Season 4 – Episode 1 – Self Healing Bridges

by Jon Dwoskin

Scott Fishman: I’m Scott Fishman.

Jon Dwoskin: I’m Jon Dwoskin.

Scott Fishman: And this is The Seven Minute Sales Minute.

Jon Dwoskin: Welcome, everybody.

Scott Fishman: Hey, good afternoon, Jon.

Jon Dwoskin: Good afternoon, Scott. How are you?

Scott Fishman: I’m doing great, man. It’s good to see you.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, it’s good to be seen and good to see you.

Scott Fishman: Even better it’s good to be in front of these microphones. It’s been awhile.

Jon Dwoskin: It has. It’s been awhile for season four but will be well worth it I think to the listeners.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, absolutely folks. Listen on. We’re going to have some good info here and then we’re going to fill you in on where we’ve been and why you haven’t heard from us in a while.

Jon Dwoskin: It’s good.

Scott Fishman: Listen in. What are we going to talk about today, Jon?

Jon Dwoskin: I think we should talk about how time heals all wounds.

Scott Fishman: Okay, what do you mean?

Jon Dwoskin: You tell me what you think I mean.

Scott Fishman: I think that sometimes we start to remember the good things of a relationship or something like that, instead of just the bad stuff. We forget why we broke up with someone and things like that. After a while we start to remember what’s good about it.

Jon Dwoskin: Right. So, what’s good about our business relationships.

Scott Fishman: Got it. I think personally, especially because the way I do business and the mortgage business that I’m in, is that a lot of times we have to tell people that no, we can’t help them, and they get pretty pissed off. I’ve been the villain many times in the last 20 years and what I’ve found is when I call them back with good news, they start to remember that I wasn’t that bad of a guy.

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: That there were circumstances that stopped us from being able to do business, and now they’re pretty happy to hear from me because they think I have something for them.

Jon Dwoskin: Right. I would think also that everybody just thinks they can get a loan.

Scott Fishman: Yes.

Jon Dwoskin: They kind of … Your clients probably call thinking that they’ve seen so many things and heard so many stories, where they just think, well of course you’re going to say yes. So that no is probably just a bigger blow to them.

Scott Fishman: Absolutely.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. Not only what they can do, but their ego as well, so you got to deal with that. Today let’s talk about, like you were saying, let’s talk about how do you, when you have to tell a client no, how do you keep them as a “client” when you can’t tell them yes?

Scott Fishman: Right.

Jon Dwoskin : But you don’t know when you can tell them yes because you don’t know the service or the products that you’re going to have now or in the near future. I think this is something that all salespeople struggle with, which is today I got to say no, but does that mean that I don’t want to keep in touch with the client? Then the hard part, which is how do you keep in touch with a client that you know you can’t service today?

Scott Fishman: Right. I think that’s a very good question. It’s quite a conundrum that you’re bringing up here, Jon.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, it’s a conundrum.

Scott Fishman: And I think that there’s a lot that we can do to make sure that happens, and part of it is, right off the bat, making sure that we have some sort of plan in place because when we’re telling someone no, we don’t have the product they want, or they don’t qualify for a product that we have, or for some reason the market conditions are not allowing us to put them into a service or product that we’re offering, a lot of times we get the, “You can’t fire me. I quit,” aspect of a client. They’re immediately burning that bridge, quick hanging up and whatnot, because they’re not thinking. They haven’t been through that 17 minutes that we talked about of gaining their composure.

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: They’re still legally insane for a couple minutes there.

Jon Dwoskin : It’s hard dealing with those people, I think. But the real question is, I think if we back up, is we know we got to say no to some clients.

Scott Fishman: Right.

Jon Dwoskin : We know that we can’t service everybody today with a certain product suite that we have. What do we got to do? I’m a big believer … I love marketing. I love branding. I’m a big believer in sequence marketing and propping yourself up as an expert in an industry. Propping yourself up as an educator online. If you do that, then you … It doesn’t matter if you can service them now or not. If you put them into some type of mailing list of yours, if they opt in, then you can continue to educate them and your name still stays top of mind.

