:36:13
Speaker
And he shouldn't be.
00:36:14
Speaker
And I should give him that comfortable place to say, look, man, I appreciate you telling me that.
00:36:21
Speaker
And I just want to let you know, man, don't feel bad about that and don't think that's bad.
00:36:24
Speaker
Other people might pressure you on something like that and say, you know, don't listen to her.
00:36:27
Speaker
But I'm not saying that.
00:36:28
Speaker
I'm saying I appreciate her stance.
00:36:30
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.
00:36:39
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.
00:36:47
Speaker
If you can bring them back to get clarity around reality, which, like you said, is, you know, it may be –
00:36:55
Speaker
you know, an additional loan or whatever.
00:36:58
Speaker
But when you look at, you know, their initiatives, maybe they care about green stuff, right?
00:37:04
Speaker
And this is supporting that.
00:37:06
Speaker
You know, it saves them money in the long run.
00:37:09
Speaker
It ups the value of their home, like all those kinds of things.
00:37:12
Speaker
Like you have to, you have to, you
00:37:16
Speaker
you have to always associate value with cost, value with price, right?
00:37:21
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?
00:37:32
Speaker
ideally you want to get both people on the phone.
00:37:37
Speaker
And so my next step, the guy said he thinks he can close his wife.
00:37:41
Speaker
So he's gonna let me know by today.
00:37:45
Speaker
I am probably going to give him a 20% chance of closing his wife.
00:37:48
Speaker
Just because he didn't sell me on it very well.
00:37:50
Speaker
So the chance of him selling her is probably not that good.
00:37:58
Speaker
But if that doesn't work, my next step will be to say, hey, why don't we all get on the phone?
00:38:03
Speaker
We can have a quick chat.
00:38:06
Speaker
Now, the reality of that conversation is you want to start in the very beginning.
00:38:11
Speaker
This is where salespeople mess up.
00:38:13
Speaker
They will go into that conversation and one party's heard the whole thing.
00:38:18
Speaker
So they'll start at the end.
00:38:22
Speaker
Or they'll even say, like, why do I want to repeat all this stuff?
00:38:24
Speaker
No, you won't repeat it all.
00:38:25
Speaker
Because the other person has no clue.
00:38:27
Speaker
And they also have some pre-frame of everything that literally has nothing to do with what you're about to say.
00:38:34
Speaker
The only time where that would not work and doesn't work is in a high level B2B meeting.
00:38:41
Speaker
You might present to a team of five people who are making a decision on a multimillion dollar thing.
00:38:47
Speaker
And those five people have heard your spiel two or three times.
00:38:50
Speaker
Then the big executive comes in on the third meeting and he only has 15 minutes.
00:38:55
Speaker
So you have to understand if he has 15 minutes, you better get it out in 15 minutes.
00:39:00
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.
00:39:09
Speaker
You, you, you, you can't sell your features, functions, benefits.
00:39:14
Speaker
You need to tell them exactly what they want to hear.
00:39:17
Speaker
Oh man, this is, this is almost no cost because of the ROI.
00:39:25
Speaker
This is instant, almost instant installation.
00:39:28
Speaker
You're not going to have to do anything.
00:39:30
Speaker
It's not going to devalue your home.
00:39:32
Speaker
In fact, people are going to think you're cool.
00:39:34
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
00:39:59
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?
00:40:08
Speaker
Then give them the detail, then tell them the detail.
00:40:13
Speaker
if it's quick, you have to tell them what they want to hear.
00:40:15
Speaker
I've tried this over and over and over again.
00:40:17
Speaker
And like, you can tell you see most of the time we present, we tell people what they need.
00:40:23
Speaker
You really need this because of this, this, and this, but they want it for a certain reason.
00:40:29
Speaker
The difference between want need is the difference between buying or not.
Psychology of Consumer Desires in Sales
00:40:33
Speaker
You know, like when I know I want something, like, you know, if I'm speaking on stage and I have a dry...
