Season 5 – Episode 7 – Flex Your Courage Muscle

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: Good morning, Jonathan.

Jon Dwoskin: Scott, good morning. How you doing?

Scott Fishman: I’m doing great, man. You sound terrific. Is that a new mic?

Jon Dwoskin: It’s a brand new mic, it’s a brand new entire concoction. I couldn’t tell you what any of it’s called, but it’s good to go and hopefully I sound a little bit better.

Scott Fishman: Jon, you sound great and this is a brand new Seven Minute Sales Minute for you folks.

Jon Dwoskin: Well, not only is it brand new, but it’s the … it will top our series five, or season five, excuse me.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, absolutely. The season finale.

Jon Dwoskin: So it’ll be the seventh episode of season five. Yes, yeah. And so the next episode after this will be season 6. Hard to believe.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, wow. We’ve been doing-

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: … this forever.

Jon Dwoskin: It’s been a long time.

Scott Fishman: We’re like the M*A*S*H of sales podcasts.

Jon Dwoskin: Sharing sales skills to change the world.

Scott Fishman: That’s right.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. It’s been fun. It’s been a five seasons, and seasons six through ten will be even more exciting.

Scott Fishman: Absolutely. Once we hit eleven it’ll be downhill for sure. It’ll be jumping-

Jon Dwoskin: All right.

Scott Fishman: … the shark moment.

Jon Dwoskin: Right, right. The Fonz. All right, so what should we talk about today, Fish?

Scott Fishman: Jon, I think something we had kinda gone back and forth on is the three biggest fears of sales people.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, you know, it’s amazing to me how many sales people have such intense fears about sales. They get into sales, they’re typically independent contractors, even if they have a small base, and yet they’re scared to do sales. So hopefully those people who are listening, and I think even seasoned people get a little bit scared at some of the things we’re gonna talk about today.
If you’re gonna get in sales, I just want to, before we even get started, I want to say one thing that I think is absolutely critical. No one is born a great sales person. You have to study your skillset and your craft. You have to commit every single day to reading something, to listening to a podcast, to listening to a book, to talking to a mentor, to role play. You gotta do something to constantly grow your skillset. I think the foundation of getting over your fear is to throw yourself into uncomfortable situations and keep learning every day.

Scott Fishman: Jon, I like that. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. That’s good-

Jon Dwoskin: Sorry, that was-

Scott Fishman: I think there’s a lot of businesses like that too, where there are a lot of things, like actors, they have a fear of rejection or a fear of being in front of people, but then they choose to be an actor. What’s that all about?

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: Why?

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, I dunno. I think it’s the passion and the drive of somebody that want to do certain things in their life, but they let the minutia and the mind bulls*** get in their way. So we’re gonna give some people some fears whether you’re a sales person, or in your case an actor in that scenario, to get over your fear and move over to the courage side of the table and start doing what you need to do to grow your business.

Scott Fishman: I like that. So what is the first fear that you came up with?

Jon Dwoskin: Well, I think the first fear that we came up with, as we were kinda getting ready for this podcast was salespeople who have too much business. They have too much going on, and they’re scared to get new business and fill up their pipeline because they’re gonna have way too much to do.

Scott Fishman: Right. So, how can we get over that? Like one thing I’m thinking of, just when you tell me that right off the bat, is that’s kind of an excuse also.

Jon Dwoskin: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it’s an excuse. I think it’s a couple things. I think one, it’s an excuse. It’s one, maybe somebody who hasn’t invested in their business. If your business is that big, if your business is growing, if you have too much to do, then obviously you’re probably doing things that you shouldn’t be doing. You should have hired an executive assistant or somebody else on your team to delegate to and take over a lot of those responsibilities. But I think sometimes, Fish, that salespeople like to say that so they don’t have to go out and do more sales.

Scott Fishman: Right.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: It keeps them in their comfort zone.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: And I think also, if you’re afraid of taking on more business, you’re doing it wrong. I mean, plain and simple. You’re not delegating, you’re not managing your time wisely enough. You’re not doing things the right way. Shoot. We talked about some clients in certain businesses that don’t want, or some salespeople in certain businesses that are afraid of, taking on more clients. They’re afraid of work.

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: They’re punching the clock, and in sales we can’t punch a clock. We have to make ourselves available for our customers. We have to actually go that extra mile in order to find success. You don’t just work 9 to 5. It’s a different type of business.

Jon Dwoskin: Totally different type of business. And also, if you’re not filling up your pipeline with new clients, then as a salesperson I would think, and I’m speaking for the masses right now. I would think it gets a little boring. I mean, you gotta keep on reigniting that energy and that fulfillment of getting the new client. It’s a rush. And if you are in sales, then if you don’t constantly have some flow of that rush, then you’re gonna get a little bit restless I think.

