Season 6 – Episode One – This one’s a SCREAM!

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 Jonny, what’s going on?

Jon Dwoskin: Scotty, how are you? How’s your day been?

Scott Fishman : My day’s going great, man. Honestly, I’m ready to hit the ground running for Monday morning with a vengeance.

Jon Dwoskin: I know, me too, me too. It’s been a great weekend, the weather’s been awesome, and I’m ready to just kick some ass tomorrow.

Scott Fishman : Yeah, for sure. This weather …

Jon Dwoskin: What are we going to talk about today? We’ve got a good one. This weather’s awesome, but we’ve got some good ones. I mean I’m sure people want to hear about the weather, but we’ve got a good one for you. Why don’t you share with everybody what we’re going to talk about today.

Scott Fishman : Yeah, today folks, we are going to give you the ultimate October spooky nightmare scenario.

Jon Dwoskin: That sounds pretty scary, Fish.

Scott Fishman : Yeah, so here’s the setup. You show up to work on Monday, you find out you’re locked in to a contract. You can’t quit. You can’t do anything but your job in order to earn a living. And your sales director, your manager, tells you that you’re not getting any more leads.

Jon Dwoskin: Oh my god.

Scott Fishman : What are you going to do?

Jon Dwoskin: Well, that is a great scenario. A great one for our Oktoberfest special. I just made that up, it’s really not an Oktoberfest special. But, what I think many salespeople, when they hear that, are thinking to themselves, “What the hell would I do?” Because if I’m not getting leads, if I’m not getting inherited business. If I’m not getting stuff, and I have to get it on my own, I gotta really sit back and retool, and kind of rethink.

Scott Fishman : Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of people, hearing that news, might go right into the fetal position. Like, what am I going to do? It’s over. It’s over. I don’t know what I’m going to do because there’s no way I could win. There’s no way I could succeed with this.

Jon Dwoskin: Well, it’s a scary scenario for some, and an exciting scenario for others, and I think it also forces us to sit back and rethink, and retool, and grow as individuals and become stronger sales people.

I would say the first thing that you need to do is really take that ownership position, that you are the CEO of your own company. I think salespeople many times don’t do that. They think of themselves as kind of an employee of the company, and that may be true, but they really need to think of themselves as the CEO of their business. They are responsible, regardless of the platform that they sit on, to grow their business, and have the skills and everything else to really grow their business and have a business plan.

What are your thoughts on that?

Scott Fishman : I think you’re hitting the nail on the head. A lot of folks forget that their desk, their cubicle, their office, is its own unique and individual lemonade stand. They don’t work for a company. I mean, yes we do. We get a W-2, or whatever we get, but at the end of the day we are responsible for our own business. We have to find it, we have to cultivate it, we have to get better at what we do.

Jon Dwoskin: Right. I mean, whether you sit in a cube or an office, it doesn’t matter. The mindset should be that you are in the corner office. Absolutely. I think one of the things that starts off with that is that you really have to take ownership of growing your skillset. In this scenario, you have to take ownership that your skillset is first and foremost. Determine where it is and determine where you want it to go and decide what you are going to do to grow your skillset.

And training is so important, and sometimes so is getting the leads. We forget what we really need to learn. So, taking a step back and looking at the sales continuum, and saying, okay, where do I have to grow? Whether it is my influence skills, my negotiation skills, you got to commit to growing your skillset, first and foremost.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, because if you think about it, if right now, at the level you’re at, if you’re converting 20%, two out of every ten leads that you get, but your leads are going to become a helluva lot more scarce. You need to increase that number. You need to make that three, or four, because now if you’re converting four out of every ten leads, you’re doubling your business, even if your leads get cut in half. So you’re going to stay the same, I guess is the way to put it. That’s good math there, Fish.

Jon Dwoskin: Well, but what you’re touching at, or what we’re both touching at, is the importance of knowing your metrics. And when you’re getting the leads, sometimes you don’t think about what your metrics are. You’re not thinking about conversions because it’s just kind of falling into place. But when you’ve got to do it from scratch like this scenario, you got to pay attention to your metrics, and you got to pay attention to what you’re doing to increase those conversions.

Scott Fishman : Right. So here’s the first thing I would do, plain and simple. If I was in this situation, confronted on Monday morning, no more qualified leads, you’re on your own, but you have to stay here, you can’t leave, the first thing I would do is comb my calendar. I would go back literally like the last two years of appointments. I would find people that were interested, set appointments with me, but didn’t follow through. Those are going to be my hottest people I’m going to contact, because they did show some interest, somewhere along the line they fell out. Maybe they had cold feet, maybe they needed time. Those are the perfect ones. “Hey, I just needed some time.” And you follow up with them out of the blue. You get a gold star for following up with them, and they love you for it.