00:40:45
Speaker
Well, at that point, I want this bottle of water.
00:40:48
Speaker
Like it's not a need.
00:40:51
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.
00:40:58
Speaker
If I was speaking up on stage and somebody lifted their hands and said, Hey, will you buy this $20 bottle of water?
00:41:04
Speaker
Well, you're thirsty.
00:41:05
Speaker
Not really, but I need it, but not right now.
00:41:09
Speaker
I don't really need it.
00:41:10
Speaker
Why would I spend 20 bucks on a bottle of water?
00:41:15
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
00:41:39
Speaker
Well, cool, James.
00:41:40
Speaker
I know we're running short on time here, but I want to transition also into a lot of our solopreneurs.
00:41:46
Speaker
What we're teaching people is to run their funnels, get leads online.
00:41:51
Speaker
A lot of us still knock doors, which is awesome.
00:41:53
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.
00:42:01
Speaker
So what advice do you have for us getting leads over the phone or
00:42:06
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?
00:42:15
Speaker
I know it's a little different in your business, but what do you do in your business to actually take these leads?
00:42:19
Speaker
You get a lead, hits your funnel.
00:42:21
Speaker
How do you convert it into an appointment and into a closed deal in your business?
00:42:27
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.
00:42:35
Speaker
If you're getting leads and then it's like, what do you do with them?
00:42:39
Speaker
I would have a couple approaches.
00:42:41
Speaker
One, I would try to reach out to them right away.
00:42:44
Speaker
like within 20 minutes or so.
00:42:49
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.
00:42:57
Speaker
So the application says, you know, we may text you at this number.
00:43:02
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.
00:43:09
Speaker
It's like, dude, seriously, like, you know, millennial like us, like we'd probably get offended if you call us.
00:43:16
Speaker
Why didn't he just text me?
00:43:19
Speaker
You know, so like, but, but so we will, we'll text them basically saying, Hey, we got your application.
00:43:27
Speaker
And we basically say some script that says in a sentence or two, probably two sentences.
00:43:33
Speaker
It says we received your application.
00:43:36
Speaker
We reviewed it and, and things look pretty good.
00:43:40
Speaker
So we want to make it optimistic.
00:43:42
Speaker
We want to make it, um,
00:43:44
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
00:44:08
Speaker
it would be for any high ticket sale, I would use all what we call takeaway selling and scarcity selling.
00:44:15
Speaker
So like, you know, this is a limited time offer.
00:44:20
Speaker
We're only doing five houses in your neighborhood.
00:44:24
Speaker
Chances are we've already got a couple.
00:44:27
Speaker
So maybe we're only doing one, two or three.
00:44:31
Speaker
But, but if you really want this apply and we'll see if you qualify.
00:44:37
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.
00:44:45
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.
00:44:53
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:44:55
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.
00:45:02
Speaker
So, you know, typically we wouldn't do this on multiple homes.
00:45:06
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.
00:45:14
Speaker
And, and so this, this really changed.
00:45:19
Speaker
Now that doesn't mean you still, you still have to sell them a little bit.
00:45:21
Speaker
You have to explain it, but also you've balanced the conversation so that,
00:45:28
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?
00:45:39
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.
00:45:48
Speaker
Then all the way through.
00:45:51
Speaker
the application, then the, um, the first text message is basically saying you might be one of these people that qualify.
00:45:58
Speaker
You know, we, we, we thought you were better than some other people, like some type of psychology like that.
00:46:02
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.
00:46:12
Speaker
Obviously, you know, this kind of service is getting a lot of publicity right now.
00:46:20
Speaker
you know, we might be able to squeeze you in in the next couple of days.
00:46:23
Speaker
You know, what time did, what time in general would you be available?
00:46:28
Speaker
So once again, very, a lot of scarcity, right?
00:46:33
Speaker
So this is going to make somebody go, well, I'm available today, tomorrow.
00:46:37
Speaker
You just tell me like, that's the best call when they start saying that.