Scott Fishman: Yes.

Jon Dwoskin : You may have had to say no, but because of that no, it could lead down the line to a yes.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, so I agree with that wholeheartedly. I think step one is making sure that we don’t make the situation worse at the very start of the conversation, very end of the initial conversation, the start of the new relationship where we’re going to trickle market to them.

Jon Dwoskin : Right.

Scott Fishman: We want to make sure that that bridge is not completely burned from our end.

Jon Dwoskin : Right.

Scott Fishman: Let them burn it if they have to. Let them get it off their chest, but we need to keep our composure, have our hand on their shoulder, and let them know we’re there and we’re going to remain there for them.

Jon Dwoskin : Right. I’ll give an example. Sometimes people will call me and I’m an executive advisor, business coach. I grow companies for a living and I’ve shared some minor stuff about that.

Scott Fishman: Very big.

Jon Dwoskin : What’d you say?

Scott Fishman: Very big.

Jon Dwoskin : Right, that’s my tagline. Grow your business big. Very big. But sometimes people will call me and they’re just not ready to utilize me, but they’ll opt in to my ebook and marketing, and I’ve gotten many clients. I have a 36-week sequence marketing piece that I do that shares information about their business. It gives them some tips, so that 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks later that client will ultimately call me back and start using me. Maybe even a year later, but it’s because I’ve stayed in front of them in more of a soft cell type of way.

Scott Fishman: Right. They’ve seen you. Just like product placement in a movie. It’s not really a commercial, but you see ET eating Reese’s pieces and suddenly Reese’s pieces can’t stay on the shelves.

Jon Dwoskin : But let’s talk about what a person has to do to make that happen, because the typical sales person will always say, “I’m too busy. I can’t do it. I can’t write. I’m not a marketing person and I don’t know branding.” So putting that information together, I think we should spend 60 seconds talking about how do you create that?

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin : Because if you take the path that you’re not going to create it, then you just got to keep on cold calling your whole life. You have this huge list of people that you have to say no to, probably more than you have to say yes to.

Scott Fishman: Absolutely.

Jon Dwoskin : And you can put them in an environment, in some type of trickle marketing, sequence marketing, whatever you want to call it, where you can remind them of who you are with great content, rich content. But you got to carve out some time. We won’t get in the weeds too much on this one, but you got to carve out some time to create the information that you’re going to give to them. Whether you do it a ton upfront and then put it in sequence marketing, you commit to sending out to a mailing list once a week, whatever it is. You got to do something. You got to commit to it on some type of regular basis. I would recommend a weekly touch point. All of the sudden when you have a service … I don’t mean to be too long winded on this, but when you have a service or a product that is new … You can talk about this.

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin : That is relevant. Then you blast it out to this mailing list and you got to think you’re going to get one or two clients from all the past no’s.

Scott Fishman: For sure. That’s something big. You’re tailoring this for what I do right now and I’m dealing a lot with folks who have really had the … They’ve really given me that F U on the way out in the past and I’m calling them and it looks like I have something for them. It’s just based on time. We’ve got systems that will track that and let them know, but it’s kind of funny. I get, in the situation I’m in, we always talk about getting a yes or a no. We’ve talked about that for a long time, and the situation I’m in right now, I get a hell of a lot of no’s, but I get a hell of a lot of yeses. I don’t get any maybes right off the bat. I’m loving it because it’s either I’m catching that fish right away, or that fish is gone so I don’t have to worry about marketing to them or calling them or bugging them. I know yes or no right off the bat.

It’s a beautiful thing and I do that anyway. I kind of devote Friday afternoon. It’s one of my busiest times of the week. It’s really just when people call in to get status updates from me anyway. During that time, I’m emailing clients. I’m emailing people on my little tickler file that I have and giving them an update on myself, where we stand, new products, where the market is, or just checking in to see how they’re doing and see if they’ve found a new home or things like that.

Jon Dwoskin : Right.

Scott Fishman: Just that little personal touch goes a long way.