Scott Fishman: Exactly. Now what I’ve seen with a lot of newer salespeople when, in order to kinda get that rush in a different way, they start doing things like overbuying a car … like buying expensive cars, buying expensive things, which then is a problem because now you’re buying all this expensive stuff. You have to pay for it.

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: So then you have to create that rush, and so maybe you’re chasing yourself in that respect. Some people actually force that upon themselves. I actually know a guy who is always trading up, always … every car is nicer than the last car. Every watch-

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: … is nicer than the last watch, and he does that in order to chase himself so he pushes himself harder and harder. That’s kind of a slippery slope because at some point where are you gonna end?

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. I have seen a lot of salespeople ramp up their lifestyle in an extravagant way, and then just kind of not want to do business development and it can really explode on them.

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Fishman: We’ve seen it a bunch of times.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, it’s a slippery slope. All right, so I guess the lesson here is, if you are a salesperson, you gotta figure that out, and find the time to do business development every day, if not three times, two to three times a week. You gotta carve out the time. I don’t care if it’s 10 minutes three times a week, or 10 minutes five days a week, or 20 minutes twice a week. You gotta carve out the time and put it in your calendar and commit to business development, no matter how busy you are. It is the number one thing as a salesperson you are supposed to be doing to grow your business so you can forecast and look out three months, six months, depending on the continuum of your business you have to just always be doing business development.

Scott Fishman: Right. We have to fill that funnel because, as we’ve talked about, you’re not converting 100% of your prospects. So if you’re only getting one or two prospects a week and you’re converting at 10%, it’s gonna take you five weeks to get one new customer. So you have to be working harder. You have to always be prospecting.

Jon Dwoskin: You know, and just to touch on that quickly, a lot of times I think salespeople, and this always amazes me, they don’t know their metrics. They don’t know their conversion rates, so it’s easier for them to kind of just ignore that and fall back on, “I’m too busy.” Because if you know your stats, then it’s a lot easier to attack your business.

Scott Fishman: Right.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. And grow your business, and understand how much time you need to allocate when you know what the end result is, and how you want to reverse engineer the day to day tasks to hit your metrics.

Scott Fishman: There you go.

Jon Dwoskin: Amen.

Scott Fishman: Amen.

Jon Dwoskin: All right, what’s next?

Scott Fishman: The next one, number two is the fear of bugging people. Also known as sales arachnophobia maybe? I dunno. But the fear of bugging people. I think salespeople in all businesses, you get this, “Gosh, I gotta call this guy again and I’m just bugging the s*** out of him. What am I gonna say this time? What’s gonna happen? Is he gonna hang up on me? Am I calling him too often? Am I emailing him too often? Am I texting him often? What’s gonna happen if I call this guy?”

Jon Dwoskin: Right. Yeah, I mean, I dunno if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I’ve never worried about bugging people. I know a lot of people do. I don’t think you worry about bugging people, because I think we both have the same mindset that it is kind of our responsibility as salespeople to follow up, and we understand kind of the concept that we’re being tested by people. You know, people are testing us to see how good is our follow up, how good is our follow through, how good are we at bringing value to every call? And just being absolutely tenacious because if you’re not, quote unquote, bugging people, somebody else is in an effective value added way.

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin: And so as long as you’re bringing value to every call, whether it’s an article, a news clip, piece of information, something, then you’re never bugging people. You’re really just bugging yourself.

Scott Fishman: Right. And if you believe in your product, if you believe in what you’re selling, that’s the important part as well, because yeah, if I’m calling you Jon, just to call you, yeah, I’m bugging you. If I’m pulling you out of a meeting-

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: … just to say hi, or something like that-

Jon Dwoskin: “Hey.”

Scott Fishman: It’s not like I’m calling you saying, “Hey Jon, can I borrow twenty bucks?” No, I’m calling you and I’m offering you a product that is going to change your life and your business, either or, in a positive way, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be calling you. You should want my product, you should welcome my phone call. Or my text.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: Or my email, or my pop-in visit. There should be a reason for every single contact that we have, not just a, “Hey, what’s up?”

Jon Dwoskin: Right, right. “How’s your day?” How about, “Anything going since the last time we spoke?” And on that thought, you were talking about email and stuff, social media too. I mean, having a-

Scott Fishman: Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin: You find being on social media sometimes is easier and sometimes even texting people. There’s lots of different ways to communicate with people today, where it’s not bugging. I think texting is something people actually really like. It’s a lot easier way for people to communicate a lot. Depends on the industry, but that way people can get back to you with short sentences and not feel like they have to commit to a call.

Scott Fishman: Yes.