00:46:41
Speaker
Now, when you give them a time, this is the best.
00:46:46
Speaker
give them a time that is not a round number.
00:46:50
Speaker
You like 335, you know, 345.
00:46:57
Speaker
Like make it a 15 minute increment.
00:47:00
Speaker
I have seen people where like an influencer is really, really popular.
00:47:06
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.
00:47:12
Speaker
Like you can meet with them at 447 to 457.
00:47:13
Speaker
They're like, okay.
00:47:19
Speaker
Like, what the hell?
00:47:20
Speaker
Is he getting out of, like, an elevator?
00:47:21
Speaker
And then he's, like, 447?
00:47:25
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.
00:47:33
Speaker
They're like, 447?
00:47:37
Speaker
I guess they'll be right at 447.
00:47:39
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.
00:47:52
Speaker
They're like, come on, don't act like you're so frigging busy.
00:47:56
Speaker
You couldn't do it two minutes earlier.
00:47:59
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
00:48:25
Speaker
You don't have an extra 15 minutes.
00:48:27
Speaker
Something you're saying is 100% true.
00:48:32
Speaker
So that's what I would try to do.
00:48:33
Speaker
And then obviously getting them on the phone, just all the standard sales stuff.
00:48:38
Speaker
So making sure that you're asking the questions, not them.
00:48:41
Speaker
Make sure that you're not going in and saying, well, what questions do you have?
00:48:45
Speaker
That's probably the worst.
00:48:47
Speaker
you know, and, and yeah, like, you know, just understand their needs and, you know, go from there and the typical sales conversation.
00:48:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's something we've talked about before.
00:49:00
Speaker
And I know Steve has talked about it too.
00:49:02
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.
00:49:09
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.
00:49:19
Speaker
like, oh, what's it going to take for you to do this?
00:49:21
Speaker
Like, please do this.
00:49:23
Speaker
Basically begging them to do it.
00:49:25
Speaker
It just turns people off.
00:49:26
Speaker
But when you can switch the frame on them and make them tell you why you should do it for them.
00:49:33
Speaker
And yeah, I've noticed my sales have definitely increased just by implementing some of that stuff.
00:49:39
Speaker
And a lot of times, um,
00:49:42
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.
00:49:51
Speaker
That type of person, you want them to be on the hunt.
00:49:56
Speaker
You want them to be, um,
00:49:59
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
Sales Strategies in the Solar Industry
00:50:08
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.
00:50:18
Speaker
So you need to, you need to understand, especially when you get on the phone with somebody like that and they're like,
00:50:23
Speaker
You'll right away.
00:50:25
Speaker
So here's what I want to do on this call.
00:50:27
Speaker
This is the reason I booked this call is I wanted to blah, blah, blah.
00:50:29
Speaker
And I wanted to ask you this question.
00:50:31
Speaker
So tell me, man, what, why is this so important and what, what's this all about?
00:50:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's the worst.
00:50:36
Speaker
First thing I say is number one, always agree.
00:50:38
Speaker
You know what, man, that was a great question.
00:50:40
Speaker
I'm glad you asked that because that way I don't have to ask that question.
00:50:45
Speaker
So what I was going to ask you today is, can I time out?
00:50:49
Speaker
Do you see what I just, I addressed what he said so that way he doesn't get pissed.
00:50:53
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.
00:51:00
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
00:51:24
Speaker
You don't want any friction between you and the person you're trying to sell something to.
00:51:28
Speaker
Definitely always agree.
00:51:29
Speaker
And then yeah, flip that frame on them.
00:51:32
Speaker
So thanks for sharing that, James.
00:51:34
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, last thing I wanted to ask you, James, we're obviously solar, we're selling solar.
00:51:40
Speaker
So I guess, um, I know you've ran your own businesses, things like that.
00:51:44
Speaker
If you were to start your own solar company,
00:51:47
Speaker
what are some ideas you'd have about just marketing it and I don't know, closing more deals.