“I was just going to call you anyway, Jon. It’s amazing.” So when you think of those, that’s the first place I would look, is my calendar to see what I had, and who those prospects were.

Jon Dwoskin: That’s number one. I would agree with that. And I would say that number two would be the people that you are currently doing business with who can refer you business. And a lot of times, if you’re looking at net promoter score type things, and you’re taking surveys of your company (a lot of people do them through SurveyMonkey), that pivotal question of, “Would you refer a friend to me?” is the quintessential question to see how you’re giving that client an experience. So asking for referrals or introductions in a way that doesn’t make you feel cheap, but really gets you accelerating the new client prospects.

Scott Fishman : Right. And if you think about this, there’s something to say about the fact that they are still basking in the warmth of doing business with you. They still have the warm and fuzzies of actually saying yes and getting into your continuum of business. So you’re treating them, you’re giving them that great VIP treatment because they are in the process with you right now. Those people are great to ask for referrals.

Jon Dwoskin: Right. Good. What else should we do? What’s next?

Scott Fishman : Along those same lines is, do referrals from closed customers as well, because those people, obviously, have done business with you. This is a little bit different play because when you’re calling these folks, you don’t want to come back and sound a little desperate. You don’t want to say, “Hey, Jon, you know what, I really need referrals. Who could you introduce me to?”

But there’s a way to kind of play this. “Jon, I’m moving to a fully referral-based system, and my past clients are the best way for me to find business. Who can you introduce me to, and give me a good review from?” Or something along those same lines. A testimony, that’s the word I was looking for. “Who could you give a testimonial to on my behalf? Because I’m looking to build my business, and referrals are the best way, and I know you loved working with me. So I’d be happy to give you that same service to any of your friends or family, coworkers, whoever you know.”

Jon Dwoskin: Fish, that is outstanding, and I want you to just comment on one thing, because I think what you said there is probably going to be the best nugget of this entire podcast, which is when you say, “I’m moving my business to a complete referral business.” I mean talk about a high-end way of looking at the word referrals. I mean, it is key, and if you can muster up the courage to say something like that, do something like that, you can accelerate your business. It’s very transparent, and you end up working with the type of people that you really want. But that to me is an incredible statement that you made. I don’t know if you have any more thoughts on it, but I think it is ideal.

Scott Fishman : Well, it does, it gives an air of exclusivity as though not everyone can just walk in my door anymore and I’m only working with people who are referred to me. That’s big. I mean there are a lot of businesses that actually work on referrals only. So I don’t think it’s an odd thing to say, and people like that. They really do. They want to be part of a club.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. I love it.

You know, I think moving on from that, another thing is to really increase the working that you’re doing. A lot of times, it’s a tough thing for salespeople to do. You work hard all day, and then you’re expected to go network at night, and maybe you want to be with your family or friends or have alone time.

I think morning things are great, whether there are places or different clubs that depend on what you’re doing in sales. Toastmasters. There’s so many different things that you can do to grow your skillset, it doesn’t always have to be at night. I think sometimes people think it’s got to be at night, but a lot of chambers or economic clubs, or things of that nature have great speakers and breakfast meetings. But people like doing business with people they like, and you’re going to get a referral by building trust at a networking event.

Scott Fishman : Right.

Jon Dwoskin: Any thoughts on that?

Scott Fishman : Yeah, and you mentioned the morning networking versus night. I’m a big fan of the morning because at night it tends to be more of a social thing, and there could be cocktails involved and people are a little less serious could be giving you some hot air. And, shoot, sometimes they might not even remember that they talked to you. In the morning, everyone’s fresh, everyone’s ready to go, and everyone’s there for a reason. They’re not just there to get the pigs in a blanket.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. All right, good. What else should this salesperson do in this Halloween scenario of October?

Scott Fishman : Well, I’d be digging in the crates, as they say. I would look at my old notepads. I’m one of these guys, and one of the ways I track my business is so old school. I just use legal pads, and I literally have notepads going back 10 years.

There’s a guy I work with that has an Excel spreadsheet that goes back 10 years, believe it or not, and just people I’ve talked to. So I have everyone’s name and phone number as we go through every single day what I’m doing. So I follow up. And, as a rule of thumb, as a trick, I’ll go one year back in the past and say, “Hey Jon, it’s the one year anniversary of the last time we spoke. I told you I’d follow up with you.” And it triggers something. Again, you’re providing that service. You told them you were going to do something, whether you did or not, but you told them you were going to do something, and you followed up. And people enjoy that.