Jon Dwoskin : Right. To sum up what you just said, and you’ve kind of said it, is you never burn a bridge.

Scott Fishman: Yes.

Jon Dwoskin : You never burn a bridge. If you’re in a sales profession where the client is highly emotional, it’s our responsibility to not be emotional and to not burn that bridge, and to offer a potential future solution, offer maybe a solution that works for them. But in your case, I would think that it’s a ton of emotion because …

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin : It’s dealing with their livelihood.

Scott Fishman: Exactly.

Jon Dwoskin : And their home and things that are in crunch time typically when they call you.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, and people are … I always say people are naked when they work with me, because I see everything about them. I’ve always joked and said, “You can lie to your tax guy. You can lie to the government. You could lie to your wife. The one person you can’t lie to is me. I have to see everything: your W-2’s, your credit report, all that stuff.”

Jon Dwoskin : Right. It’s tough.

Scott Fishman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jon Dwoskin : Yeah, it’s tough and I’m sure people are feeling vulnerable, so it’s good that you put them in a good state. But yeah, don’t burn the bridge and then guide them to what could work.

Scott Fishman: Exactly. Make sure that they know you’re there for them. Keep them corralled in your bubble, and I love … I keep forgetting, what are you calling it? I said trickle marketing. You said –

Jon Dwoskin : Sequence marketing.

Scott Fishman: Sequence marketing. If you have the means to create one, I think it’s great. It absolutely is. If you want to just kind of wing it, set aside a specific time every week or every two weeks where you touch base with everybody on that list.

Jon Dwoskin : When I was in real estate, this was many, many years ago, when the internet wasn’t as widely used. This was in … My God, when did I get started in real estate? I don’t even remember. Early 2000s. When people weren’t really using email. A lot of my clients didn’t even have email.

Scott Fishman: It was crazy.

Jon Dwoskin : It was crazy to even think about, but I did something called Dwoskin’s weekly articles, and all I would do at the time – and it was very cutting edge at the time – was I would, every Tuesday (because I believe in consistency of days), I would send out six articles with the title and the link. That’s it. It was very cutting edge at the time.

Scott Fishman: Easy.

Jon Dwoskin : And easy. There wasn’t a week that went by that people would ask me, “Hey, I heard this, can I get on this list?” Because I would just send relevant articles. I was an agent for six years and then I moved into managing my office, and so I stopped sending those out. When I was running my office for two and a half years before people stopped telling me, “Hey, I get your articles every week. They’re awesome.”

Scott Fishman: That’s hilarious.

Jon Dwoskin : We were laughing earlier. I told you I’ve been getting some great feedback on the podcast and you say to me, “Yeah, but do you believe that?” No, these people were telling me that they loved my articles that I was sending them and I had not sent an email of these articles in two and a half years.

Scott Fishman: That’s ridiculous.

Jon Dwoskin : It was ridiculous.

Scott Fishman: I love it.

Jon Dwoskin : But the power of the continuity was great for the mind share for myself.

Scott Fishman: Yes.

Jon Dwoskin : That is just … You want to give that to your clients.

Scott Fishman: Yes. You and I both are on the same mailing list. We get a quote of the day every morning, early every morning. I don’t know how he does it so early, because I know he manually does it.

Jon Dwoskin : He manually does it. Our buddy, Randy, who’s an outstanding attorney in Birmingham, Michigan. He does. He sends out a great quote of the day.

Scott Fishman: It’s funny because every once in a while, I’ll notice maybe once in a while it’s skipped and I don’t get it, or it’s in my spam and I’m like, “Where’s my quote of the day?”

Jon Dwoskin : Right.

Scott Fishman: Even if it doesn’t really impact me every single day, but it’s there, and it’s comforting to know it’s coming every day.

Jon Dwoskin : Yeah, my buddy Stu sends out a JPEG quote of the day every day to a group of people.

Scott Fishman: Right, absolutely.

Jon Dwoskin : But the continuity and the consistency is key. In summary, if you are not creating some type of trickle or sequence marketing to stay in touch with all the people you have to say no to, you’re losing a huge potential group of future clients.