00:51:52
Speaker
Do you have any ideas if you were to jump into the solar industry yourself?
00:51:56
Speaker
If I were to go in, um,
00:52:00
Speaker
I would probably do it all remote.
00:52:04
Speaker
And the first thing that I would do, I'd probably definitely build a really nice webinar that talks about what people want.
00:52:15
Speaker
Not about features and benefits and feature functions and benefits.
00:52:18
Speaker
That's for later on.
00:52:19
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.
00:52:26
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
00:52:51
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.
00:52:57
Speaker
If they feel like it's going to make them look bad, then they won't.
00:53:02
Speaker
So, so that's one thing.
00:53:06
Speaker
But yeah, I would, I would have a short webinar that really talks about what they really want.
00:53:11
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.
00:53:30
Speaker
And then in terms of leads, I'm really big into leverage.
00:53:36
Speaker
So ever since I started doing email with, back when I was a kid at Nextel, I realized like you can leverage stuff.
00:53:41
Speaker
And so I would actually look for people who have already sold to all of my clients.
00:53:46
Speaker
So it could be pest control companies, it could be whatever.
00:53:49
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?
00:54:03
Speaker
So this way, the leads are warm.
00:54:06
Speaker
And also, you have to consider, now I'm not spending money on ads and all that stuff.
00:54:10
Speaker
I'm giving that money away as a commission or as a referral.
00:54:13
Speaker
But the lead is a much better lead.
00:54:16
Speaker
And so I would really try to do that.
00:54:19
Speaker
And then that might be like an email to an application.
00:54:25
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.
00:54:34
Speaker
And dial my calls is another one we use a lot for sending voicemails.
00:54:40
Speaker
But basically slips a voicemail onto their phone without the phone ringing.
00:54:46
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.
00:54:52
Speaker
So we'll get a lot of our sales reps will get inbound calls.
00:54:55
Speaker
A lot of them will.
00:54:57
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.
00:55:08
Speaker
Hey, it's James with such and such pool cleaning.
00:55:15
Speaker
I know we've done blah, blah, blah for such and such amount of years.
00:55:18
Speaker
Hey, I want to introduce you to a friend that I've got.
00:55:20
Speaker
I've got this, one of my good friends named Taylor Armstrong and they absolutely rock it in the solar industry.
00:55:26
Speaker
This is a huge thing.
00:55:27
Speaker
It's initiatives all the way from the government to local to all this and that.
00:55:31
Speaker
And, uh, they've got an incredible deal.
00:55:33
Speaker
And not only is Taylor somebody that, that provides an awesome product, but he's a friend.
00:55:38
Speaker
He's somebody that I trust.
00:55:40
Speaker
And so, um, if you guys want to get ahold of him, press one, um, and blah, blah, blah.
00:55:45
Speaker
And you can book a meeting.
00:55:47
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.
00:55:53
Speaker
I just want to let you know that he might text or call you.
00:55:58
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.
00:56:05
Speaker
And so, yeah, I would do something like that.
00:56:07
Speaker
That way the person, the CEO of, let's say, the pest control company, they are pre-framing you coming in.
00:56:19
Speaker
And I would sell it to them as, look, man, you don't have to do anything.
00:56:23
Speaker
You're going to make X amount of money per sale.
00:56:25
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.
00:56:32
Speaker
Send me a voice that says, send me the file.
00:56:35
Speaker
I'll do the rest, you know?
00:56:38
Speaker
You know, so, so yeah, I would try to do stuff like that.
00:56:40
Speaker
I might even go all the way to like accountants, tax people, those kinds of things.
00:56:45
Speaker
And every single day, my goal would be to talk to somebody who's an aggregate of my clients.
00:56:52
Speaker
Every day I try to talk to somebody.
00:56:54
Speaker
I'd make an offer to somebody who, who hasn't, who has my clients now.
00:56:59
Speaker
You know, I love that.