Jon Dwoskin: I think it’s great. You’re highlighting something that we’ve talked about, and it’s so important. Whether you’re in sales, or whatever position you’re at, that you just take notes, and you catalog, and you have information that doesn’t go away. And you can keep it on legal pad or you can scan it and throw it into Dropbox, but keep all that information. It’s so key. I think most people, and I’ve been guilty of this too, think they’re going to forget. But you forget.

Scott Fishman : Yeah, totally. I can actually share a story with you, and this is one of the reasons why I keep everything now. I’m in the mortgage industry, there’s no secret to that, and in like 2003 I remember clients telling me, “Give me a call when rates get below this level.” And rates were so low, I mean, compared to where they were in the 80’s, and then late 90’s, rates were super low already, and I said, “Yeah, fat chance. Okay, sure I’ll give you a call, whatever.” And when I think back, there was pretty like 50 to 100 people that might have said that to me.

And lo and behold, a year later rates were that low, and I didn’t have that tickler list. I didn’t hold on to it because I was like, yeah, there’s no way this is going to happen. I was like, there’s no way Donald Trump will ever be our president. Look, he’s our president. A lot of people said this is going to happen, and I said, no it’ll never happen. And look what happened.

I could have made, in that month, I could have had like a $50,000-60,000, $100,000 month. Literally, just if I would have kept everybody’s names and phone numbers. It would have been crazy.

Jon Dwoskin: Wow, well that’s a great story. A frustrating story, but think about how many hundreds of people are going to hear that story, and hopefully have a light bulb moment go off and do what you should have done, and now do.

Scott Fishman : Yeah.

Jon Dwoskin: So that’s pretty exciting.

Scott Fishman : What else do you have for me?

Jon Dwoskin: I would say that the next item, well, it’s key, I think marketing and branding is so quintessential to growing any business, and a lot of times it’s hard to find the time to market. When you’re busy, it’s hard to find time to figure out what that marketing and editorial calendar should be, and writing original content, or sharing other people’s content. But you know, we market ourselves so we can market our name and bring in leads. I mean, that is the key. So we need to really pay attention to what we’re doing.

I have shared this before, and I’ll share it again. In real estate, for a long, long time, I sent out a very simple weekly article every Tuesday. And it was an amazing branding tool. I’m actually starting it again in my coaching business now, where once a week we’re just sending out articles. Nothing fancy, because I don’t think people like to overly read, it’s just a couple links that go out on a consistent basis. But it was, a week never went by where I wasn’t having people asking me to be on the marketing mailing list for these articles.

People are busy, so anything we can do to keep our name in front of them, and keep us alive, is the key to marketing. So I think it’s pretty quintessential, and I think it’s important to grow your name. And you will accelerate it the more marketing that you do. I also think video is a great thing to do and use. Facebook Live, YouTube, whatever it is. It’s quintessential.

But the key to market, and I don’t mean to be long-winded, is come figure out what you’re going to do, and be consistent in the way you deliver it so people begin to expect it on a consistent basis, and on specific days.

Scott Fishman: Jon, you know what, I’m going to beat this dead horse for you too, because the last thing I was going to touch on was social media. I think it’s huge. I mean, if you think about what we do on a daily basis, how often are you really reaching out and asking for business, or giving advice, or anything on social media? Some people never use it. I see a lot of people, as a company, will have a social media blast and I’ll see 50 posts that are exactly the same, and I’m like, how is that helping? Everyone’s posting the exact same thing. It’s like, yeah it’s great, but we’re all friends with a lot of the same people on Facebook because of business, because we’re in the same industry.

So when you see that same blast go from a thousand people, it loses its power. And one of the things that I do, and you’ve seen it, is when our company does a blast, I’ll do the exact opposite, I’ll make fun of that blast, and I’ll just say hey, I’ve always just shot straight – come to me, I’ll take care of you. I’ve never had a client complain on social media about what I do for that very reason. Because I shoot my clients straight and true, and treat them all like family. I’m not going to give you the same BS that everyone else is giving you, on the same day, at the same time, within an hour of, “Come to me,” or “rates are going crazy” or whatever it is. I actually give you an actionable reason to contact me, and a valid, relevant reason to contact me.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. And you and I have that same philosophy, in using social media in that same light. You and I are very active in social media campaigns, treating clients like family, and just giving the little extra piece. You’ve got to walk the talk that you’re marketing, and that is important. And so you’ve got to put your voice in your own marketing instead of just being an echo of whatever marketing your company’s giving you. You’ve got to put your own flavor in it, and that’s what separates and differentiates you from your competitors.