Scott Fishman: Yes.

Jon Dwoskin : Don’t make it more difficult on yourself. Take the time, carve out a Saturday. Carve out a Sunday. Carve out a couple hours, and be proactive and think about how to market. Don’t use the excuse that I don’t have time.

Scott Fishman: Right.

Jon Dwoskin : That’s just laziness.

Scott Fishman: It takes no time at all, folks.

Jon Dwoskin : No time at all. I was cutting and pasting articles, and frankly you can still do that today.

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin : There’s great content today on the internet.

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin : That’s all Facebook and LinkedIn is. You share a article.

Scott Fishman: Right.

Jon Dwoskin : Right, but to your platform. Okay. What’s next?

Scott Fishman: So, Jon, it’s been literally like … I think it’s been 14 years since we last podcasted.

Jon Dwoskin : It’s been a long time.

Scott Fishman: What have you been up to over the last decade?

Jon Dwoskin : It’s been a hectic couple, six, seven, eight months. I’m going to ask you the same thing, by the way. I have been finishing my book, The Think Big Movement: Grow Your Business Big. Very Big, and it is a book that I wrote with Walter Publishing. Took about 11 months and it is a business book told as a fable. By the time I got done writing that and editing that, we just finished about, what, like four weeks ago, maybe?

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin : Yeah, and that was incredible. That was incredible. I’ve also been growing my business, my keynote business, and just a lot of growing my … Just busy with life and my wife and my children and growing my business and yada yada yada. That’s kind of the gist.

Scott Fishman: Jon, when does The Think Big Movement come out?

Jon Dwoskin : Thank you for asking. I should actually have my copies end of April. It launches at the book expo in New York on May 31st through June 2nd. I’ll be there, which I’m excited about. Then it goes live for purchase on August 15, 2017, but it’s been on pre-order on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Target.com for many, many months.

Scott Fishman: I ordered mine and I’m not going to lie, I’ve read a pre-released copy. It’s a great book.

Jon Dwoskin : Oh, thanks, Fish. Thanks. It was fun to write and it was great.

Scott Fishman: That’s very cool.

Jon Dwoskin : Yeah, it was a heartfelt book and then on top of that it was just a crazy couple months. My dad passed away, which you know. My mother-in-law passed away. My business coach passed away.

Scott Fishman: Crazy.

Jon Dwoskin : I mean, I’m not laughing, but it was a very dramatic couple months. Just healing from that and continuing to work hard.

Scott Fishman: How can people get in contact with you for your coaching services and your executive coaching services?

Jon Dwoskin : My website, Jon Dwoskin, J-O-N- D-W-O-S-K-I-N.com is the best place to go. Just showcases everything and that has my personal cell phone and 1-800 number and email and, yeah, that’s the best way to get hold of me.

Scott Fishman: That’s cool.

Jon Dwoskin : All right, enough about me. What about you? What have you been up to these last couple months?

Scott Fishman: The last time we spoke I actually had published my first ever book, Sell Smarter: Seven Simple Strategies for Sales Success.

Jon Dwoskin : Which is also a great book.

Scott Fishman: And, thank you, by the way.

Jon Dwoskin : Thank you. You’re welcome.

Scott Fishman: And, I quickly came up with two more, Sell Even Smarter, and the aptly titled Sell Smartest. All three are available on Amazon. It’s actually gotten some really good traction, great reviews so far, and actually just this morning noticed I got my first bad review.

Jon Dwoskin : What?

Scott Fishman: I’m so thankful and happy. I actually emailed them. I want to find out why it was bad and what I can do to change it, because I think that feedback is always a gift and we learn from failure. I want to find out why they gave me two stars, which is pretty sad, but definitely if you’re interested in my books you can find them at 30MinuteSalesCoach.com. That’s 30MinuteSalesCoach.com, or just Amazon and search Scott Fishman. I’m not the doctor that writes about pain medication.