00:57:00
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.
00:57:12
Speaker
It'll, it'll also text.
00:57:15
Speaker
Um, so you can text everybody.
00:57:17
Speaker
There's a, there's some rules and regulations around texts.
00:57:19
Speaker
I would just say, be careful.
00:57:21
Speaker
Uh, be super careful if you're bulk texting people, if they haven't opted in, you could actually get sued.
00:57:25
Speaker
Um, so be careful on that.
00:57:27
Speaker
But, um, but calling them, no problem.
00:57:30
Speaker
You can call them, um, dial my calls allows you to actually ring their phone.
00:57:34
Speaker
So they might answer.
00:57:36
Speaker
And if they answer, then it forwards the call.
00:57:39
Speaker
Actually, if they answer, then it plays the voice note.
00:57:41
Speaker
And then it says, you know, so we always say press one if you want to talk to me.
00:57:47
Speaker
You know, so they'll be listening.
00:57:48
Speaker
Oh, this is pretty cool.
00:57:50
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.
00:57:59
Speaker
And you wouldn't get in trouble for like, would these customers from say a pool company or something?
00:58:06
Speaker
Could they, they wouldn't like try and see you or something for, for someone else con like a third party contacting, right?
00:58:12
Speaker
You couldn't get into trouble with that.
00:58:14
Speaker
Especially if it's pre-framed, if the person is saying, Hey, this person's going to call you.
00:58:21
Speaker
If you want to opt out, text me.
00:58:23
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:58:24
Speaker
That kind of thing.
00:58:25
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,
00:58:34
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.
00:58:46
Speaker
And as soon as they complain, just say, would you like it if I take you off the list?
00:58:51
Speaker
And just take them off the list, you know.
00:58:53
Speaker
Cause really they don't want to sue you.
00:58:55
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:58:56
Speaker
They just want to get off the list.
00:58:59
Speaker
So, um, so yeah, that's what I would do.
00:59:02
Speaker
The other thing I would do if I were running this business is every month I would have an initiative where,
00:59:09
Speaker
we specifically follow up on dead leads.
00:59:12
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,
00:59:34
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
00:59:54
Speaker
in getting, you know, in making your house more green or whatever.
01:00:01
Speaker
See, you don't want to say, are you still interested in, you know, solar by new power by blah, blah, blah.
01:00:09
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.
01:00:18
Speaker
And believe it or not, you will get people who literally reply.
01:00:23
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
01:00:34
Speaker
But yeah, cause a lot of times with those old leads, it's just bad timing for them.
01:00:37
Speaker
You know what I mean?
01:00:37
Speaker
They got a little bit excited, it's bad timing, but yeah.
01:00:40
Speaker
But, but so those are kind of the different ways I would do it.
01:00:43
Speaker
I'd, I'd have a kind of, you know, daily, you know, stuff, new, new, new leads and stuff for doing.
01:00:49
Speaker
I'd be working with people who, who I can leverage their lists and their relationship.
01:00:55
Speaker
And then I'd have an initiative to follow up with old leads.
01:00:58
Speaker
That right there, you could crush it.
01:01:01
Speaker
And yeah, I don't doubt that at all.
01:01:03
Speaker
That last tip you just gave.
Leveraging Technology in Sales
01:01:05
Speaker
Cause I did that recently.
01:01:07
Speaker
I didn't, I wish I would have known that earlier.
01:01:09
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.
01:01:17
Speaker
There was over 80 of these old beads that, that bought solar from another company.
01:01:22
Speaker
So that cost me a couple hundred grand probably on deals.
01:01:28
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.
01:01:33
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.
01:01:39
Speaker
Buy from someone else.
01:01:43
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.
01:01:54
Speaker
That's like a case study or I would set up a Google alert.
01:01:59
Speaker
for the word solar or whatever it is specific that you do, solar panel, residential solar panels, residential solar.
01:02:08
Speaker
I would set up a Google alert with those phrases.