And sometimes you’re competing with people in your own company, and that’s okay, but go the extra mile. When I worked in real estate, there were hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of brokers. It was a very collaborative company, but everyone, in some way, competed with each other. So I would always encourage people when I managed the office, and when I was a broker I did this, to just kind of do some commentary on what the firm was giving you because the content was so amazing. But if you did your own commentary, it just made it extra special.

Scott Fishman: Yeah, for sure. It’s not just cookie cutter. That’s great advice as well.

So, Jon, I wanted to throw something at you. Here’s a curve ball. We’re doing a horror movie here. There’s got to be a plot twist. So I’ve got this surprise plot twist. Are you ready for this?

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, do it.

Scott Fishman: This is a M. Night Shyamalan plot twist coming at you. And it’s good, because we’re going to turn this into a happy ending. Here’s what’s crazy, folks. If tomorrow you’re going to go to work, the leads are not shut off, you’re still going to be able to get the business from your normal channels. But here’s what’s crazy: Everything Jon and I just taught you has been available to you. What’s available Friday was available Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday. It’s been available for months. You haven’t taken advantage of all of these. Take advantage. The holidays are coming up. It’s time to fill our pipelines, fill that funnel. Everything we just went over, you can do tomorrow. And implement it on top of what you are doing on a daily basis. It’s the gravy.

Jon Dwoskin: It’s the gravy. Well said. And so true.

One of the things that I would encourage is just pick one thing we talked about. You know, you don’t have to do them all, but I would take on everything we talked about if I was listening to this podcast. Prioritize it all, and then pick one and get through it. Whether it’s day by day, or week by week. Put it into my system to grow my business. We’re talking to salespeople, and salespeople want to grow their businesses. And if you want to accelerate your business, then the stuff that Scott and I are talking about today, you will want to infuse into your business, into your skillset, into your mindset, and into your pipeline.

Scott Fishman: Right. These things are the difference between being number ten on the stack rank, and being number one on the stack rank. I promise you.

Jon Dwoskin: What do you think, Scott? What do you think as we close this out. What do you think is the number one characteristic of a salesperson who’s listening to this, and wants to implement it? What do you think the number one characteristic that they have to have a little bit more of tomorrow when they get to work?

Scott Fishman: They have to want it. Plain and simple. If you’re just going to sit back and wait for something to come to you, you’re never going to succeed. You’re just going to be status quo. You want to grow, you want to get bigger.

There’s a great video, and I challenge people to look for it, it’s Bill Romanowski who played for the Denver Broncos. I think he might have played for someone else, I’m not that big of a football guy, but he talks about when we wants bacon, he doesn’t want people on his team who are just going to go to the store and buy a slab of bacon. He wants people that are going to go out and hunt boars to get their bacon. And that’s one of my favorite sales directors I’ve ever had who showed me that video, and I love it. To this day, I will hashtag hunt your bacon type of thing. I’ve been all about that ever since I saw that, and I challenge everybody to go out and find that video, and just enjoy it. Because it’s wacky, to say the least.

Jon Dwoskin: I love it. I would say that the number one thing is, to really piggyback what you were saying, is discipline, and the self-discipline of consistency and really just doing what you say you’re going to do, and committing to something. Because if you want it, you can have it. If you want to grow your pipeline 10%, 20%, you can do it. But you’ve got to prep. You’ve got to plan it out. You’ve got to reverse engineer it, and do the day-to-day stuff that you need to do.

I’m listening to a book right now, Extreme Ownership. It’s written by a guy by the name of Jocko something or other. He actually is interviewed on Tim Ferris’ podcast this week. And he’s a prior Navy Seal. So I’m just slowly into it, but basically a lot of it has to do with just the ultimate tough discipline.

Scott Fishman: I like that.

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman : I have that book on my reading list, by the way folks. Jocko Willink is the guy’s name. I have that next in line to read, after that podcast.

Jon Dwoskin: I finished today.

Scott Fishman: Did you?

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah.

Scott Fishman: Very cool. You’ll have to fill me in.

Jon Dwoskin: I will.

Scott Fishman : So, everybody, thank you for tuning in today. We’re very excited to bring you this next season of the Seven Minute Sales Minute, and we’re excited to see where it takes us all.

Jon Dwoskin: All right, everybody, thanks so much. Have a great day, and an amazing week.

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

Jon Dwoskin: What he said.