Jon Dwoskin : Regardless of the two star, I’ve read your books. I think they’re all incredible, resourceful. But, you’re right. Negative feedback is good.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, absolutely.

Jon Dwoskin : It helps us grow.

Scott Fishman: If it’s all five stars you never know what you’re doing wrong …

Jon Dwoskin : No.

Scott Fishman: And how you can improve? So, I’m happy to see it.

Jon Dwoskin : What’s next for you when you’re writing?

Scott Fishman: Right now, I’m putting together a box set of my three books so that way you could have it at a discount. It’s already a great value, folks, but now you’ll be able to buy three books for a little bit more than the price of one starting next month. Aside from that, I’m branching into fiction, starting quite soon. I should have a book out within the next six weeks and I’m not going to give up too much about the plot, but let’s just say that it might involve clowns.

Jon Dwoskin : Oh, that’s pretty scary. I can say this, because Fish and I have been … I mean we’ve known each other for 30 some years, but always in high school and in college, you were always the best writer. You’re a writer-writer, I would say. I had a co-writer.

Jon Dwoskin : I wrote a majority of my book, but I still had a co-writer and a team of editors, but you have the gift of writing where you can sit down and really write.

Scott Fishman: Thank you, man.

Jon Dwoskin : I’m sure your novel’s going to be phenomenal.

Scott Fishman: Hopefully.

Jon Dwoskin : Which is a good lesson, by the way. I’m just going to talk about me for a second.

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin : I’ve always wanted to write a series of books. It’s always been a dream of mine to write tons of books and to speak and travel the country and all that type of stuff. But I am not a writer-writer. I love to write, and I write and I’ve grown to be a decent-ish writer, but when I got a call from Walter Publishing to see if I wanted to write a book with them, I said, “I absolutely do, but I need a co-writer.” Having the co-writer, AJ Reilly, was a great experience, because I was able to write a ton. I wrote a ton of the book, but also collaborated on certain things where he wrote bits and pieces of it, and then we would just kind of go over each other’s work. My point is this: If you want to write a book and you feel like you don’t have the full skills to write a book, get a co-writer.

Scott Fishman: Yeah. Absolutely, and I think the moral of that story also is just do it.

Jon Dwoskin : Just do it. Right.

Scott Fishman: The whole genesis of this podcast was a phone call, like 8:00 a.m. I was driving to work and saying, “I got to do something fun. Let’s write a book.” Then we started writing a book and we’re like, “This is hard. Let’s do a podcast instead.” We’re like, we didn’t know anything about podcasts.

Jon Dwoskin : Right, right. And turned it into a book.

Scott Fishman: Right.

Jon Dwoskin : Right.

Scott Fishman: There we go. Now we have our podcast and we turned it into books from each of us separately that play to kind of the same audience but a little bit different, so you should pick up both.

Jon Dwoskin : Yeah.

Scott Fishman: And enjoy both, but …

Jon Dwoskin : It’s good. It’s been a busy couple months. It’s been a fun couple months writing some books.

Scott Fishman: Jon, we are now almost 20 minutes into The Seven Minute Sales Minute.

Jon Dwoskin : Right.

Scott Fishman: So I think it’s time to –

Jon Dwoskin : It’s The Triple Seven Minute Sales Minute today.

Scott Fishman: Yes, it is. Yes.

Jon Dwoskin : Right.

Scott Fishman: Yes, so I think it’s time that we wrap it up but I do want to say thank you everybody. Thank you for your patience. We’ve still been getting a ton of downloads during our hiatus. A hiatus by which we actually didn’t even mention where the hell we were. So, thank you, and welcome back.

Jon Dwoskin : Right. Welcome back. Thanks for sticking with us. Enjoy the time and have a great day.

Scott Fishman: And think big.

Jon Dwoskin : Absolutely.

Thanks everybody for listening. Now no excuses, it’s time to put everything you listened to into action. Stop lying to yourself. Stop listening and doing nothing with this information. Take this information, implement it into your day, grow your business, grow your sales, make more money, have more fun, have a better life. Period. The end.

Scott Fishman: What he said.