Jon Dwoskin: And so I think that’s great. There’s also apps like Calendly, which is, if you’re trying to get an appointment, you can send somebody a link so they can set up a ten, fifteen minute appointment with you. Again, cutting down on some of that back and forth. It allows them to kind of look at their schedule. I mean, just lots of tools, and lots of things to think about where, if you do feel insecure about bugging people, there’s lots of ways to go around it.

Scott Fishman: Absolutely.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: And here’s one trick that I like to do: if there’s someone that’s kinda been elusive for me, I’ll send them an article in the morning or at night before I leave the office. I’ll send them some article that’s relevant to what we’re doing, and then I have a reason to follow up. “Hey Jon, did you get that article I sent you? What did you think? I thought it was pretty relevant to what we’ve been talking. And by the way, here’s how I can help you.” And I think it works a hell of a lot better when you have a reason. So you can actually fabricate that reason. It doesn’t need to be like, “Hey, did you talk to your wife about this yet?”

Jon Dwoskin: Right. You know, I’m glad you brought that up. So when I was in real estate, and this is now almost 15 years ago, but when I was a real estate agent, I started this thing on every Tuesday. I did it for six years. It was Jon’s Weekly Articles. And all I did was send out about six or seven articles to my mailing list, and it was the fastest way I could grow my mailing list. All I was doing Fish, was sending out the title and the link. That was it. I wasn’t even going into detail because I felt like it would be too much for people to read. Just kind of, I would have a theme for each like two articles, and then I would send it out. And there wasn’t a week that went by that people were not asking to be on my mailing list, because all I was doing was sending a collection of emails and articles that I would find online and send them out.
So I’m actually starting that again with my coaching business. I’m gonna start sending out weekly, or I may do every other week to start, articles that I find myself sending out anyway to clients. But now I’m gonna do it more consistently on my mailing list. And so it does, it almost gives me a reason to call and follow up on a regular basis of specific articles with people and the consistency of that I think is really key.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, it’s great.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, and just going back to it, it can help you build your business. It’s gonna help you give a reason to call, and it’s gonna open up a conversation that is just a little bit more meaty.

Scott Fishman: Yeah. I want to go back to one thing we were talking about with texting as well. Texting is the new email I find-

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: … because email for a while, was really great as a contact tool and communication tool. But now email, to me, I call a wallpaper. It’s like I log in and I get the same seven emails from the same seven places, like “Oh, Williams Sonoma again. Pottery Barn again.” Like, I get the same emails and they go in the same spam box or my junk box, and I ignore them. So it’s easy to ignore email. Texting, it’s on your phone, it beeps …  after a while that will become wallpaper. We’ll have to find the next thing. Maybe it’ll be beaming right into your brain implant. But for now texting is great and I’ve actually been utilizing it a ton. Like I’ll try to contact my clients in the normal channels throughout the week-

Jon Dwoskin: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Scott Fishman: And then, middle of the week, I will text every single one of my prospects. And I get a lot of “Eff off, lose my numbers.” But I’m fine with that. Like we talked before-

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: I’m big on getting rid of the maybes. Like, I’ll turn you into a no because I know that a certain number of no’s leads to a yes. I will actually-

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: … relish that, but it gets me some no’s and I’m fine with that. It’s been amazing. I’ve been doing it for the last few weeks, and literally sending out 50 texts within a 10 minute period.

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: And I get a ton of responses.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, I love it. ‘Cause like you said, texts don’t go to spam, and I mean I use Microsoft Outlook, and I dunno how many months ago, or if it was a year ago, they automatically put a clutter box in your email, and so I get probably a 100 emails that go into my clutter box, which is essentially spam, and I just delete them all. I don’t even read any of them.

Scott Fishman: Oh wow.

Jon Dwoskin: And so, I think that’s a pretty common thing. Well said. Text is a great way to communicate. I’m glad that’s working out for you.

Scott Fishman: That explains why you don’t respond to some of my emails.

Jon Dwoskin: Damn right. Because you always text me. All right, so what’s number three? Fear of just flat out calling prospects that you want to get as clients, and cold calling them. Let’s talk about that. How do we get over that fear?

Scott Fishman: Well, first and foremost, cold calling is a fear that I will never … like it’s always gonna be there for me, whether it’s 1%-

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: … or 90%, it’s always gonna be there, because it’s just, you’re putting yourself out there. That, to me, is the epitome of like, “S***, am I really gonna be calling this person and offering them a widget?”

Jon Dwoskin: Right, it’s a vulnerable place-

Scott Fishman: It’s unexpected-

Jon Dwoskin: It’s a vulnerable, that first couple, that first minute is a vulnerable place, and the ringing of the phone, almost kind of sometimes hoping that they don’t answer so you can leave that first message, right?