01:02:11
Speaker
That way, like every week or every day, you can get a weekly or daily.
01:02:14
Speaker
Anything hot on the internet that's around that word is going to push through your email.
01:02:19
Speaker
So you'll get an email that says like,
01:02:22
Speaker
here's a new regulation.
01:02:23
Speaker
Here's somebody who's has success story.
01:02:25
Speaker
Here's a new technology.
01:02:26
Speaker
Here's a, here's a horror story.
01:02:28
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.
01:02:36
Speaker
And people are always like, man, how does he know this stuff?
01:02:38
Speaker
How does he know this stuff?
01:02:40
Speaker
And this person's like a practitioner.
01:02:42
Speaker
Like, uh, no, I set up Google alert.
01:02:45
Speaker
I didn't even know you could do that.
01:02:47
Speaker
So you can just have Google alert you when anything new comes out that's associated with solar.
01:02:55
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.
01:03:04
Speaker
Once a week, I want to get an email, you know?
01:03:07
Speaker
So yeah, that's great.
01:03:09
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.
01:03:23
Speaker
Well, money tips you gave us.
01:03:24
Speaker
Yeah, I'm definitely going to go out and try some of these things.
01:03:26
Speaker
Got my notes going.
01:03:28
Speaker
So James, thanks for sharing your wisdom with us today.
01:03:32
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?
01:03:37
Speaker
And do you have any other words of advice you can give to our solopreneurs?
01:03:43
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate that.
01:03:44
Speaker
So, you know, JamesSmiley.org has a lot of really cool free stuff that you guys can get.
01:03:49
Speaker
There's like a B2B playbook.
01:03:51
Speaker
There's a USB drive with all a bunch of stuff.
01:03:53
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.
01:04:00
Speaker
But also just on Facebook, you know, you can find me on my personal page.
01:04:06
Speaker
And we're always publishing tons and tons of stuff every day.
01:04:11
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.
01:04:21
Speaker
So one, understand the industry, what's going on.
01:04:24
Speaker
Google alerts will help you do that.
01:04:26
Speaker
Number two, understand the technology that is going to help you and the technology that you can leverage.
01:04:32
Speaker
So things like, you know,
01:04:33
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
01:05:06
Speaker
So yeah, definitely go check out what James is doing.
01:05:09
Speaker
Like you said, we had Steve on Steve Larson a couple months back.
01:05:13
Speaker
So check out that episode if you didn't hear it already.
01:05:16
Speaker
And yeah, James will continue to drop the value and we appreciate everything you do, James.
01:05:22
Speaker
And we're definitely here to support you.
01:05:23
Speaker
Let us know if we can do anything, but thanks again for coming on the show.
01:05:27
Speaker
Appreciate you, man.
01:05:28
Speaker
Thanks for having me on.
01:05:29
Speaker
Appreciate all you guys.
01:05:30
Speaker
And I'll talk to you soon.
01:05:40
Speaker
Hope you love that value.
01:05:41
Speaker
Those golden nuggets that James Smiley dropped with us.
01:05:45
Speaker
So go show them some love.
01:05:46
Speaker
Let them know you enjoyed the episode.
01:05:47
Speaker
And also let us know it motivates us to keep doing more stuff like this.
01:05:52
Speaker
For next week's interview, we're going to have Jackson Rucker on the show.
01:05:55
Speaker
He has his own podcast.
01:05:57
Speaker
It's called Door-to-Door Success Secrets.
01:06:00
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.
01:06:11
Speaker
So keep listening for more daily content, and we'll see you back for next week, and enjoy the episodes.
01:06:18
Speaker
Wow, what another amazing episode of the Solarpreneur Podcast.
01:06:23
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.
01:06:32
Speaker
It helps us get the word out about the solarpreneur movement and impact more entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and marketers just like you.
01:06:40
Speaker
And hey, don't forget to
01:06:42
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.
01:06:50
Speaker
See you guys in the next episode.