Scott Fishman: Yes. Well-

Jon Dwoskin: I think that’s common for many salespeople.

Scott Fishman: But I do love it. That’s the thing, as much as that feeling in the pit of my stomach is like a rollercoaster, it’s like bungee jumping, which I will never do. But it’s like that feeling, the high dive, like, “Holy cow. Am I really gonna do this?” And you do it, it’s like, “Woo.”

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: But, to me I think the biggest thing to get over it is, number one, believe in your product. But number two, humor. Humor is huge because we all get those calls, like, “The warranty on your car is about to expire.” So-

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: I’ll do things, like when I cold call, I’ll say, “Hey Jon, it’s Scott. By the way, the warranty on your car is fine, and I’m not trying to change your long distance service, and you did not win a cruise. Let me tell you why I’m really calling.” And like people, they get a chuckle out of it, and it breaks the ice. Once you have that icebreaker, the little pattern interrupt, it’s great.

Jon Dwoskin: Well, what you’re saying I think is so spot on, and I’m just gonna say it in a different way. Just be yourself. Do your best to get into the mindset. At some point, within the first twenty, thirty seconds, if not sooner, where you can be yourself and you can kinda talk to that person as if they were your friend.

Scott Fishman: Right.

Jon Dwoskin: And I mean, granted, you’re not gonna swear or be inappropriate, but just be, try to just be yourself. I mean, that’s what sells. That’s what leads to the humor.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, absolutely.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: I know this was mentioned in a book that I perused, and then actually one of the guys that worked for me a while back did a presentation. A really great guy, in his rookie year he was doing really good, so we let him talk to some of our newer salespeople, and he had broken it down to how much he got paid per phone call.

Jon Dwoskin: Right.

Scott Fishman: I thought that was great. And I know he did – he took it from a book, like blatantly – but he took his own metrics and used it and he basically said, “Every time I dial the phone I’m getting paid $40,” or whatever it was. So he remembered that, and I think when you’re cold calling that’s a great thing to do as well, like, “Okay, there you go. All I had to do was dial my phone. Whether they answered, whether they picked up, whether they said no, whether they picked up and screamed into the phone, that’s it. I made 40 bucks.”

Jon Dwoskin: Right. That’s great.

Scott Fishman: And then, the next dial 40 bucks, next dial 40 bucks. And it also makes it feel a little bit more worth it when they do scream at you, or they say something that might get through your thick skin if you do have thick skin. If you don’t have thick skin, that’s for sure getting through. But for 40 bucks or whatever it’s gonna be when you break down your own metrics, it’s definitely worth it at the end of the day.

Jon Dwoskin: That’s amazing and really showcases somebody who understands not only how much his time is worth, but the value of his time. Because what he can then grow from there is, “Okay, I want a raise, so how do I get my calls to $45 per call?”

Scott Fishman: Right.

Jon Dwoskin: And then strategically figuring out how to grow his skillset to do that. And that goes back to what we started talking about at the call today. You gotta commit to learning. I mean, I don’t know the guy you’re talking about, but I would imagine that he is constantly trying to figure out how to grow his skillset and grow. That’s a great story. I think that was also in the movie Pursuit of Happiness.

Scott Fishman: Was it?

Jon Dwoskin: I think. You know, he talked, whenever in the movie he was like wearing diapers because he knew how much each call would make him, and what he needs to do, and his conversions, and his metrics, and all that type of stuff.

Scott Fishman: That’s amazing.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, it’s amazing. But knowing what your hourly rate is key. And I think that’s really important. I always encourage people that I work with to understand what is your time worth? And know that when you’re calling a client or a prospect, typically they know what their time is worth, and that’s why they don’t want to talk to you. So you gotta give them a value, and a hook, and a differential, and a reason to want to talk to you so it’s worth their time.

Scott Fishman: Right, and with cold calling, don’t take things personally. You can’t, because people, no matter what you’re selling, they are gonna treat you like a telemarketer right off the bat until you break through, until you give them that pattern to interrupt. So don’t take it personally. They’re gonna yell at you, they’re gonna always say, “I’m in a meeting!” You know, no matter what time of day it is, no matter what they’re doing, “I’m in a meeting!” Okay, you picked up the phone during a meeting. I mean, how many times a day do we hear that? Just let it roll off your back and move on to the next one and make your money.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. Well said. I think that’s a great tip, and a great tip to end on. And hopefully as you face your fears, you get out of your comfort zone, and you build up your courage muscle, and grow your business, grow your pipeline, kick some a**. Like Scott said, don’t take it personally. I think that’s the best advice you could give, period.

Scott Fishman: Don’t sweat the petty stuff.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, amen.

Scott Fishman: All right. Thank you everybody. Thank you for listening, and I hope everybody has a great week.